Success Story
Sugarhill Brighton is a UK-based, family-owned fashion brand with roots dating back to a pop-up store in Barcelona, Spain, opened in 2002. Based on hand-drawn prints, the feel-good clothing brand evolved from its Spanish debut, and in 2006, Sugarhill Boutique launched with Brighton as its design base.
The company changed its name to Sugarhill Brighton in 2018, in recognition that its head office, warehouse, and studio are based in the city. Sugarhill Brighton is designed to embody the fun, playful spirit of Brighton, but it also has a serious side – 2% of each sale is donated to social and environmental causes.
Today, the prints are still hand-drawn and designed in-house, ensuring they are unique to Sugarhill Brighton. As well as its successful online store, Sugarhill Brighton is also stocked in independent boutiques around the world, including Wolf & Badger.
Key KPIs delivered by Taggstar
Sugarhill Brighton reached out to Taggstar in January 2025. The retailer already generated high-intent organic and social traffic but wanted to maximize its value by giving existing customers and potential new customers greater confidence to buy. It saw the potential of Taggstar’s social proof messaging to aid decision-making.
In addition to converting existing traffic, Sugarhill Brighton also faced other business challenges, for which it felt Taggstar’s social proof messaging would be a good fit. Boosting customer confidence in their online purchase decisions was crucial, reducing the need to see the item in a physical store.
Conversion consistency was also important. Sugarhill Brighton’s unique, limited-run prints are much sought after and can sell out quickly. Reducing cart abandonment by aiding decision-making helps to ensure that customers don’t miss out on these limited-edition ranges.
Crucially, this had to be achieved while maintaining Sugarhill Brighton’s unique voice and personality, and its boutique feel, as an independent, small brand scaling in a world of larger fast-fashion retailers.
Sugarhill Brighton’s customers are both highly social and community-oriented. For them, seeing that a specific item they are considering is being viewed by others isn’t just about creating urgency to buy – although that’s important given the brand’s limited print runs – but also about validating their purchases. This was reflected in the strength of the results.
The retailer opted for a proof-of-concept test of Taggstar’s Social Proof Pro Plan, which has been designed specifically for specialty brands such as Sugarhill Brighton. Powered by the same technology as Taggstar’s full enterprise solution, the Pro Plan also uses real-time data to show on-trend, popular and in-demand products.
“By using social proof, we were able to build community trust and deliver rapid conversion without compromising the boutique aesthetic, which is so important to us as a brand.”
A full funnel proof of concept ran in the UK for 16 days. Messages included ‘In Demand! Sold 15 times in the last 7 days, and ‘Top Pick! 26 others have looked at this in the last 24hrs’.
Social proof messaging proved a natural fit for Sugarhill Brighton, quickly delivering a 4.63% increase in conversion rates. Its fast and impressive results meant it was rolled out to 100% of the company.
Following the significant conversion uplift in the social proof POC, Sugarhill Brighton and the Taggstar team are now focused on driving further optimizations and AB tests to deliver even greater success for the quirky fashion retailer.
Natalie Chimes, eCommerce Manager at Sugarhill Brighton, says: “We have a unique brand voice and a dedicated community of customers. Ensuring we could replicate the voice and talk to our customer community in the way they were used to was vital to the success of social proof messaging at Sugarhill Brighton.”
“The use of the real-time data behind social proof messages also helps to replicate the in-store boutique experience, which our customers love, of seeing others trying and buying the same styles. It meant that by using social proof, we were able to build community trust and deliver rapid conversion without compromising the boutique aesthetic, which is so important to us as a brand.”
“However, what also impressed us was how easy it was to implement social proof messaging, with us able to go from the initial kick-off to live A/B testing in a matter of days.”
Marjorie Leonidas, CEO at Taggstar, says: “Sugarhill Brighton is the perfect example of the type of retailer we designed Taggstar’s Social Pro Plan for. And it did exactly what it was created to do – delivering impressive results fast.”
