Sisyphus Record Works · Independent record store · Addora customer for 4 months

After switching on Addora, Sisyphus Record Works saw customers who chose Buy Now Ship Later spend more, account for a growing slice of sales, and multiply in number:

  • 2.3x higher average spend than other customers
  • More than doubled growth in Addora's share of store revenue in one quarter
  • Customers checking out with Addora tripled over the quarter
  • 1 shipping weekend a month, with pre-orders released by date

In their words

"Addora has allowed me to simplify my pre-orders, streamline my logistics and offer customers a unique value proposition. Now I do most of my shipping one weekend a month, my customers combine their orders to save on shipping and I'm able to save on shipping supplies!"
— Clif, Sisyphus Record Works

The store

Selections at Sisyphus Record Works lean toward soul, funk, jazz and global grooves, from rare African and Latin reissues to soulful, funky new music by today's players. Pick any album, hit play on the in-website player, and you're guaranteed to be nodding your head and grooving along.

Sisyphus Record Works and Vinyl Junkies curate a monthly list of records and highlight it at a listening party called VJ Selects, much like an artist celebrating a new album. The event works like a digital club: everyone is connected from their own place, with the chance to hear from the creators behind the titles and be whisked away by the music. It keeps customers engaged month after month, giving them a shared moment to look forward to and a reason to come back.

The albums roll out throughout the month. Once the month's orders are in, they all ship together over a single weekend, packed with stickers and promo items. Clif credits this monthly rhythm as the biggest driver of the store's results.

Join their next listening party on Twitch: twitch.tv/VinylJunkies

The challenge

Limited pressings and new releases sell out fast. Fans had two choices: check out a single record straight away and pay shipping on it alone, or wait until their basket was big enough and risk the record selling out.

On top of that, with pre-orders landing on different release dates, keeping track of what was due to ship, and when, took constant effort behind the scenes.

The solution

With Addora, Sisyphus customers can grab a record the moment they hear it, secure it, and hold it instead of shipping it straight away. Anything they buy next goes into the same parcel, and the whole lot ships together. A new release no longer has to wait for a bigger order, and a pre-order can travel with whatever else they pick up in the meantime.

Addora also handles pre-orders. Titles on the monthly list can be set up as pre-orders, each with its own release date, so records drop one by one across the month instead of all at once.

Customers can pre-order each title as it goes up, and it joins their held order once stock is released. Everything they've picked up that month then goes out in one consolidated parcel on the shipping weekend.

The way Sisyphus Record Works has set it up means:

  • One shipping weekend a month instead of packing single orders every other day
  • Combined orders for customers, who pay shipping once rather than on every record
  • Less spent on shipping supplies, with fewer boxes and mailers per order

Spend and revenue share show what this does for sales, and the single monthly shipping window shows what it does for the team.

The results

Addora customers spend 2.3x more

Customers who checked out with Addora spent 2.3x more on average than customers who didn't. Once shipping no longer adds a cost to every single order, people are free to buy records as they find them.

Addora's share of revenue more than doubled

Addora checkout started out bringing in 24% of Sisyphus Record Works' revenue. It peaked at 79% and settled at 51%, a clear sign of how customers prefer to shop and ship.

The Addora customer base more than tripled

The number of customers choosing Addora checkout grew more than threefold over the quarter. As more people discovered it, more people adopted it.

Visit Sisyphus Record Works: sisyphusrecordworks.com

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