From tailoring suits to tailoring digital experiences
For many retailers, growth is often pursued through increased marketing spend, new channels or larger product assortments. For Moss Bros, one of the UK's leading menswear retailers, the biggest opportunity lay elsewhere: improving the customer experience already in front of them.
As one of the UK's most established menswear brands, Moss Bros has spent more than 170 years helping customers dress for life's most important moments. Yet in an increasingly competitive digital landscape, the retailer recognised that even small points of friction in the online shopping experience could have a significant impact on customer satisfaction, conversion rates and revenue.
To better understand customer behaviour and uncover opportunities for improvement, Moss Bros partnered with Columbus, to build a continuous optimisation programme centred around experimentation, customer insight and evidence-based decision-making.
Rather than relying on assumptions, every change would be guided by data, customer research and measurable outcomes. 
Understanding where customers struggled
The first step was understanding how customers interacted with the website and where obstacles appeared throughout the buying journey. Through customer research, behavioural analytics and experimentation, Columbus identified several areas where the online experience was creating unnecessary complexity. One of the most significant challenges involved suit purchases.
Customers looking to purchase a complete outfit were required to select multiple sizes across separate product pages and complete several individual "Add to Bag" actions. While this process reflected the complexity of tailoring, it created friction for customers shopping online and increased the likelihood of abandoned purchases.
Multiple pieces of research showed that users struggled with the vast number of choices and inadequate visual representation in the navigation. They could not find the types of clothing they wanted and landed on PLPs they weren’t interested in. By redesigning the journey and simplifying the purchase process, Moss Bros made it easier for customers to build and buy complete outfits with confidence.
We knew our customers expected a premium experience online that reflected the quality and service they receive in-store. By understanding where friction existed, we were able to make meaningful improvements that benefited both customers and the business.
– Matt Henton, Head of E-Commerce, Moss Bros
Simplifying navigation and product discovery
The optimisation programme also revealed opportunities to improve product discovery. Customer research showed that visitors often struggled to find relevant products due to a complex navigation structure that had evolved over time. While the site offered a broad assortment of products and services, finding the right path to purchase was not always straightforward.
Working closely together, Moss Bros and Columbus redesigned the navigation experience to better reflect customer behaviour and shopping intent. The mega navigation menu was radically redesigned with clearer categorisation images and text. Against the control, the variation delivered improvements on four different metrics: conversion rate, bounce rate, time on site, and average order value.
The result is a clearer, more intuitive browsing experience that help customers discover products faster while improving engagement and commercial performance.
Great digital experiences are rarely created through assumptions. The most successful retailers continuously test, learn and optimise based on real customer behaviour. That's exactly the approach we built together with Moss Bros. Every experiment gave us a clearer understanding of what our customers needed and how we could better serve them.
– Garret Cunningham, Vice President Global CX, Columbus
Building a culture of continuous optimisation
What makes the Moss Bros story particularly compelling is that optimisation was never viewed as a one-time project. Instead, the company adopted a culture of continuous improvement where customer behaviour, experimentation and performance data inform ongoing decision-making.
New ideas are regularly tested, measured and refined, enabling the business to respond quickly to changing customer expectations and market conditions. This approach allows Moss Bros to continually improve customer experiences while ensuring investments are focused on initiatives that deliver measurable business value.
Our partnership has allowed us to move faster, make better decisions and focus our efforts on changes that genuinely improve the customer experience. With Columbus’ detailed and methodical approach to user research, we’ve been able to get a deep understanding of how our customers interact with our websites.
– Matt Henton, Head of E-Commerce, Moss Bros
A partnership focused on measurable growth
The collaboration between Moss Bros and Columbus demonstrates how customer experience optimisation can become a powerful growth strategy. By combining customer insight, behavioural analytics, experimentation and digital commerce expertise, the team transformed friction points into opportunities for improvement.
The result is a more intuitive customer journey, stronger commercial performance and a digital experience that better reflects the quality of the Moss Bros brand.
Columbus brought deep expertise, agility and a shared vision. Together, we've built a digital experience that reflects who we are as a brand — tailored, modern and always focused on the customer.
– Matt Henton, Head of E-Commerce, Moss Bros
For Moss Bros, growth was not achieved by adding complexity. It came from removing it.
