10 ways can help increase your ecommerce sales

2 November 2012

James Holmes, Director, BlueclawJohn Hickling, Lead Developer, Blueclaw

www.blueclaw.co.uk

About Blueclaw

• Based in Leeds, our team of over 30 people specialises in search marketing (SEO and PPC) and ecommerce web development.

• We have been building sites exclusively in Magento for the last two years (over 20 Magento sites to date).

• Our client list includes multi-nationals, FTSE 250 companies as well as ambitious local companies and start-ups.

• Multi-award winning team. Client-side ecommerce experience from brands such as Sportsshoes.com and La Redoute.

Why Magento?

• Leading open-source ecommerce platform used by over 125,000 merchants globally.

• The principal benefit for us is the modular MVC structure that makes customisation and adding new functionality more manageable.

• We will look at 10 key features and extensions for Magento that help our clients acquire, convert and retain customers.

Why Magento?

Source: Tom Robertshaw, Meanbee

Acquire 1: Long-tail traffic (SEO)

• 60%+ of non-brand keywords driving traffic to your site will be “long-tail” keywords.

• Magento has a great out-of-the-box solution for on-page SEO- customisable page titles, meta-data and site map.

• We have taken this a step further by creating “SEO Filters”- search engine friendly URLS and optimised header and title tags for layered navigation results.

Acquire 1: Long-tail traffic (SEO)

• Womens Black Jeans- http://www.republic.co.uk/women/jeans/?q_facetTrail=2006%3awmsjns%3a10026%3aBlack&facetOrder=10020%2c10022%2c10024%2c10026%2c10028%2c10030%2c10032%2c10034&q_pageSize=28

Acquire 1: Long-tail traffic (SEO)

• Black waterproof dog bedshttp://www.dogbeds.co.uk/dog-beds/black/waterproof/ SEO-friendly URLs and automated header and title tags.

Acquire 2: Using product feeds

• Feeds to Google Merchant Center (Google Product Search/Shopping) should be optimised (up to 10% of traffic for some of our clients)- as well as Product Listing ads within AdWords.

• Can also be used for affiliates and other comparison shopping engines.

• We have also developed a tool to convert product feed in to Google AdWords ads automatically- updating prices if they change or pausing ads if they go out of stock.

Acquire 3: eBay and Amazon

• “Amazon Matters Now More Than Ever”- Forrester: 30% of online shoppers in US now research a product on Amazon before they buy it (more than Google according to this research).

• M2E Pro can be used to integrate Magento with eBay (all 23 major eBay marketplaces) and Amazon (UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, USA and Canada).

Acquire 4: International Sales

• International sales offer a significant opportunity: For ASOS for example, over 65% of the group’s total sales are from overseas (Q1 2012).

• Magento supports multi-lingual, multi-currency sites (large brands have chosen Magento for their international stores): multi-store functionality is a key benefit of Magento.

• One of our clients for example directs traffic to local suppliers in several countries via their multi-store installation of Magento.

Convert 5: Mobile visitors

• 20% of U.K. online sales could be made through a mobile device by Christmas 2012, with the percentage of site visits through this channel at 30%. (IMRG Capgemini Quarterly Benchmarking Index Sept 2012)

• Setting up a mobile-optimised website can be done quickly and cheaply using Magento.

• For tablet visitors we have used the desktop version of Magento sites, ensuring that navigation is touch friendly.

Convert 6: Customisation

• Magento gives full flexibility for developing customised functionality- e.g this example of a fabric selector for one of our retail clients:

Convert 7: Customer reviews

• 61% of customers read online reviews before making a purchase decision, and they are now essential for ecommerce sites (Econsultancy)

• We have developed our own customised solution called Smart Reviews:

Retain 8: Customer Loyalty

• Updated promotions engine in version 1.7 of Magento- a powerful solution for voucher code offers.

• Wish lists and gift registries (e.g. a customised the gift list for a toy retailer client ).

• Loyalty and rewards points (standard functionality within Magento Enterprise) or we use Sweet Tooth for Magento Community sites.

Retain 9: Customer service

• Multiple payment options supported.

• Extensive customisation of delivery options possible (free delivery options, timeslots, selected dates etc.).

• Easy to use admin section for order management and confirmation emails.

• Magento has both REST and SOAP APIs allowing for integration with third party inventory and fulfilment solutions (e.g. Sage, Metapack, Linnworks, Elucid, SAP).

Retain 10: Segmentation

• Targeted email remains a key driver of sales for our clients.

• For Magento Enterprise standard functionality includes segmentation by customer type and behaviour.

• For Magento Community sites, using aheadWorks Follow Up Email and Market Segmentation extensions allows for advanced segmentation of customers.

• We also use Magento with MailChimp which allows for basic segmentation.

Any questions?

james@blueclaw.co.uk

john@blueclaw.co.uk