Moving beyond selling only high-tech gadgets to include products for everyday use, TechnoScout.com relaunched as FirstStreetOnline.com in early July. The new site, which was redesigned with new navigation features, has already produced higher conversion rates, Anne Richardson, director of Internet operations, tells InternetRetailer.com.
“We’re merchandising more innovative products that aren’t necessarily high tech,” Richardson says. FirstStreet, which also publishes catalogs and is a unit of TechnoBrands Inc., No. 205 in the Internet Retailer Top 300 Guide to online retailers, is catering to an increase of female shoppers and a demand for more home and garden furnishings and consumer electronics, she adds.
In addition to offering a new name and an expanded product line, the FirstStreet project has improved site navigation to reduce the number of clicks required to drill down to product pages. That has resulted in fewer page downloads even with an increase in visitation and conversion rates, Richardson says.
After working with employee focus groups to identify site weaknesses, FirstStreet also reconfigured its checkout process. The old system had required registered customers to log on with their password before checking out, but the focus groups noted that if customers misplace their passwords, they often don’t want to be bothered looking for it or waiting for FirstStreet to e-mail it to them. The new checkout system gives registered customers the option to check out as a guest without logging on with a password.
TechnoBrands completed the site redesign work for FirstStreet in-house on a Synaro e-commerce platform from PageDigital Inc., Richardson says.
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