Learning how shoppers shop, Sharper Image considers site modification
With its new web site analytics application from Coremetrics, Sharper Image Corp. has gained a better understanding of aborted checkout sessions and of customer response to special offers. Now it’s planning to use that information to improve site navigation and merchandising, Susan Fischer, vice president of Internet operations, tells Internet Retailer. "The challenge is how to make the site more fun and easy to use while also increasing sales conversion rates," she says.
In December, Sharper Image replaced an in-house-developed site analytics system with the Coremetrics Online Analytics 2004 system from Burlingame, CA-based Coremetrics.
"We selected Coremetrics to help us find ways to continually improve our online customer`s shopping experience and to simplify the buying process," Fischer says.
Before it implemented the Coremetrics system, Sharper Image had to write special reporting applications to pull the data it needed from its web log files, Fischer says. But it was unable to get all the customer data it needed to analyze the effectiveness of different merchandising and marketing campaigns, or to view how customers navigated and searched its site.
The Coremetrics system comes with a large number of prepared analytic reports, making it easier and faster to view and analyze complicated data; for example: how many shoppers visit product pages and proceed to checkout to complete a sale; how shoppers navigate from the home page, to a category section, then to a product page; or how many shoppers go directly to a product page through either search or navigation. Coremetrics also produces reports on the technical specifications used by shoppers, such as the speed of their Internet connection and the size of their viewing screen.
Sharper Image has learned, for instance, that some shoppers abort their checkout session by clicking on a cross-selling option on the checkout page, never returning to complete the sale. So to increase its conversion rate, it plans to re-design the checkout process and other pages and links to make it more likely that shoppers will return to checkout or never leave in the first place, Fischer says. She adds that she’s learned that placing too many options on a checkout page can be too distracting for shoppers otherwise ready to complete a sale.
In addition, Sharper Image has learned more about the popularity of its "Gifts Under $50" feature and how shoppers are most likely to click to and through it. So it will also look at modifying its site to emphasize navigation and search mechanisms that shoppers prefer for accessing the Gifts Under $50 feature.
Fischer says she expects Sharper Image to realize a significant return on investment from its new site analytics system. "We’ll see a lot of ROI on this, because of increased conversions," she says. "If I look at how people use the site and can increase the conversion rate by 1-2%, we can increase revenue by the millions."
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