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Good morning,
For today’s brand breakdown, we’re spotlighting Kith.
Kith is a premium streetwear brand offering quality apparel and exclusive footwear with a strong emphasis on detail and fabrication.
By pairing quality products with strong storytelling and timely partnerships, they’re able to stay culturally relevant.
However, there are still plenty of opportunities to optimize the online shopping experience further.
Below are Pilothouse’s CRO team’s recommendations to help Kith capture more conversions, strengthen retention, and maximize growth.
Here’s what you’ll find in today’s DTC:
👕 KITH’s Website Breakdown
How the brand uses cultural relevance to spark excitement.
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✨ How Kith Elevates The Ecommerce Experience
1️⃣ Homepage
Kith’s website does an excellent job of presenting its designs with sleek visuals, high-res images, and video content that keeps visitors engaged.
Known for its high-end streetwear image, Kith commands premium pricing that reflects its luxury positioning.
These high prices are justified through thoughtful storytelling and powerful collaborations with big-name brands like ASICS and the New York Yankees.
On their site, the brand also invites shoppers to explore each exclusive collection further with a CTA button that directs them to the blog for long-form content.
💡 Pilothouse Tips:
✅ Lean into the power of newness: Frequent product drops keep fans excited, returning, and sharing. High-profile partnerships build credibility and trust while enhancing the perception of exclusivity.
✅ Improve product education readability: While Kith features a ton of storytelling on its blog, the design can be improved.
The brand’s use of small light-grey text on a white background makes details difficult to digest. Clearer typography would enhance the experience.
2️⃣ Site Speed
The site's mobile performance score is 31 out of 100, and its Core Web Vitals assessment has failed.
The most significant issues are a very slow Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which measures how long it takes for the main content to load, and excessive JavaScript blocking the page from becoming interactive.
💡 Pilothouse Tips:
✅ Reduce Page Size & JavaScript: Use code-splitting to only load the scripts necessary for the current page and remove unused scripts.
✅ Optimize Images: Serve images in formats like WebP or AVIF instead of JPEG or PNG.
Use responsive images to serve appropriately sized images for different screen sizes.
Keep scrolling for more on Kith’s site experience! 👇
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3️⃣ Mobile
On mobile, Kith displays full-screen images and videos that grab attention, but the low-contrast buttons (white text with borders) risk blending into the background.
💡 Pilothouse Tips:
Run these 3 A/B Tests:
✅ Test different versions of the main banner (e.g. static image v.s. carousel) and see which one encourages users to explore further.
✅ Test short vs. long product descriptions. Some customers may prefer a quick overview, while others may want more in-depth information before making a purchase.
✅ Test CTA button styles. The color, size, and placement of buttons can have a significant impact on conversion rates.
Test different variations to see which one stands out the most and is easiest for users to find.
4️⃣ Social Proof
Kith’s detailed product descriptions on their PDPs give customers the sense that each piece is thoughtfully crafted with high-quality materials, but there are no reviews to back it up.
This seems like a puzzling decision.
Most items range from hundreds to thousands of dollars. They are investment pieces, but there’s no way to read customer testimonials unless a user leaves and visits an external site.
The lack of on-site social proof creates a high-risk purchase decision.
Users are likely to hesitate and abandon their journey at this point to seek external validation, where they might encounter negative feedback.
💡 Pilothouse Tip:
✅ Add reviews as social proof: The total number of reviews and the average star rating should be featured prominently on the top section of the homepage and on all product pages and collection pages.
5️⃣ AOV
Implementing a free shipping threshold is one of the most direct and effective methods for increasing AOV.
For Kith.com, there is no 'Free Shipping' call-out visible at any point in the customer journey, meaning that free shipping is not available, regardless of the order amount.
💡 Pilothouse Tips:
✅ Offer free shipping: This tactic can help increase conversions, especially during the peak Q4 season.
The threshold should be set slightly above the current brand’s AOV to encourage customers to add one more item to their cart to qualify.
6️⃣ Retention Strategies
The Kith Loyalty Program (KLP) is a highly effective retention strategy tailored specifically to the "hype" and exclusivity model of streetwear, but it can go further to maximize customer lifetime value.
Strengthen the program by enhancing the rewards structure for its highest-value customers and diversifying point redemption with new services.
💡 Pilothouse Tips:
✅ Personal Shopper: Assign top-tier Vitality members a dedicated online/in-app Kith Concierge for priority support, sourcing help, and early notification of drops.
✅ Tailoring Services: Offer free or heavily discounted tailoring/alterations on all Kith apparel purchases for Vitality members at physical retail locations.
✅ Special Shopping Window: Introduce a special 15-minute shopping window before the general "Early Access" window for all other tiers.
✨ Final Take
Kith has built an iconic brand rooted in exclusivity and cultural relevance.
By pairing its strong storytelling and design with tactical CRO improvements, particularly in site speed, social proof, and mobile usability, Kith can further elevate its ecommerce experience and solidify its position as a leader in luxury streetwear.
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DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight and Frances Du. Edited by Eric Dyck.
Please note that items in this newsletter marked with * contain sponsored content.
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