How REI generates boosts conversions through third-party referrals
Recreational Equipment Inc., a retail cooperative selling outdoor gear and clothing, has experienced increased online sales and return on ad spend, while lowering its cost to acquire new online customers, since adopting a new service that feeds its product data to shopping portals, REI says.
REI, which gets referrals from more than 10 shopping portals and 150 consumer-facing vendor web sites, late last year deployed Mercent Retail, an on-demand web-based service, to better manage the way it feeds data to its partner sites. During the first 90 days of using the service, visitor-to-order conversion rates through Mercent Retail increased 30% while revenue through Mercent-supported channels increased 11%, REI says.
In addition, REI this year has experienced a 50% increase in return on ad spend through Mercent-optimized channels and a 38% decrease in the cost to acquire new online transactions and customers, the retailer reports. REI is No. 74 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.
“Mercent has helped REI become more nimble in online marketplaces and comparison shopping portals,” says Tom Vogl, REI’s vice president of marketing. “Reaching new customers through program growth is made much easier with the Mercent Retail management and optimization tools.”
Mercent retail also supports REI’s ability to capitalize on new features released by channel operators such as Google and Shopping.com, he adds.
The service, which is integrated with REI’s back-end retail management software systems, also helps REI maintain brand and merchandising consistency between its web site and third-party online shopping destinations, and it optimizes the product assortments sent to each channel partner, REI says.
Brad Brown, REI’s vice president of e-commerce and web strategies, is speaking at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition, June 4-7 in San Jose, in a session entitled Why Retail Stores Can`t Put Up Web Stores and Forget Them.
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