Consistent branding and web exclusives are key to growth at Bear Creek

Online sales conversion rates are up at Bear Creek Corp.’s Jackson & Perkins and Harry and David e-commerce sites, thanks to several steps taken in recent months including more consistent brand messages and exclusive online offers, Bear Creek web site manager Keziah Veres tells InternetRetailer.com.

“We work to ensure that our home pages are able to quickly and clearly identify what the brand has to offer,” Veres says. “This is critical for new site visitors and as support to our customer acquisition strategies.”

On gourmet food and gift site HarryandDavid.com, for example, the home page, in addition to several colorful images of featured products, lists in a left navigation bar details on several specialty areas like food baskets, fruits and chocolates. It also provides a new Healthful Gifts link to low-fat and special-diet products, and it lets shoppers browse for all products under the categories of price, holiday and occasion. In the past, HarryandDavid.com provided fewer home page images and a less-detailed navigation bar with links only to general categories.

Offering online exclusives helped not only to drive up web sales, but also to add value for registered customers through special purchase opportunities, Veres says. These offers cover special collections of such products as rose and perennial collections at floral site JacksonandPerkins.com. “This also supports inventory clearance as needed” for Jackson & Perkins’s perishable products, Veres says.

The exclusive offers also have been used to test new products at Harry and David, where successful items are then added to its catalog, Veres says.