Sailvan Times
Omnichannel marketing for DRESSIN.
Founded by Wenping Chen, Sailvan Times grew through Amazon-led cross-border commerce, supported by overseas warehouses and apparel supply-chain infrastructure.
DRESSIN was a CEO-led, app-first venture aimed at competing with SHEIN, drawing on supply-chain capabilities that also served SHEIN. I joined midway as a North America–based Marketing Specialist.
Search & paid media
I shaped SEO and advertising plans with our China-based buyers and reviewed the results.
PR & local campaigns
I coordinated our PR agency, social team and brand partners, and ran local activations.
Marketing in the app
I turned ideas such as daily check-ins and sharing rewards into requirements and acceptance reviews.
The project · An app-first business
An app-first brand.
A local foothold.
DRESSIN’s main business was online: an app for discovering affordable clothing, shopping new collections and accessing promotional offers.
The Fullerton store supported that online ambition. It gave our China-based operations team a North American base for local content, customer feedback and campaigns, while serving shoppers within roughly 20 miles.
I also brought marketing requirements into app development and helped review the finished features, including daily check-ins and sharing incentives that encouraged customers to return and invite others.
A first look at DRESSIN’s home screen, featuring the app’s Grand Opening Sale.
01 / 04Local context · Building the store
The local-market
challenge.
In my view, the assortment’s fit with local tastes was the biggest obstacle. A China-based operations team also made localized content and market adaptation difficult.
The store became a place to learn from customers, create local content and test demand. We prepared the space, designed the fitting rooms and built a photo corner that rewarded social sharing.
DRESSIN storefront · 2450 E Chapman Ave, Fullerton.
01 / 04Offline marketing
Making local connections.
Partnerships, community PR and direct outreach brought DRESSIN into the neighborhood.
Opening-day PR & local chamber
A local launch combining chamber outreach, creators and press coverage.
BearBoba partnership
A reciprocal offer that connected fashion shopping with the neighborhood’s boba stop.
Campus outreach
Regular campus visits built a student audience and a pool of local content creators.
Door-to-door hangers
We tested household distribution, measured the response and stopped the channel.
Online marketing
Turning discovery into visits.
Search visibility and creator-led content connected online discovery with the Fullerton store.
Local search & reviews
Affordable everyday clothing, supported by local listings, relevant pages and customer reviews.
Creator-led store visits
Match local creators with best-selling clothes, then track visits through unique coupon codes.
TikTok search visibility
We also monitored how DRESSIN appeared in TikTok’s own search results.
Paid advertising.
I reviewed results and worked with our China-based media-buying colleagues to adjust the plan. They handled the day-to-day buying; we reviewed promotional videos together, using best-selling products as the starting point.
- Combined monthly ad budget · Meta & Google
- $4,000–$5,000
Meta advertising
- Awareness CPM
- ~$2
- Conversion ROAS
- 1.87×
- CPC
- ~$0.80
- CPA
- ~$27
Most of our Meta placements ran on Instagram, aimed at Los Angeles–area shoppers who matched our customer profile. Videos featuring best-selling products were our main creative format.
Performance Max
- CPC
- ~$0.60
- CPA
- ~$10
Our PMax campaigns mainly appeared in Gmail and Google Maps, with directions to the Fullerton store as the priority. We had not completed the follow-up measurement setup with our China-based team, so we did not have a consolidated ROAS figure.
One brand. Two different jobs.
Opening-day PR & local chamber
I brought the local chamber, creators and media together around the Fullerton opening.
- Decorations & reception
- $1,000
- Local chamber
- $500
- Creators’ travel / fees & media PR fees
- $4,000
- Elected official’s office representative
- $0
The remaining $4,000 covered creator travel and compensation together with paid media PR. The event gave us both local visibility and content to reuse.
Read an example in the OC RegisterBearBoba partnership
Two neighboring businesses, with an incentive to visit both.
BearBoba customers received an uncapped 15% DRESSIN discount. DRESSIN shoppers received a free drink or BearBoba coupon, depending on their spend.
Materials cost approximately $1.67 per DRESSIN coupon redemption.
Campus outreach
From September 2025, we visited different nearby campuses twice a month.
On-site conversations and offers introduced the app to students. We also recruited creators from multiple schools for future online content.
The creator figure is cumulative; follows and downloads are typical per-event results.
Door-to-door hangers
A headquarters-led test reached more than 20,000 townhouses within 3–5 miles of the store.
- Distribution
- $2,000
- Production & shipping
- $800
Cost reached $35 per coupon redemption. The response did not justify continuing this form of distribution, so we paused it.
Local search & reviews
Our SEO work focused on affordable everyday clothing and local purchase intent.
I worked on PR backlinks, local structured data, Google Business Profile, Yelp and in-store review collection. Specific searches, such as floral dresses nearby, gave us more focused opportunities.
The broad “clothing store near me” query remained harder to win against Ross and Burlington. We used those competitors as positioning context in our content.
PMax supported paid visibility alongside this work. The organic rankings above describe our SEO results.
Creator-led store visits
I matched store best sellers with local creators whose style and audience fit the products.
Compensation ranged from a $60 store coupon to $500 in cash, depending on the creator’s size. Creators visited the store and produced social content.
Individual coupon codes connected each collaboration with in-store purchases, so we could review more than views alone.