Client: Sun & Ski Sports
Vendor: Baynote
Objective: To increase conversions on a two-year-old e-commerce site by providing a more personal shopping experience.
Sun & Ski Sports, a winter sports equipment and ski ?apparel retailer, implemented Baynote’s e-commerce service in 2008 to attract potential customers to its website. The company saw impressive results shortly after the implementation, but it wasn’t until 2010 (particularly the 2010 holiday season) that the service produced the kind of ROI most retailers would execute a 540 tail grab about.?
“In the first two years of its existence, our e-commerce site had low conversion rates,” says Scott Blair, director of e-commerce and interactive marketing for Sun & Ski Sports. “Most people who came to our website didn’t know exactly what they would purchase prior to coming.” ?Sun & Ski Sports is owned by Houston, TX-based Retail Concepts. The brand runs 25 retail stores in the US.
STRATEGY: The new e-commerce site allowed Sun & Ski Sports to deliver a more personal online shopping experience. It anonymously aggregated shopping and browsing behavior to track how potential customers used key search terms and content through Baynote’s site search, product recommendations, adaptive e-mail and landing page services. Once customer intent was determined, product recommendations helped visitors more quickly and accurately find products. ?
Baynote recommendations are currently being rolled into Sun & Ski’s transaction e-mails in order to drive life-cycle ?recommendations, Blair says. Sun & Ski will launch six e-mail campaigns in March to reach already-transacted customers. In addition, on its Facebook fan page, Sun & Ski provides product photos and a “Like” button that integrates back to the homepage. The company also offers quarterly sweepstakes giveaways of $1,000 gift cards to customers who provide ?reviews and opt into the company database.
RESULTS: In the last 12 months, as the economy improved, the implementation provided a 57% increase in conversions compared to shoppers who did not click recommended products. Users have increasingly begun to trust the offers. In the past year, there was a 60% increase in consumers who use the product recommendations feature.?
