Mavi

Overview

Overview

Mavi has a rare problem: everyone knows the brand, and the next generation still buys elsewhere first. Younger Turkish consumers rank Mavi among their most trusted names in denim — yet Trendyol wins the first click, global players win the fitting-room experience, and loyalty programs everywhere else win the repeat visit.

As the UX researcher and strategist on this engagement, I designed and analyzed a 200-person consumer survey, audited Mavi's Turkish digital experience heuristically, benchmarked nine competitors across global and local markets, and synthesized it all into three focus areas for the brand's digital roadmap.

The question underneath all of it: what does it take for a heritage brand to feel native to a generation that discovers fashion on TikTok, validates it through peers, and expects the digital experience to know them?

The Research

The Research

We fielded a 200-person survey across Turkey targeting ages 18–40 — Gen Z and Millennial consumers in Mavi's core urban markets. The instrument covered brand perception, shopping destinations, discovery channels, loyalty membership, and purchase drivers. I designed the questionnaire to separate what people say about brands from where their money and attention actually go.

The perception data was genuinely good news: consumers described Mavi as trendy, stylish, and high-quality — strong equity for a 30-year-old brand. And identity matters here:

But the destination data told a harder story. When we asked where people actually shop for jeans, Mavi ranked second — behind Trendyol, the marketplace that sells Mavi alongside everyone else:

The loyalty gap was the single sharpest finding in the study. Mavi runs a rewards program; enrollment shows how little it currently pulls:

Discovery, meanwhile, has fully moved to social. Instagram (72%) and TikTok (68%) are where Turkish Gen Z finds fashion — and in a pattern that shaped our later recommendations, peer validation consistently outperformed celebrity endorsement as a purchase driver. Respondents were price-conscious, but willing to pay for quality and for brands that reflect their cultural identity.

Key Insights

Key Insights

Synthesizing the survey with desk research on Turkish Gen Z consumer behavior, five insights carried the strategy:

Competitive Landscape

Competitive Landscape

I audited nine brands across two lenses — the global names that set consumer expectations, and the local players competing for the same wallet. For each, the question wasn't “what are they doing?” but “what should Mavi take from them?”

Global benchmarks

Local & category competitors

“Across nine brands, the biggest open gap was fit and sizing. For a denim brand where fit is the deciding factor, the size guidance experience is the product.”

Website Audit

Website Audit

With the market mapped, I ran a heuristic audit of Mavi's Turkish e-commerce experience through the eyes of a Gen Z shopper. The foundation is strong: a clean, mobile-friendly layout, imagery that lets denim tones breathe, comprehensive fit filtering, and personalization-forward messaging — “Senin fit'in hangisi?” (Which fit is yours?) is exactly the right instinct.

But the audit surfaced five recurring friction points, all variations on one theme: the experience serves shoppers who already know what they want, and underserves the browsing majority.

The US site's Blue Rewards program shows the foundation is already built — points per dollar, a join flow, member messaging. What it lacks is presence in the shopping journey and reasons to belong beyond the discount.

Benchmarks

Benchmarks

Two deep-dive benchmarks anchored the recommendations — one for loyalty, one for fit.

Loyalty · Levi's RedTab

RedTab is what a denim loyalty program looks like when it sells belonging instead of discounts: points and free shipping as table stakes, then early access to collabs, VIP member events, birthday rewards, and — most tellingly — Tailor Shop perks that turn a purchase into a relationship with the garment. The app onboarding asks preferences up front and personalizes from the first session.

Fit · Uniqlo's size guidance system

Uniqlo treats size guidance as a product, not a chart. Per-product measurements in a scannable table. A Compare Sizes tool that checks new items against what you already own. An on-model length guide filterable by the shopper's own height bracket. Real user fit reviews with height and size worn. And MySize ASSIST — an AI recommender that turns gender, age, height, weight, and fit preference into a confident size suggestion with a visual fit map.

Against this benchmark, Mavi's basic size chart isn't just behind — it's conceding the single most decision-critical moment in denim e-commerce.

Recommendations

Recommendations

The final deliverable framed three focus areas, each tied directly to evidence from the research:

Reflection

Reflection

This project taught me that research earns its keep in the synthesis, not the data. Two hundred survey responses and nine brand audits produced hundreds of individual findings; the real work was compressing them into three arguments a client could act on. The loyalty gap — 22% vs. 42% — did more persuasive work than any chart deck section, because it converted a vague worry into a number with a competitor's name on it.

It also demanded cultural humility. I was researching a market I don't live in, for consumers whose hybrid local-global identity is easy to flatten from the outside. Grounding every recommendation in what Turkish respondents actually said — rather than what global UX patterns assume — is what kept the strategy honest.

If I ran it again, I'd pair the survey with moderated usability sessions on Mavi's own site — watching five shoppers hesitate at the size chart would have made the fit argument land even faster than the Uniqlo benchmark did. Quantitative data won the room; qualitative evidence would have won it sooner.