Manufacturers these days are thinking about how they can go direct to consumer online while still remaining loyal to their tried-and-true channels. Some are actually selling direct to consumer and fulfilling in different manners (e.g. from a warehouse, dealer/distributor networks, and in-store pick up.)
Since researching and finding product information is the #1 goal of visitors, it’s to your advantage to update your content and functionality available on your ecommerce platform. Manufacturers should have comprehensive and SEO-friendly product descriptions with images, videos, and specification documents to ensure the user experience is not disorganized and busy.
They can also take advantage of social media integration, customer reviews, comparison tools, advance sorting features, custom configurators, and strong site search function — all features available on Magento Enterprise, and all features that are becoming necessary to maintaining conversion rates as other sites get more and more robust.
When the manufacturer does not sell direct to consumer online, a well-designed (and functional) dealer and store locator is essential to driving sales to the channel. We also suggest using peer-to-peer inventory status, so customers know exactly where they can buy the item they are researching (e.g. online partners, in-store, distributors, dealers). Keeping that path to purchase easy and efficient will have an enormous impact on site usability. To see this in action, check out prAna, a site Gorilla recently built, where we implemented P2P inventory look-up to maintain channel harmony.
Link to:
www.prana.com
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There’s an old saying that it’s five times more expensive to acquire new customers vs. keeping your current base. Companies spend a lot of money on acquiring new clients, but often don’t measure the lifetime value of these acquired customers. However, according to Forrester Research, 47% of web retailers showed an increase in repeat customers in 2010, and repeat customers account for 37% of all mid-market retailers’ revenue stream.
So it’s no surprise that many retailers have turned to building sites with better branding and user experience to boost repeat purchases.
Magento is a platform that can help support these retention efforts with its current functionality. The platform has the ability to recognize specific customer groups and automatically provide offers and personalized recommendations to them, increasing conversion and AOV. You can also create customized landing pages that only these specific customer groups would have access to, adding incentive to return. Several clients are also experimenting with private sales and reward points for their regulars to come back and help drive margins. And all these efforts will help you lower marketing costs since they’re baked right into your Magento platform.
As a retailer, sure, you’re going to get caught up in acquiring new customers at the expense of the loyal ones. Just remember Magento offers fully customizable ways for you to hold onto the folks you’ve already got.
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Gorilla will be helping prAna improve their ecommerce channel and community engagement using the Magento Enterprise Platform and Word Press. Stratton, Creative Director, is in Boulder today visiting their very unique and cool retail store. He is not just shopping, but also meeting with some key executives. We have a fair amount of outdoor types who partake in rock climbing and yoga, including the latter for myself.
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We will be helping Medline launch specific business units onto the Magento Enterprise Platform. Medline’s strategy to create niche sites is consistent with other large enterprises looking to take advantage of focused sites with focused integrated marketing campaigns to improve market share.
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