The Challenge

Outdated, manual feature rollouts

thredUP initially relied on an in-house feature targeting system to roll out new features gradually. However, the system presented challenges:

• Manual Processes: Rollouts required engineers to whitelist accounts or use user ID-based methods.
• Slow Propagation: Updates took minutes to propagate across their distributed systems, disrupting the user experience.
• Limited Flexibility: Scaling personalization or A/B tests in real-time was nearly impossible.

With hundreds of thousands of daily visitors, thredUP needed a robust, scalable solution to improve rollout speed, enable real-time personalization, and streamline A/B testing.

The Solution

Adopting a unified platform for rollouts and experimentation

By adopting Split, thredUP gained the ability to:

• Execute Phased Rollouts: Engineers could roll out features incrementally with instant changes, reducing risk and improving customer experience.
• Personalize Offers in Real Time: During Black Friday, Split enabled thredUP to dynamically serve unique promotions and experiences based on customer attributes and machine-learning scores.
• Streamline A/B Testing: Split’s backend SDKs (including Ruby) integrated seamlessly with thredUP’s systems, enabling robust tests without manual data tracking.
• Facilitate Collaborative QA: Features could be deployed to production but remain hidden, allowing team-wide QA before customer release.

Results

Real-time promotions on Black Friday

thredUP used Split in innovative ways during Black Friday, dynamically targeting promotions for customers based on attributes like machine-learning scores and date. Promotions and content were updated automatically through Split’s logic, ensuring seamless and personalized experiences for all customers.

“You can pass attributes into Split for targeting... We returned not ‘on’ or ‘off,’ but a promotion code. This allowed dynamic handling of customer-facing content based on real-time conditions.” – Dan DeMeyere, VP Engineering, thredUP

Backend A/B testing at scale

thredUP replaced their existing A/B testing tools with Split for its backend testing capabilities. Split’s decoupling of data gathering and feature serving simplified the process, allowing the app to:

• Focus on customer treatment assignments
• Seamlessly integrate analytics with tools like Redshift and Looker

“Our web apps just care about what customer is in what treatment for what feature. With Split, data integration just happens for free.” – Dan DeMeyere, VP Engineering, thredUP

Collaborative QA and faster deployments

Split enabled thredUP to test features in production environments without exposing them to customers. This allowed team-wide QA collaboration, involving not only engineers but also customer service, product teams, and more.

“Split gives us confidence to ship features to production and make them accessible only to internal employees for testing.” – Dan DeMeyere, VP Engineering, thredUP

‍The FutureFocus on core competencies with Split‍

By choosing Split over building an in-house solution, thredUP avoided diverting engineering resources from their core mission.

“If we built this in-house, it would have required a whole team. Split had everything we needed out of the box—developer-friendly, intuitive UI, and robust data capabilities.” – Dan DeMeyere, VP Engineering, thredUP

With Split, thredUP continues to innovate, scale its web app, and enhance the shopping experience for its customers.