Concrete Jungle is a brand like no other. Daniel and his fiancé Madlen began experimenting with concrete in their basement some six years ago, creating bespoke countertops and furniture to order.
With Daniel still working, Madlen focused full time on the business, and the pair ventured into product development, trialing their concrete creations at German craft fairs. With proof in hand that there was a market for their sustainable jewellery in particular, Daniel quit his job in 2018, and Concrete Jungle became the unique eCommerce brand it is today.
Having taken a firm decision on the direction of the business, Daniel and Madlen began expanding their successful jewellery range, and developed their own concrete, 15 times stronger than usual concrete.
We scaled up from a regular concrete manufacturing business to an ecommerce business. Our business is all about concrete jewellery, however we have also expanded our ideas as we realised concrete is so strong we could make business cards out of it.
Demand for their jewellery continued to grow, and they now have a team of 18. Of course, like any new business they faced challenges, and since the brand is completely unique, they’re carving their own path, with no example to follow.
One of those challenges was how to promote a product that’s an unknown entity, which is where the right technology became vital.
The brand started out with a WooCommerce Wordpress site, and quickly saw the limitations of what was essentially a portfolio, rather than an ecommerce store. Struggling with WooCommerce plugins, they made the switch to Shopify, creating a better customer experience and benefitting from the ease of integration.
We had a lot of difficulties figuring out how to use and install Wordpress plugins whereas Shopify made it a lot easier for us. Our decision to switch from Wordpress to Shopify was the best decision we made.
Their next challenge was communication and trust. Initially using Trusted Shops to build consumer confidence with reviews, they were unhappy with the service on many levels, including back end functionality and price hikes based on revenue.
Having heard of REVIEWS.io through social media, they decided to move over, but not without serious consideration first.
Their main concern was seeing a negative impact on conversion rates, due to the familiarity German consumers had with Trusted Shops vs. REVIEWS.io. To assess this, they carried out A/B testing during the migration phase and found no negative impact whatsoever.
In fact, the variant with the REVIEWS.io badge displayed showed a slight improvement on performance, suggesting that consumers just want to see verified reviews from other customers, and are less concerned about the source of those reviews.
After doing a lot of research into REVIEWS.io and seeing the impact left on their clients, I thought immediately, this is a game changer. REVIEWS.io have a really amazing product and can be trusted compared to Trusted Shops.
One of the REVIEWS.io features Concrete Jungle make great use of is the Social Proof tool, particularly on Instagram and social proof carousels on their website. For Daniel, it’s the most effective way to share genuine customer reviews whilst keeping content on brand.
I think the solution you’re offering is really amazing, with all the features REVIEWS.io has to offer allows us to gain and build trust with our customers.
Daniel also loves our Influencer tool, seeing it as a cost effective way to identify brand advocates and collect authentic UGC, particularly when compared to other solutions that come at a much higher cost.
Concrete Jungle already runs a powerful tech stack, including the use of Klaviyo, but in the future plans to integrate an innovative CRM and loyalty programme. In the meantime, they continue to grow their reputation through social proof.
On the internet, it’s all about trust, and I think reviews are a big part of that, to gain the trust of customers.
If, like Concrete Jungle, you’ve previously used a review platform and want to do more with your existing customer feedback, you can import reviews through REVIEWS.io and use our range of user friendly features to make social proof work for your brand.
