A love almost lost: GroopDealz learned to bring its customers back--and keep them.

• Author: Beers, Heather
• Position: Lessons Learned

Customers were definitely not happy. In fact, they were so unhappy that they started turning away. The loyal national following South Jordan, Utah-based GroopDealz had built over the past five years felt betrayed, and they were ready to find someone new.

But the angering gesture had been meant as a good thing, a strategic rebrand from GroopDealz.com to EleventhAvenue. com. It had been carefully crafted to delight customers--to provide a more upscale online boutique feel--while featuring the same great products, sellers and deals they had come to love.

However, what was implemented to bring in even more business did the exact opposite. Customers were leaving, sales were dropping--this was rapidly becoming an all-out corporate branding and marketing debacle. Just before its customers signed the divorce papers, the company's leadership scrambled to woo them back. Six weeks after the launch of its new brand, GroopDealz reversed course and brought back the site everyone had first fallen for.

Best-laid plans

Harrison Mitchell, GroopDealz president, explains the original reason for the rebrand by starting with the company's history. It was founded in 2010 as a local competitor to Groupon, focused primarily on Utah restaurants--thus the name, GroopDealz.

When an artisan asked to sell a handmade headband on the site, they thought they'd give it a try. "It went crazy," says Mitchell. "We had customers from all over the nation purchase this headband, so it gave us the idea to switch gears and move away from the restaurant model and focus on a deals model for boutiques and handmade sellers."

By 2015, the company had over one million customers who returned time and again for unique clothing, jewelry, decor and more at a great price. To better reflect its boutique offerings, Mitchell says the executive team thought customers would welcome the transition to a more boutique-like brand.

"We had experienced crazy growth, and now we wanted to create kind of a social e-commerce experience, to build a transparent platform that would engage the boutiques with the customers, create this immersive community," explains Mitchell.

He says the company launched its hard re-direct in March 2015. "When customers went to type in GroopDealz, they went to Eleventh Avenue," says Mitchell. "We didn't lead into it; we went all in."

But customers hated the move--business was hemorrhaging, and the company was forced to take a hard look at where it went wrong. It reached out on...