pcRush gets more sophisticated—and more sales—with new analytics program
Having gone from an internal and basic analytics program that consisted primarily of using web logs to study site traffic 18 months ago, pcRush.com is now introducing a more sophisticated and broader analytics strategy.
In the last year web sales at pcRush.com, an online electronics and computer products retailer, have increased about 10% to $22 million. As pcRush.com grows, so is its use of analytics. PcRush.com now uses an analytics program from WebSideStory to analyze web site statistics, optimize visitor conversions, improve product placement and study customer segmentation, says marketing manager Arezu Lilie Rahimzadeh.
But the next phase of the company’s analytics program is more closely studying internal site search results and looking particularly close at specific product pages with high traffic, but low conversions. "As we use analytics more, we are very interested in studying the check-out process," Rahimzadeh says.
PcRush.com, which gets about 158,000 total monthly visitors, gets multiple daily redirects from shopping comparison sites where customers are looking for a specific new personal computer, monitor, printer, scanner or other accessory. But in some instances, customers click through to pcRush from the shopping comparison site, browse a pcRush.com product page and then click away.
Using analytics to study why shoppers were leaving revealed that many visitors and potential customers were most concerned with finding a new computer at the best price. In some instances, products labeled as refurbished were confusing shoppers who left, thinking the site sold only used equipment.
With better analytics, pcRush.com now makes constant checks on product placement pages, especially high traffic pages with incoming redirects from comparison sites, to make sure that new merchandise is effectively placed with images and text in a way that keeps shoppers interested and clicking deeper into the site.
"We are looking much more closely now at internal site search results and making specific changes to pages where people may only be looking for new merchandise," says Rahimzadeh.
A key part of the retailer’s new use of analytics is a weekly analysis of page hits and the ratio to sales conversions, especially on popular pages on the site’s "Best Buy" and "Limited Time Offer" portals. "We’re doing more with our analytics program," Rahimzadeh says. "Next up is more A/B testing."
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