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Magento Extensions – The 13 Best Magento Plugins to Increase Sales

Posted by Bob AngusJanuary 24, 2018Customer Experience, eCommerce, Resources, SEO, Site Search, Social Media, Testing, User Experience

Best Magento Extensions - Magento Marketplace

You’ve got the core functionality in place on your Magento store. Now you need to enhance your site to increase sales and optimize your customer experience. That’s where Magento extensions help.

But there are thousands of Magento extensions to choose from in the Magento Marketplace. You can easily spend too much time figuring out what’s the right extension across different business needs.

Here’s a helpful guide that gets you right to the best Magento extensions designed specifically to drive more online sales.

How to Find the Best Magento Extension for You

The Magento Marketplace makes it easy to browse and filter the many extensions. However, evaluating which extension is right for you can still be daunting.

It’s not as simple as looking at ratings. Even the most popular plugins typically only have a few reviews.

And just going with free extensions may not be the best way to save money.

Here are few criteria you can consider when choosing a Magento extension.

Free Extensions vs. Paid Extensions

It’s easy to jump toward a free extension. But most free extensions also require a subscription to that service. Calculate your total cost before choosing a solution, including the expense for the time it takes your developer to integrate and maintain that extension. Sometimes the higher priced solution up front is actually less expensive in the long run.

Look for Great Support

Help save your development time by choosing extensions that have excellent installation documentation and user guides. Better yet, check out their support information on the vendor’s website. Evaluate how responsive and helpful they are before making the purchase. That extra contact can help you avoid getting stuck later on.

Recent and Regular Updates

Magento is constantly improving as e-commerce continues to evolve. Your extension provider should be too. Partner with vendors that are committed to the Magento community. Look for extensions with recent or regular updates for new Magento releases and for additional features and bug fixes.

Now let’s look at the detailed list of Magento extensions that can help increase your sales.

Best Magento Extensions – The 2018 List

Winning more sales requires enhancements to each step of the customer experience:

Drive more traffic to your store
Increase conversion rates
Accelerate purchase with fast and easy checkout

We’ve curated a list of 13 top Magento extensions that can help you increase sales in 2018.

Let’s get started with the critical need to bring shoppers to your e-commerce site.

Drive More Traffic

More traffic means more shoppers. More shoppers lead to more sales. It’s that simple.

The challenge is winning shoppers who are ready to buy against competitors hungry for the same customers.

The following Magento extensions give you an edge and help drive more and better traffic to your store.

MageWorx SEO Suite Ultimate

Magento helps your search engine optimization techniques with core functionality that Google and other search engines want.

The platform gives you the basics, like clean HTML, meta tags, simple URL structure, and automatic XML sitemap generator. These capabilities make your website easy to crawl. However, you’ll need to do more and at scale to win hyper-competitive search ranking.

Many extensions address a single element of good SEO. We recommend a single extension containing an entire SEO suite to really increase your organic search traffic.

MageWorx SEO Suite Ultimate is an all-in-one SEO toolkit that manages a wide array of onpage SEO features that includes:

identifying duplicate content
enhanced site indexing
canonical URLs
optimized meta data
auto-generated XML sitemaps
cross linking
SEO redirects
advanced rich snippets

Price: $299 for Community edition, $599 for Enterprise edition

Learn more about MageWorx SEO Suite Ultimate

Remarketing with adaplo

Remarketing is a proven advertising tactic to increase sales by bringing previous visitors back to your store. Product remarketing ads are displayed on Facebook and Google Display Network (GDN) that match what your shoppers have already viewed.

The challenge is automating your remarketing ads across all your visitors and for all your product SKUs. adaplo makes automated retargeting easier.

adaplo creates the retargeting campaigns on Facebook and GDN by launching dynamic product history. It can also expand your ads to more audiences and different ad types.

Price: Free, requires an adaplo subscription

Learn more about adaplo

Wyomind Simple Google Shopping

This extension is the M2 version of Wyomind’s highly rated Simple Google Shopping. You can easily sync your Magento store’s product feed with Google Shopping.

What sets Simple Google Shopping apart are features that help you synchronize accurately without spending a lot of time, including:

Map your product categories to Google categories
Schedule tasks to generate your data feed
Check that your data feed was generated error free
Verify your data feed generation stats (number of items, time and resource)

Price: $80 for Community edition, $120 for Enterprise edition

Learn more about Wyomind Simple Google Shopping

Email Marketing with Bronto

Email marketing remains a dominant marketing channel that drives more traffic and sales. Your e-commerce email marketing should be more than broadcasting your sales and discount offers.

That’s why Bronto is the perfect email platform for your Magento store. You can send targeted and personalized emails to your customers and newsletter list.

The Bronto Connector for Magento easily imports purchase information from the Magento platform into Bronto campaign manager. Using that full order history you can curate personalized email and cross-channel marketing campaigns at scale.

Price: Free, requires a Bronto subscription

Learn more about Bronto

AddThis Social Media Sharing

Let your customers spread the word about your products. You get more already-enthusiastic visitors when your current shoppers share on social media.

AddThis is the easiest way to add sidebar share buttons to your Magento store. This social media extension can connect you with over 200 social networks for easy sharing … for free.

Plus, you have control of the style to match your store in both desktop and mobile browsers. And you can pre-populate the message being shared. As a result, your shoppers are more likely to share.

Price: Free

Learn more about AddThis

Increase Conversion Rates with Better Customer Experience

Now that you have help driving more shoppers to your online store, it’s time to turn those shoppers into buyers.

The best way to increase conversion rates is to provide your visitors with a great customer experience.

Customer experience trends show the most successful retailers are executing well at every step in the buying journey.

Here are some Magento extensions that can help you do the same.

Smart Site Search with Learning Search

Customers who search for products have higher purchase intent than shoppers who are “just browsing.” You need to make sure you are delivering the search results that those must-win customers are most likely to buy right then.

Go beyond simple keyword matching from your product feed. With SLI Learning Search, your e-commerce search box becomes an AI-powered tool designed to continuously improve query results and generate more revenue.

Further boost conversion rates with rich autocomplete functionality. Less clicks and browsing is what you want. Display specific product results while adding visual merchandising with appealing product images.

Better yet, you can leverage the same behavioral data to add AI-powered product recommendations to product pages, in your shopping cart, or anywhere on your site. Getting personalized recommendations along with higher converting search results can give you a big advantage over using separate plugins for recommendations and site search.

Price: Free, requires an SLI Systems subscription

Learn more about SLI Learning Search

Social Media Content with Pixlee

Social media content posted by you and shoppers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and other social channels can really improve engagement. In turn, that more personal social proof increases conversion rates.

Pixlee helps you identify and curate user-generated content so that you can display beautiful look books and social image galleries throughout your site. And those images are shoppable to make it easy to click “buy now.”

Pixlee also delivers the advanced social campaign features you’ll want in a single solution, including the ability to:

Launch social contests and promote engagement campaigns
Publish visual reviews and social posts on product and category pages
Personalize emails with relevant social proof
Track your social content’s conversion rate and engagement metrics

Price: Free, requires a Pixlee subscription

Learn more about Pixlee

Special Promotions Pro

Discount offers and promotions are proven to increase transactions. But managing all the different types of offers across all your SKUs can be incredibly time-consuming. Not to mention, ensuring you don’t kill your profits by discounting the wrong products or by displaying expired sales.

Amasty’s Special Promotions Pro extension reduces your headaches with a powerful promotion manager. The extension gives you access to 22 discount and offer rules for cost-effective promotions building in bulk or for individual products.

Additionally, you can automatically create personalized promotions using customer data. The extension builds one-to-one, hyper relevant deals for you using data like order history and birthdays. That level of personalization can really help drive repeat sales from loyal customers.

Price: $129

Learn more about Special Promotions Pro

Amasty A/B Testing

You should always be running experiments to discover the major and minor updates to your Magento store that can maximize sales. Amasty also provides a helpful A/B Testing extension that gives you everything you need.

You can run A/B split test and multivariate tests for particular products or product groups directly from your Magento admin panel. You can customize one or multiple tests at a time based on different goal metrics, products, and “winner” criteria.

What makes this testing extension even nicer for you is that you aren’t required to develop duplicate product pages with each test variation. No extra development time and site bloat helps you focus on improving your customer experience, not coordinating the tests.

Price: $179

Learn more about Amasty A/B Testing

Full Page Cache Warmer by Magewares

Front-end site elements and promotions get a lot of attention when improving customer experience. But site speed and page performance is also a must-have consideration.

Page caching extensions like Full Page Cache Warmer are the simplest ways and most effective ways to make sure your Magento store loads fast for your visitors. Full Page Cache Warmer automatically crawls your store to find any uncached pages or newer versions of already cached pages.

Then the “warmer” part of this extension kicks in. This extension uses a special technique warms each page as if a real visitor is hitting on that page. The result is faster page deliver when a shopper does actually does land on your site. Pretty slick.

Price: $129 for Community edition, $379 for Enterprise edition

Learn more about Full Page Cache Warmer

Win More Sales with Frictionless Shopping Cart

So far we’ve covered Magento extensions that increase traffic and then help you improve your conversion rates. Now it’s time to focus on the most critical step – ensure your customer completes their purchase with a fast and easy checkout experience.

Smart One Step Checkout

You’ve optimized your online store so that a customer clicks the “Add to Cart” button on your product. Don’t lose the sale by adding extra steps to completing the purchase after they’ve decided to buy.

Customers now expect a single page checkout process that they are familiar with from shopping on other online stores. Give it to them with Smart One Step Checkout.

Smart One Step Checkout offers all the functionality you need in a single extension, including:

Mobile responsive design
Customer login for one step purchase or guest checkout
Edit items in the cart
Apply discount codes and gift cards
Checkout behavior and abandonment reporting

Price: $299 for Community edition, $1,499 for Enterprise edition

Learn more about Smart One Step Checkout

Subscription And Recurring Payment

Subscription models have become a popular way for e-commerce businesses to sell their products. Keeping customers buying from you month-after-month can be incredibly profitable. However, subscription purchases require a different checkout and payment infrastructure.

Aheadwork’s extension adds subscription and recurring payment functionality you need. It can become your primary checkout experience for pure subscription businesses. Or you can create trial subscriptions or automatic product re-order options.

The recurring payments integrate with your merchant services provider. This makes regular billing easy for you and your customer. Plus, it helps reduce payment failures due to credit card expirations or cancellations.

Price: $249

Learn more about Aheadworks Subscription And Recurring Payment

SimiCart Mobile App Builder

Most Magento themes already support mobile responsive design. So shoppers using a mobile browser usually have a good experience. But you may be missing a segment of customers who prefer to shop in your own branded app.

SimiCart helps you build your own iOS and Android mobile app to boost up your business through the Apple App Store or Google Play. SimiCart integrates directly with your Magento store infrastructure so that product feeds, ordering, and fulfillment are all synchronized.

You can then customize your mobile app’s design and features as you wish. Make it look like an app version of your mobile website. Or create a custom app experience with shopping features. You choose.

Price: Free, with SimiCart subscription starting at $49/month

Learn more about SimiCart Mobile App Builder

Magento Extensions that Improve Your Sales

These 13 Magento extensions are designed to increase your sales in different ways – driving more site traffic, improving conversion rates, and accelerating customers through checkout. Make sure to check out these extensions and see how you can take your sales to the next level.

MageWorx SEO Suite Ultimate

adaplo Remarketing

Wyomind Simple Google Shopping

Bronto Email Marketing

AddThis Social Media Sharing

SLI Learning Search

Pixlee Social Media Content

Amasty Special Promotions Pro

Amasty A/B Testing

Magewares Full Page Cache Warmer

Aheadworks Smart One Step Checkout

Magenest Subscription And Recurring Payment

SimiCart Mobile App Builder

4 Things Retailers Should Learn from Pokemon Go

Posted by Dawn MortensenJuly 11, 2016Social Media, Uncategorized

Pokemon

If you noticed far more people engrossed in their smart phones while walking through neighborhoods or strip malls this weekend, it wasn’t just your imagination – it was Pokemon Go, the new augmented reality game that uses location-based technology to allow users to catch, train and battle with Pokemon as they walk through their real-world environment.

Just 5 hours after its release on July 7, Pokemon Go became the most popular iPhone app in the United States. According to July 10 data from SimilarWeb, it will only take a couple more days before Pokemon Go hits as many Daily Active Users as Twitter.

This is a phenomenon anyone who does anything online should pay attention to. After watching my kids, their friends, and even my husband get caught up in the real-world Pokemon hunt over the past 96 hours, I’ve noticed some of the basic elements of the game that are making it very popular, very fast. And I think that these same principles are key to succeeding in retail.

Connect People with Their Favorite Things. Pokemon were already one of kids’ (or kidults’) favorite things. Smart phones are another. And this new game allows them to interact with both in a unique way. Technology is appealing when it helps people connect more with what they love. It’s the same with online retail – allowing customers to better engage with and experience what they love is always going to deliver positive returns.

Make It Fun. All around the country, strangers are suddenly collaborating in parks or at storefronts about how and where to catch the local Pokemon. Most people get an endorphin boost from acquiring something new – especially something rare – as well as from achievements and prizes, no matter how small. I think this same principle gave rise to the term “retail therapy.”

Everyone Loves a Treasure H Pokemon Go is proof of this – it’s turning into one of the biggest hunts in history. Good merchandisers know how sometimes, making something a bit harder to acquire can increase demand. Secret sales or specials to those customers “in the know” are often effective.

Getting People Active Is a Win. Whether playing online games or shopping, we love our computers and mobile devices and spend an ever increasing amount of time sitting in front of screens. Most of us want to get more active, but we don’t want to give up our technology. Any app that causes us to do the things we love online while also getting the exercise of moving around the real world naturally gains quick support. (I know my kids got more exercise this weekend than they have all summer!)

Beyond these basic principles, there are other reasons for retailers to pay attention to Pokemon Go. Many store fronts have Pokemon assigned to their GPS coordinates, and you can only catch these Pokemon by walking near the store. Imagine the possible tie-ins with promotions.

We’ve said this is the year of virtual reality, and that online shopping experiences will soon involve more of it. Pokemon Go is yet another way that the online world is merging with reality, and the possibilities for retailers are exciting.

The Path to Selling Includes Sharing

Posted by Dawn MortensenMarch 3, 2016eCommerce, Site Search, Social Media

Your online retail site is about more than just the products you sell. It’s also a valuable resource for your users. It should be engaging, offering unique photos, videos, articles and features that shoppers won’t get anywhere else. This content is a powerful tool that you can use to boost your brand and elevate your sales.

The creative use of content can give e-commerce customers a unique and memorable shopping experience – one that creates brand loyalty and convinces customers to buy.

There are many types of non-product content you can use to enhance your shoppers’ experience, and ultimately lead them to a purchase. Some of the top content types used on retail sites are social posts, blogs and how-to articles.

Showcase social posts

A social media strategy is a given for any online merchant today. When you integrate content from your social media networks into your main website, you can deliver more information to buyers and get them excited about purchasing your products. Show that your social pages offer reliable, valuable content and it will compel users to keep coming back for more.

Social content is especially important because it gives the consumer a window into how others are using the products they’re considering purchasing. Some photos, videos or blogs might appeal to a consumer’s practical decision-making by showing the quality and price of the item. Other posts might strike an emotional response, creating a desire for the item because it’s fun or in-fashion. Either way, social content can be a strong influencer in motivating shoppers to buy.

To take your social strategy to the next level, you can also tune in to the Tuesday, March 8 PracticalEcommerce webinar: 5 Ways Social Listening Can Drive Ecommerce Sales.

Be a blogger

A blog is an excellent way to incorporate great non-product content into your retail site while also showcasing your brand’s individual voice. It can also generate some great organic traffic to your site, since search engines like Google and Bing rate quality, consistent content higher in the rankings. A relevant blog naturally improves your SEO. As search engines increase in sophistication, the days of stuffing blog posts with relevant keywords are over. When you create posts that are relevant to your brand, they will naturally place high in search rankings. It also follows that other sites will want to link to this useful content, increasing the reach of your blog posts.

Giving customers insight into your company helps shoppers feel like they can get to know your brand and what it stands for, which helps to create loyalty that will drive future sales.

Offer how-to articles and videos

Inform your customers not only about what your product is, but also about what it can do. Offering how-to articles, particularly in the form of nicely edited videos, display your brand’s expert knowledge to users. When shoppers see that your company is an authority in the field, they will return to your site as a reliable resource again and again. Maybe they’ll come for those valuable instructions, but they are also very likely to come back to make purchases.

Make it Easy to Find

Whichever type(s) of content you integrate into your retail site, you have to be sure users will see it. Be sure it shows up in your search and navigation results. Then feature it prominently using tabbed results pages.

For the full set of tips and examples of integrating content into your e-commerce site, download our e-book: Use Creative Content to Convince Online Shoppers to Buy.

When #LoveWins, Smart Merchandisers Win

Posted by Tim CallanJuly 2, 2015eCommerce, Merchandising, No Results, SEO, Site Search, Site Search Tips, Social Media

The U.S. Supreme Court opened a new opportunity for merchandising on Friday, June 26. Whether or not you agree with the 5-4 decision making same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, it’s undeniable that it’s a prime marketing opportunity for retailers. Earlier this week, Multichannel Merchant published more than 20 examples of “How E-commerce Responded to the Marriage Equality Decision.”

For e-commerce businesses wanting to capitalize on the surge of online shoppers looking for items related to gay pride and same-sex weddings, below are my recommendations:

Watch and respond to top search terms: Pay attention to changes in shopper behavior over standard baseline behaviors prior to the Supreme Court ruling. In particular, look at search keywords for new or increasingly popular terms. For example, a jeweler may see a sudden spike in a phrase like “men’s engagement ring.” Because the search box is the one place on your site where shoppers can articulate their shopping missions without being channeled by your site navigation, search terms are strong early indicators of changes in shopper intent.

Consider which products are a fit. The types of products you offer will vary based on your industry segment. The above example cites a change in jewelry preferences, but a florist may see an increase in desire for rainbow floral arrangements or a party supply retailer might sell more rainbow-colored decorations. You may decide that none of your products logically tie in to this current event, in which case you’ll want to wait until you have related products or skip this merchandising opportunity entirely. Shoppers are less likely to respond to a promotion that seems forced.

Look at top search terms with poor click-through rates. Search terms with low click-through rates can identify recent demand that your site and inventory are not meeting. Sometimes you can solve these shortcomings simply by adding synonyms to your database. Other times you can address them with special promotions or merchandising information. In the long term, these terms may reveal new areas for inventory expansion.

Create just-in-time merchandising campaigns. Create campaigns for products expected to be popular among supporters of gay marriage. Use custom banners and landing pages or even tune search results and recommendations to more ably direct shoppers to the products they are likely to want in this area. For example, a retailer may create a custom landing page around a phrase like “Pride party” with a themed banner and curated product results.

Remember SEO/SEM. Keep your SEO/SEM team apprised of top trending terms to ensure your keyword strategy is up to date.

Among the SLI Systems customer base, we have noticed the word rainbow coming up as a term with poor results so far this week. We advise appropriate retailers to examine the word rainbow specifically to see if it is a trending term that deserves one of the responses detailed above.

Current events, as well as holidays, seasons and trends, are great positioning points for retailers. If you keep an eye on what your shoppers are already searching for online, you’ll find an endless number of ways to merchandise your products.

For more merchandising strategies to drive your online revenue, download our white paper “Use Site Search Data to Improve Merchandising.” Also, take a look at this video to see what you can do with our latest merchandising solution, SLI Landing Page Creator.

Five Site Features that “Speed Shoppers” Love

Posted by Dawn MortensenMarch 9, 2015eCommerce, Mobile, Navigation, Ratings and Reviews, Rich Auto Complete, Site Search, Social Media, User Experience

50+ years ago, futurists predicted that advances in technology would provide a life of ease. Instead, we use today’s technology to do more, faster – even with shopping. As an increasing number of online shoppers want to find, buy and get on with life as quickly as possible, here are five must-have features for e-commerce sites that want to meet the needs of these “speed shoppers.”

1. Learning-based Site Search

Speed shoppers are likely to go straight to the search box and expect relevant results within the first few items displayed. To deliver such on-target results, a site search provider needs to offer technology that learns from multiple aspects of user activity and continually re-ranks items that are most relevant. The smarter the technology, the better the accuracy and speed for shoppers.

2. Autocomplete with Graphics

A critical feature for speed in site search is the ability to auto-populate product results and images from the first letter a searcher types, as offered by SLI Rich Auto Complete^TM. If I want to quickly find polo shirts and I start typing “polo,” I appreciate a retailer who shows me “polo” shirts after just typing “po.”

In this example, the retailer also uses SLI Learning Search^TM technology, which intelligently infers that by typing “po” I was most likely looking for a polo shirt and not a “pocket tee” or “popover hoodie.” Smart – and fast.

3. Social Content and Reviews Integrated Into Search

Keep in mind that not all speed shoppers know exactly what they want when they search. A last-minute gift-buyer, for instance, may search for “makeup set” at e.l.f. cosmetics, but before clicking “buy” the giver wants to make sure it’s a quality product. Since e.l.f. incorporates a special “As Seen In” feature into its search, the gift shopper can see that this item has been featured in magazines like O and Woman’s Day. And if that doesn’t instill enough confidence to click “buy,” the shopper can see that it’s a 4-star product with more than 61 reviews. This quick-reference information, placed on the product page, can make a speed shopper giddy about the efficiency of it all.

4. Easy Payment Options

Online shoppers are quickly getting fed up with multiple-step checkouts that require them to provide personal and financial information. As more consumers experience the convenience of PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Wallet or similar payment options, paying with credit cards could soon become a relic. Be sure you offer the payment experience your customers prefer, or they’ll find other sites that do.

5. Optimized Mobile Experience

Speed and ease are especially critical for mobile shoppers. The smaller the screen size, the smaller the amount of patience a customer has before giving up. As John Tomich stated in a recent article for Multichannel Merchant, “A successful mobile interaction with your customer is one in which everything is obvious, easy and fast.” He cites that shoppers overwhelmingly prefer social logins for ease of use. Express checkout and easy payment options are as critical here as with any shopping site. Other critical features are those that will improve findability, like learning-based search and navigation.

The investment in meeting the needs of speed shoppers will undoubtedly pay off. Speed shoppers are usually searchers, which are 2-3x more likely to convert than non-searchers. And when you meet speed shoppers’ needs for efficiency, they’ll quickly become some of your most loyal repeat customers.

Say It with Video – 1 Billion Are Watching (and Buying)

Posted by Dawn MortensenDecember 16, 2014eCommerce, Site Search Tips, Social Media, Success Stories

With 1 billion people using YouTube today, video is the most powerful means of spreading information to the world’s 7 billion people. And since more than 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube, that’s almost one hour for every person on this planet!

As a content marketer in the e-commerce space, I’m especially interested in watching the speed of adoption of video in online retail. Product videos offer details that static images can’t, like how someone might hold or wear the product. According to an Animoto study and infographic, 73% of U.S. adults are more likely to purchase a product after watching an online video that explains it.

A Proven Way to Differentiate

Many sites use video as a way to set themselves apart from big-name brands. Bulk Reef Supply has created more than 300 videos for its saltwater aquarium and reefing products, even branding its video channel as “BRS TV” to make it more visible on YouTube. This is a smart way to increase product discovery, establish expertise and provide affirmation to buyers that they are choosing the right product. Simply by providing the information consumers need to make the right purchase, Bulk Reef Supply differentiates itself from potentially less knowledgeable competitors.

Northwest River Supply is another business that succeeds by providing expert advice that’s typically not found on many sport supply sites. Search for “kayak” and you’ll see a menu of more than 200 videos about kayaking. You can refine the search by whitewater, tour/rec and other types of rafting sports to find how-to videos that meet your particular interest.

As mentioned in Shaun Ryan’s recent blog, “shopping haul” videos are another type of video format that retailers can leverage in 2015. As the popularity of these videos increases, so does the opportunity.

Worth 1.8 Million Words?

I’ve often found truth in the maxim: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” So naturally, I’ve wondered how many words a video might be worth. I recently found that Dr. James McQuivey of Forrester Research actually made an attempt at calculating the comparative worth – he estimated that one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words. Well, the writer in me thinks that’s too high. But whether or not his assessment is true, it’s evident that video is an incredibly effective way to influence consumers who want bite-sized bits of information and entertainment that will fit into their busy lives.

Time for a Change! SLI Reveals Its New Brand

Posted by Tim CallanSeptember 25, 2014About us, Press, Social Media1 comment

At SLI Systems, we’re proud of our 13-year history of providing high-quality learning-based site search, and our status as the leading SaaS-based site search provider to the Internet Retailer Top 1,000. We’re also proud of our culture of ongoing innovation, which has led us to expand our solutions to include learning-based navigation, recommendations, user-generated SEO, mobile search and an array of merchandising tools and analytics. To communicate our commitment to meet the expanding needs of e-commerce retailers around the world, today we launch our new brand identity.

E-commerce Accelerated

Seen in this photo with CEO Shaun Ryan, the new SLI Systems logo and tag line embody our mission to accelerate e-commerce by connecting shoppers with the products they are most likely to buy. As mentioned in today’s press release, the ‘S-like’ symbol in the new logo represents a shopper’s seamless path to purchase. The interwoven elements reflect the customer collaboration that is core to SLI’s ongoing success and the success of our customers. The color palette considers the nuances of cultures across the five continents where SLI operates. We believe the logo enhances our already-strong brand recognition among the world’s leading e-commerce businesses.

As you see our new identity carried out on our web site, ads, tradeshow graphics, etc., I hope you’ll take a fresh look at what SLI has to offer – solutions that are proven to deliver e-commerce results, like the 30% increase in site revenue Lakeshore Learning experienced after implementing a range of SLI solutions, or the 10% sales lift Boden saw after implementing SLI Dynamic Product Banners.

We timed the launch of our new brand to coincide with several important events in the next week, including Shop.org 2014 in Seattle Sep. 29 – Oct., the SLI Connect customer summit in Seattle on Oct. 2, and the E-Commerce Expo in London Oct. 1-2. If you’re not joining us at any of these events, I hope you’ll browse the rich array of on-demand webinars, e-books and case studies available on our website at sli-systems.com, or connect with us on social media. We look forward to hearing from you!

From Blog to Buy: Content That Converts

Posted by Dawn MortensenAugust 20, 2014eCommerce, Site Search, Site Search Tips, Social Media, Success Stories

It’s no secret here at SLI that we are arming online retailers with the e-commerce tools they need in the battle against Amazon – and creative content is proving to be a valuable weapon of choice. Many savvy e-commerce retailers use content (videos, blogs, social posts, etc.) to draw shoppers and turn browsers into buyers.

Target is a great example. Target’s e-commerce site now allows shoppers to buy items directly from its blog, A Bullseye View. All a shopper has to do is click a red box (“shop this look”) that hovers over the image of the desired product. Instantly, a box pops up with the item ready to be added to the consumer’s shopping cart.

Target’s new catchphrase? “Buy the products you want from the content you love.”

Creative content is driving sales in a way that it never has before. Converting shoppers into buyers directly on a compelling blog post is what all retailers strive for with their content. While a blog is a pretty traditional form of content, here are two great examples of SLI customers using non-traditional forms of content to ease the shoppers’ path-to-purchase:

1. King Arthur Flour Shares Recipes

Retailer of specialty flours and baking tools King Arthur Flour combines aspects of its community and knowledge base into its site, providing a wealth of searchable recipes, videos and blogs from expert bakers. Visitors can find enticing recipes with high ratings, see that they have been Pinned to Pinterest 1,000+ times, or read reviews from other users who have made those dishes themselves. Since customers can click a link in the recipe to buy ingredients they need from King Arthur Flour, it’s a seamless path-to-purchase for those eager to try the recipe.

Since working with SLI Systems to integrate this recipe content into its e-commerce search (versus its previous use of Endeca), King Arthur Flour has seen its conversion rate jump from 3.7% to nearly 6%.

If you’re an online retailer that sells any kind of food or kitchen product, you’ll want to offer recipes to showcase your expertise and the value of your products. When you create links from your recipes to the products or ingredients needed to complete the recipes, you’ll see the increase in sales.

2. FTD Gets Graphic

Online flower delivery retailer FTD uses infographics to drive visitors to its site and help generate sales. When the brand created an infographic using interesting stats about Mother’s Day, it was a nice visual article showing that 76% of moms polled would choose flowers as their gift. It was a popular infographic to share on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest as millions of sons and daughters considered what to give their moms for Mother’s Day. The infographic not only provided the insight and incentive for buying flowers for mom, but it also linked straight to the FTD site, offering easy access to purchase that Mother’s Day bouquet.

Infographics combine visual appeal with condensed information, making them perfect for grabbing people’s attention and giving them content quickly. They are also nice for the skimmers out there – those of us who are short on time or attention span. Finally, infographics are easy to share. Whether on social media or blogs, infographics are just the kind of content thought leaders love to re-post.

To learn more about how e-commerce sites can increase conversions by creating remarkable content, watch a recorded webinar on this subject or download our free e-book, Use Creative Content to Turn Online Shoppers into Buyers.

Going Global: It’s About More than Translation

Posted by Kemberly GongJuly 2, 2014Press, Social Media

Taking your online business into new international markets presents a huge opportunity. Global e-commerce sales have already passed the trillion dollar mark and growth in overseas markets like Asia-Pacific and South America have already surpassed growth in North America.

But expanding your online borders comes with a fair number of challenges. Translating your site into the local language is no easy feat – and it’s just one part of the puzzle. There are many other factors you need to consider to develop an international e-commerce site that appropriately serves the local market.

Offer Products in the Correct Language and Currency

When expanding into new global areas, retailers mostly focus on their e-commerce platform and its ability to accommodate visitors from those regions – whether information is offered in the right language and prices reflect the local currency, for example.

Ensure Superior Search Ability in Every Language

But it’s important that retailers don’t ignore site search, which is another critical element for success in a new region. The best search helps visitors find what they want in their language, plus accounts for cultural differences that impact the way shoppers in different countries navigate a site. Shoppers looking for household items on retail sites in Japan and Brazil will likely have different preferences than someone searching for the same items on retail sites in the U.S.

Account for Regional Preferences

That variation in consumer preferences vary by region is also an important aspect to address with search and navigation. Your international visitors will likely jump to another site if they don’t see what they’re most interested in on yours.

Some of SLI’s international clients like Boden (in the UK) and Surfstitch (out of Australia) look to us to help them not only provide adequate language translation support, but also to deliver the items that are relevant to their visitors in different countries.

Next Steps?

We recently announced complete support for seven additional languages, which brings SLI’s language support to cover 14 languages – Arabic, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Indonesian, Italian, German, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish English. With this extensive language support, plus SLI’s flagship Learning Search technology, it’s fairly simple for retailers to get the site search component of their international site working successfully.

Having SLI Systems part of an e-commerce internationalization project can take a huge burden off of a company’s marketing and IT teams. SLI takes care of making sure the relevancy of search results always reflects the most popular items in different regions of the world, which helps with inventory and fulfillment strategies as well.

If you’re thinking about going global and want to meet local language and cultural requirements, be sure you don’t overlook your search and navigation to ensure you maximize your ROI and establish local brand loyalty.