Orvis sticks to basic blocking and tackling for web functions
The Orvis Co. Inc. upgraded functionality on Orvis.com last year, helping the multi-channel outdoor sports gear and apparel retailer’s web sales reach $100 million, a 25% increase compared with 2006 online sales. New functions included expanded site search and product display.
The upgrades reflect Orvis’ measured approach to web improvements, e-commerce vice president Brad Wolansky, tells Internet Retailer. “For the last 10 years since we started online we have made web upgrades on an incremental rather than revolutionary basis,” he says. "Some retailers our size redo their web site and relaunch completely, but we don’t. We choose to add in increments and build on our successes as we grow, based on what the customer tells us.”
Rarely does Orvis toss something new onto its U.S. or U.K. web sites, Wolansky says. Instead, all e-commerce or technological projects undergo extensive testing to ensure the results will increase sales and improve the customer’s experience.
In 2007, for example, Orvis worked with site search provider Endeca Technologies Inc. to put a new face on the way results are returned, along with expanded search capabilities. Wolansky viewed the project as basic, although not necessarily obvious. “We allowed the search engine to accept nonproduct search queries. Normally if you type in ‘blue sweater’ you get sweaters. So when shoppers type in ‘Manchester store hours’ they get the hours.”
The new functions were expected to have dual results. “We believe if the search results return what shoppers want, even if it’s not directly related to e-commerce, it still might result in a sale at a store,” Wolansky says. “And if the apparatus works, they are going to use it again.”
Orvis, No. 143 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, also looked for ways to plumb the depths of the search engine software and take advantage of untapped features. Wolansky estimates most retailers don’t use most of the capabilities residing in software packages. In Orvis’ case, the search technology was able to display product graphics in different ways to make them easier for shoppers to sort.
A banding feature enables shoppers who type in basic terms like “sweater” to view results in a more organized way before narrowing the search. Orvis.com can display bands, or rows, of men’s sweaters and women’s sweaters, rather than a jumble of all sweaters, Wolansky says. “This guided navigation helps parse results a little more for the user. Then we added hyperlinks to get shoppers into categories for men or women to find what they wanted easier.”
To Orvis, web functionality is not about flashy gimmicks, Wolansky says. “It’s really doing our job on fundamentals.” The new features helped Orvis see web sales increase “not in thousands or hundreds of thousands but in millions,” he says.
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