3 techniques to achieve a high conversion rate
With over 34,000 visitors per month, SportsOutdoorShop.com, specialises in outdoor sports (trail running and ski racing) goods reached an exceptional conversion rate of 6.7%, more than 3 times higher than the average e-commerce sites. It is now a key player for professional mountain equipment. With their high street store based in Nice, SportsOutdoorShop.com have managed to create a true online, central purchasing, hub that generates over 230,000€ a month.
The site grew by providing sports equipment to two different markets: individuals and professionals (guides, instructors, ski patrollers and mountain guides). SportOutdoorShop.com reached an exceptional conversion rate of 6.7%, more than 3 times higher than the average e-commerce sites.
The key points for success
Mr. Éric Silici, manager of SportsOutdoorShop.com, reveals the secrets of his success:
SportOudoorShop has 3 main performance levers and two different, but complementary, marketing and pricing policies giving them a market share in both B2B and B2C:
> A multichannel visibility strategy that increases sales opportunities
> A website that uses best practices to convert visitors into buyers and retain them
> Targeted sales policy that makes loyal customers of professionals and athletes
It’s vital to underline that our success is fundamentally based on the effective implementation of our multi-channel strategy,which gives us great visibility and increases sales opportunities (SEO, Google AdWords, marketplaces, price comparison sites, social networks, mobile), says Mr. E. Silici, who gives us more detail:
6 channels bring over 34,000 visitors to our site each month and we achieve these figures by optimising the following:
- SEO: SEO is made easier by the Actinic solution, which highlights SEO fields (title, tags and description) as well as detailed product descriptions where we can insert our keywords.
- Google AdWords: we regularly create Google AdWords campaigns during strategic periods such as Christmas or Sales to attract buyers who are searching specific products.
- Marketplaces Marketplaces (Amazon, Cdiscount, Price Minister or eBay) and price comparison sites (GoogleShopping and LeGuide) significantly increase our monthly sales. Being able to rapidly export our catalogue by selecting specific categories or types of articles is a valuable asset, when developing our sales through these channels. Segmenting our catalogue makes it easier to highlight the products that are better priced than those of our competitors. The tracking tool that gives us statistics on our visits and orders, means we can see, at a glance, the items that perform and those that don’t so we can adjust our offers to increase profits.
- The mobile version of our estore has increased sales and represents about 2.5% of our revenue. We use social networks to increase our brand visibility. Thanks to the My Social Store application we published our catalogue and opened our Facebook shop in a couple of minutes.
When we acquire traffic through these 6 sources, we strive to retain and convert them. 5 tactics help make our website powerful:
- Announcing good news: As soon as you land on our site there’s a slideshow of our prices and the special offers we run throughout the year on high-end products. Site visitors can immediately see the benefits of visiting and buying from our shop.
- An organised catalogue: Our catalogue contains over 3,250 references classified in a large menu that fills our site, detailing our different categories and subcategories to make searching for products fast and easy. We devote an entire section to a brand search, with clear logos in the menu so visitors can quickly identify the brands they want.
These different access routes encourage users to go through our products and a predictive search tool helps them quickly find the ones they want.
- Highlighting Customer reviews: A wide choice of quality products at unbeatable prices attracts visitors and our authentic and verified customer reviews reassure them: we’ve recorded over a 1000 positive reviews and an average score of 4.7 / 5 from our customers.
- Customer service: We take pride in assisting our clients. Our phone number is clearly visible on the site and visitors can also contact us by chat and email. Activating MOTO so clients can order by phone or email brings dozens of additional monthly orders.
- Delivery and payment options for all: To remove any remaining obstacles in the buying process, we offer free shipping throughout France with SoColissimo, whatever the order amount. We also offer 3 payment methods (credit card, PayPal and 3 monthly instalments).
We have two target audiences and adopt a specific marketing strategy for each of them, B2B and B2C.
The multi-price feature allows us to create several categories of users based on their profiles. In addition to our public, standard fee structure, we offer special rates for guides and professionals, which they can access from their confirmed accounts. We’re positioned as a real purchasing hub for professionals in the B2B market now, which brings in 60% of our turnover
We send out two, bi-monthly, newsletters to maintain customer engagement: one focuses on B2B, the other B2C. Whichever the target, almost half of our recipients read our messages and click through to our site. This helps us to identify their interests and then send them reminders with suggestions and relevant promotions to trigger sales. Using the RFM tool makes us even more specific in targeting our loyal customers, which has increased our campaign open rate by 20%!
In launching our SportOutdoorShop estore 7 years ago, we modestly hoped to generate some extra income for our shop. Today, most of our revenue comes from the online store, which has also impacted our store sales as many of our customers are familiar with the website. Now there’s 4 of us working on this beautiful project that just keeps on growing!
This success is largely based on the Actinic solution, it’s so easy to use I was able to create an ecommerce site without any previous computer skills. The expert’s support is also a valuable aid in really making the most of the solution’s enormous potential to develop the Website in both B2C and B2B, and win new markets.
Actinic Advantages
- Perfectly adapted to create sales for both B2C and B2B, the Actinic solution makes it easier to segment your customer base and use different tactics for each target group (create different user profiles, quickly set multi-tariffs, separate marketing campaigns for each segment, etc.).
- Effective management of your catalogue maximises sales opportunities and again this is made easier by Actinic’s streamlined system; quick and easy access to products, reach wider audiences by marketing your products across multiple channels (SEO for Google rankings, price comparison sites, marketplaces, social media, mobile), automated order and inventory management, analytics to improve performance, etc.
- Online help and information is easy to access at any time and full of useful information to make the most of the solution. Technical support and the Actinic experts have also given us invaluable advice and personalised support that’s enabled us to keep growing our turnover (SEO and Google AdWords campaign, professional graphic personalisation, etc.).
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