Faster than catalogs: Web analytics helps Hammacher Schlemmer spot trends

Web analytics are helping to add something new at a very old catalog brand: the ability to merchandise and even stock reactively based on emerging trends not necessarily visible through the catalog channel, Dayna Bateman, director of Internet marketing at Hammacher Schlemmer, tells Internet Retailer.

One of the country’s longest-established catalog brands, Hammacher Schlemmer has been using web analytics from Coremetrics since 2002. “We do a lot of merchandising on the site proactively to synch with our catalog drops,” says Bateman. “But I want to know everything people on the site are interested in. Many times they’re interested in what is in the book, because they are driven to the site by the book. But at other times, interesting trends present themselves, and people are very interested in merchandise we didn’t anticipate.”

For example, analytics showed Bateman last year the depth of visitors’ interest in a product category that had been considered a sleeper by marketers. Bringing that category forward in the site and featuring it more prominently lifted demand by a figure in excess of several hundred percent. In another recent example, analytic data on customers` behavior on the site flagged Bateman to the fact that customers remained very interested in an item featured for the holidays but then dropped in the belief that interest would wane when the holidays passed.

“We bought the item for the holidays but then stopped buying it, because we considered it a gift purchase that wasn’t as suitable for the rest of the year. So when we saw people were still very interested in the item after the holidays and looking for it online, we weren’t able to fulfill it. But when we presented the data to our inventory department, they were convinced and they re-supplied it,” says Bateman. Subsequent sales of the item justified that decision, Bateman says. “One of the great things about having analytics is that it’s a wonderful storyteller. It helps us communicate internally some of the trends we see online to people who need to see the numbers.”