Jewelry Television takes a shine to enhanced site performance

JewelryTelevision.com continues to make enhancements to a major site redesign it launched almost a year ago.

In September 2004, JewelryTelevision.com, the e-commerce arm of Jewelry Television, a shop at home TV network and No. 165 in the Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide to Retail Web Sites, was re-launched with an expanded selection of jewelry, loose gemstones, related books and tools and a more robust search engine.

The redesign also features better live auction technology and expanded jewelry and gemstone learning libraries. But to create even more synergy between the web store and the TV shopping channel, JewelryTelevision.com is making more adjustments to site search and streamlining its shopping cart. The web retailer has expanded its site search engine, which runs on applications from Endeca Technologies Inc., to include new categories such as shopping by style and trend. “We revisited the taxonomy and added new ways to drill down,” says Craig Shields, director of e-commerce. “We’re providing more information and making it easier to find merchandise.”

Jewelry TV is also updating the shopping cart to feature more personalization tools that expedite faster check out. For instance, the company has added more “my account” features that give shoppers quicker access to their past purchase histories and shipping information.

Jewelry TV is spending considerable time and effort redesigning its e-commerce site to build a better synergy with its TV audience. The new site features more “live viewer” and “airing now” capabilities so that shoppers have real-time access to products being shown on television, Shields says.

Tighter integration with the web store will, in turn, help Jewelry TV generate more cross selling opportunities with its cable audience, which reaches more than 50 million homes with access to cable television. ”We’ve re-engineered the site with a focus on becoming a leading multi-channel distributor of jewelry and gemstones,” says Shields.

The redesign is helping to build sales. In 2005, Jewelry TV expects e-commerce to account for about 12% of total sales, compared to about 9% in 2004, the company says.