Sailing Chandlery Case Study

Sailing Chandlery: Getting Ship-Shape with a High-Performance CRM Strategy

The Client

Sailing Chandlery is a brand built by sailors, for sailors. Founded by Andrew back in 2012, the company was born out of a frustration with slow delivery and a lack of quality in the sailing gear space. Since then, the business has grown steadily, combining a strong online presence with a physical showroom to support a loyal, experience-driven customer base.

After managing their Klaviyo account in-house for some time, the Sailing Chandlery team knew there was more potential to unlock. So Andrew reached out to Get Better for some strategic, technical and creative support to take things to the next level.

The Challenge

With a decade of trading behind them, Sailing Chandlery had built a trusted reputation; however, their CRM setup wasn’t reflecting the same level of proficiency. While the Klaviyo account was operational, key areas like flows, segmentation, campaign consistency, and account data hygiene needed optimisation.

Our audit revealed opportunities to clean up outdated automations, restructure flow logic, and improve segmentation for stronger campaign performance. The internal team had solid brand knowledge, but needed a partner to guide best practices and support implementation, especially when it came to A/B testing, data strategy, and advanced flow builds.

Sailing Chandlery didn’t need a replacement for their internal team, but someone to be an extension of it. Someone to step in, upskill Andrew on the platform, and bring strategic rigour to how email marketing could support long-term growth.

The Solution

We helped the Sailing Chandlery bring direction and momentum to their Klaviyo strategy, aligning across all touchpoints to their brand, audience and business goals. Here’s how we did it:

1. Optimising and Rebuilding Automations

We started by prioritising flow fixes based on performance impact. That meant addressing the existing flows like the Welcome Series, Abandoned Cart (Checkout), Thank You emails, and the Browse Abandonment journey, and then building new flows that were missing from the setup entirely.

This included:

A reimagined Post-Purchase Flow to drive repeat purchase rates and add lifetime value to the customer.
A separate Abandoned Cart (Add to Cart trigger) to capture more intent-driven behaviour.
A restructured Sunset Flow to manage list sizes, deliverability and account health.
Rethinking the Birthday Email with a more engaging and timely approach.
Implementing Trustpilot review flows to collect and showcase customer feedback.

All flows were mapped, built, and tested in line with Sailing Chandlery’s tone of voice and seasonal customer behaviour.

2. Campaign Strategy & Execution

We then turned our focus to campaigns. This included:

Building dark-mode compatible and device-optimised email templates to reflect their brand.
Creating segmented campaign sends, targeting users based on engagement, purchase behaviour, and lifecycle stage.
Advising on a regular rhythm of weekly sends to create consistency and build audience trust.
Launching a full A/B testing roadmap, looking at everything from send times and subject lines to layout and offers.

Our focus was not only to improve performance, but also to coach Andrew on how to manage campaign planning and execution, independently, over time.

3. Reporting, SMS & Strategic Support

We layered on weekly reporting to monitor trends across open rates, click-throughs, order rate, and revenue attribution. This gave Sailing Chandlery a clearer picture of how changes were impacting results whilst allowing us to continue fine-tuning our strategy.

In parallel, we began implementing an SMS strategy, helping the brand introduce another touchpoint in the customer journey. Our support included guidance on copywriting, timing, and compliance to make sure SMS could perform without interrupting the brand experience.

The Results

We’ve provided the Sailing Chandlery team with a fully functioning CRM setup that’s tailored to their business, built with long-term performance in mind.

We’ve replaced friction with structure, and complexity with clarity. And crucially, we’ve helped empower the internal team to understand, manage, and grow their Klaviyo activity with confidence. Here are some of the great results seen from our time working together so far:

FLOWS:

Achieved an impressive 50.54% audience growth, expanding reach and driving a higher absolute volume of clicks.
Year-on-year, total revenue grew by 20.45%, with standout months delivering uplifts of up to 97% compared with the previous year.
By leveraging optimised flows and intelligent targeting, the brand has successfully unlocked greater reach, stronger revenue performance, and sustainable long-term growth.

CAMPAIGNS:

Achieved a 41.73% increase in audience reach, with the expanded base driving stronger visibility and broader brand impact.
Engagement improved significantly, with the average open rate rising by 42.15% year-on-year.
Campaign performance of Total Placed Order Value was further strengthened by standout months, including uplifts of up to 72.20%, highlighting the effectiveness of optimised campaign strategies.

Our Take

This project is a great example of how long-standing e-commerce businesses can level up their CRM with the right mix of expertise, structure, and partnership.

Rather than starting from scratch, we helped Sailing Chandlery make the most of what was already there by repairing, refining, and rebuilding key flows and campaign processes to ensure their marketing setup was pulling in the same direction as their business goals.

What Sailing Chandlery said

“We knew we had the basics in place but they needed refinement – everywhere I
looked other agencies wanted to come in and perform a full on project with our
Klaviyo account and that’s not what we needed. Get Better were excellent at
working in collaboration with us and adjusting to a scope of work that worked for
us. Ella and the team were excellent to work with and we now have the confidence
to go forward and push harder with our Klaviyo account. We are already seeing
greatly improved results. Thank you.” Andrew Dowley, Founder of Sailing
Chandlery.

What's next?

We’ve worked closely with the Sailing Chandlery team, supporting their strategic campaign roadmap, exploring new integrations, and guiding ongoing optimisation, ready for them to take on management themselves. With a clean, functional Klaviyo setup now in place, they’re in a strong position to scale retention and unlock even greater value from their customer base.