The art of personalization at Design Warehouse online shop: how to achieve 17.5% revenue uplift with Retail Rocket AI platform
Design furniture is a form of decorative art that lets each customer be provided with a personalized service based on their needs. To create a unique shopping experience is essential to retain satisfied buyers and, also, get them to recommend the brand to their friends. And what better way to achieve it than giving a personalized approach also in all the communication channels? That is how the Design Warehouse online store generates more than 17% of its revenue, thanks to Retail Rocket personalization.
Design Warehouse goals
Design Warehouse is an online store for design furniture that started operations back in 2014. Its Instagram account has 150,000 followers and has a 5-star rating in different browsers.
To provide a unique customer shopping experience, Design Warehouse uses leading-edge technology, which allows them to eliminate all the unnecessary features. As they state on their website, they save as much as possible to avoid making the product more expensive: they do not have showrooms, physical stores, own delivery service, nor intermediaries.
Marketing-wise, they also follow the same policy, and, for that reason, the company contacted Retail Rocket with a clear objective: to find the most convenient tool to improve the user’s journey in the online store, achieving, at the same time, a boost of all the key metrics.
The online store wanted to focus on the following strategic tasks:
- To create a unique shopping experience across all communication channels, based on the information stored in a single source including the users’ behavior and interests;
- To increase the key metrics: conversion rate, average order value, revenue, etc.;
- To offer each client what they are looking for, both on the web and through email newsletters;
- To Optimize the costs and resources of the marketing campaign.
Retail Rocket Solution
The services to increase the e-commerce metrics can be independent tools or be part of a single platform where collecting all user’s behavior data. In this case, storing each visitor’s single action in the same source has two main advantages: it allows to use the collected information for a comprehensive personalization in customer communication, as well as optimizing time management of marketing tools.
<<The Retail Rocket platform allows an automated way to streamline marketing actions and, thus, focus on customer satisfaction. The use of advanced personalization technologies multiplies the quality of the service by making the website as friendly as possible. The online store will be easy and intuitive for the visitor>>.
Pavel, Sales Manager, Retail Rocket.
To achieve the goals set, Retail Rocket specialists suggested the following:
- To use the AI-powered personalization both on the web and email channel to show each customer a unique selection of products;
- To automate communication through triggered emails in all the customer journey’s stages;
- To establish regular communication with customers by using email personalization technology.
The implementation of the Retail Rocket platform in the Design Warehouse online store took approximately a month and a half. This process included technical integration, the development of email templates’ layouts, and the design of recommendation blocks. Also, training was held about how to make the most of the platform’s potential.
Likewise, if the company had questions, it was always possible to seek advice from the account manager who coordinated the integration process.
Online shop’s virtual shelves personalization
Imagine how sales in physical stores would increase if each customer found the products that best fit their interests on the nearest shelf. That is a possible thing to do in online stores by using AI personalization technologies. Not using them would mean giving up both the increase in customer loyalty and additional profits we will see below.
We added recommendation blocks on all the main pages of the dsklad.ru site but the main page. The absence of products on the Homepage was a design decision of the online shop’s developers.
Recommendations on the Category page
Once users reach the website, they are not immediately shown product offers but can begin to familiarize themselves with the item categories in the online store. What do we offer the customer when they enter the category page of their interest, considering that there are hundreds of SKUs in the online store’s assortment?
It is a good thing that the visitor has time to browse the pages one by one, but not everyone has it. For this reason, it is essential to show the products that meet the individual needs and interests of each user on the first page.
Product page personalization
The user’s transition to any product page provides useful information for any e-commerce business. Even if the customer does not proceed directly to the payment, this action allows the online shop to learn more about their interests and to offer relevant products based on their needs.
Similar furniture recommendations are displayed directly below the product photo on the card, with the user in mind. The ability to easily compare products will help them make the purchasing decision.
The related products recommendations block is also really efficient on this page. Thanks to it, the buyer can find the perfect complement for their current purchase, increasing the average order value of the online store.
Search page personalization
When a user enters the specific name of a product in the search engine, if available, it will appear in the search results. But what if the item a user is looking for is not in stock or is misspelled? In such cases, the search algorithm must understand what the user meant and suggest the most relevant products.
Based on the analysis of other users’ behavior, Retail Rocket algorithms form search recommendations, and the customer receives the most suitable products for the keyword requested in the online store’s search engine.
We built up effective customer communication through the email channel
Users’ behavior information stored should be used not only on the online store website but also on the entire customer journey through the different channels. For instance, to make personal offers to each customer via email is possible by using the collected data.
Retail Rocket platform allows the e-commerce businesses to easily manage marketing tools, interacting with the entire customer base through triggered and mass-based emails. Let’s see how the Design Warehouse online store took advantage of this potential.
We built automated communications by using triggered emails.
The trigger-based email campaigns allow configuring automated communications in response to the user’s actions or inactivity, generating emails in real-time based on each user’s behavior on the site. In the activation map you will see reflected the different scenarios of interaction that covers the entire customer journey, from product search to purchase.
Let’s take a closer look at some of these scenarios.
The abandoned cart scenario
For many visitors, putting items in the cart without buying them right away is like putting a bookmark on a book without reading it to the end. Thus, they save the products they like, so they don’t forget, to return later to the shopping cart.
However, not reminding the user about the abandoned cart may make them forget which site they planned to purchase on. Therefore, this scenario is nowadays essential for any online shop.
But only reminding the abandoned items in the cart is not enough. What if the interest in them has passed? In that case, personal recommendations come to the rescue. For a newsletter in this scenario, the Design Warehouse online store uses similar product recommendations that the user may like.
The abandoned view scenario
Many reasons can make a user leave the online store without making a purchase. However, the mere fact of viewing the product card is an indication of high user’s interest. Perhaps they are not ready to buy at the time of viewing, but this assumption will appear later.
As practice shows, that often happens and, therefore, the “abandoned view” scenario will be essential for all online shops. Moreover, it will be possible to offer in the email newsletter not only what the user has viewed, but also those products that may be of interest to them.
The post-purchase scenario
At the most precious moment for every e-commerce seller, when the customer makes a purchase, the first thing to include in the newsletter after placing the order is a “Thank you”. But should we limit ourselves to this? In no case. There are a lot of products in the store, including related items that may interest the user to complete the perfect purchase. Why not try to recommend some of them?
The Design Warehouse online store does not miss the opportunity to turn a new client into a regular one. The perfect tool to achieve loyalty is sending personalized newsletters.
Reactivation
Furniture does not belong to that kind of goods whose purchase needs arise in a regular basis. Therefore, after finishing an order, many customers may not return to the online store for a long time. To remind customers that ‘we are still here’ and about the novelties in the store, Design Warehouse uses the reactivation newsletters. Here is an example:
We build trust relationships through mass mailing
Good customer communication is not only the ability to react to their actions but also to be the first to contact sending each customer what is of their interest. Messages about hot sales, discounts, promotions, new products are only some examples of it. The Retail Rocket platform allows the retailer to build as many segments as they want. Also, the information collected will be useful for personalizing each email content based on the recipient’s interests, creating a unique newsletter for every single customer. The fact that each one receives the relevant content by email makes this channel one of the most effective means of communication to increase the audience reach.
Here is an example of a personal newsletter with discounted products.
Are there several new products on the web? In this case, you can send newsletters with those products to a segment with interest in those categories or to the entire subscriber base.
Results
The implementation of Retail Rocket recommendations made possible to improve the quality of customer service, with the consequent increase in key metrics.
The results obtained with the recommendation blocks on the web were as follows:
- The conversion rate was 2.8 times higher than the average of the online store;
- Recommendations generated approximately 15% of revenue on the webshop;
- The products of the recommendation blocks were present in more than 17% of the online shop’s orders;
- With recommendations, the average order value was approximately 9.8% higher;
Email marketing personalization showed the following effect:
- The conversion rate on this channel was 1.5 times higher than the site average;
- Email marketing accounted for about 2.5% of revenue;
- In 3 months, more than five thousand customers had subscribed to the push notifications of the online store.
Retail Rocket and Design Warehouse testimonials
<<Comfort and practicality are fundamental qualities not only for furniture but also for marketing tools. We strive to offer our customers a service of the highest quality, and for that, to use the best-advanced technologies is necessary. Retail Rocket products are easy to use, and at the same time, as the practice has shown us, they are very efficient>>.
Tiran Hakobyan, Head of Marketing Department, Design Warehouse online store
<<Cooperation with the Design Warehouse online store left excellent impressions. It is noticeable that the company cares about its customers and seeks to find an individual and personalized approach for each user>>.
Alexander, Retail Rocket