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King Arthur Flour’s Recipe for Rising Revenue

Posted by Dawn MortensenDecember 18, 2013eCommerce, Success Stories

What percentage of your online revenue is driven by your site’s search function? Is it anywhere near 50%? If attributing half your sales to search sounds crazy, consider the testimony of one of SLI Systems’ customers, King Arthur Flour.

“Search has jumped from 17% of our revenue to almost 50% of our revenue,” said Jeff Wilcox, eCommerce Producer for King Arthur Flour, who cites results from working with SLI in this new 30-second video.

Headquartered in Vermont, King Arthur Flour is the oldest flour company in America and the number-one seller of whole wheat flour in America. Although most would not consider five-pound bags of flour to be the ideal item to purchase online, the company has turned KingArthurFlour.com into an incredibly popular site for bakers – both amateur and professional – to share recipes and purchase baking products.

The wealth of knowledge on King Arthur Flour’s website flows from the company’s commitment to developing a vibrant community around their products’ users. Their Norwich, Vermont headquarters has become a destination for cooks and connoisseurs with its retail store, state-of-the-art bakery, and a Baking Education Center that holds courses for bakers of all levels.

Part of the genius of King Arthur Flour’s success is their ability to combine aspects of their rich community and knowledge base into their eCommerce site. With SLI Systems’ help, King Arthur Flour has made it easy for site users to search from thousands of enticing recipes, then read reviews, shop for ingredients and link to related videos or blogs.

In my first search on the site, I typed “gluten free pie crust” into the search box and found a recipe that’s rated five stars and has been pinned to Pinterest more than 1,000 times. The site offers the kind of start-to-finish help that gives me confidence that I’m not going to screw up the pie; just one simple search, and I have the recipe, the ingredients I can purchase right from their site, cooking tips from the experts, and reviews from 59 people who have tried it. This is the kind of user experience that creates serious fans. And now I’m one of them.

There’s advanced technology that goes in to making the search and user experience this successful – and you can read more about it in a previous blog from King Arthur Flour’s Customer Success Manager at SLI. But what shoppers see is what I found – an easy search that delivered relevant and accurate results, along with valuable content that created confidence in my decision to buy the ingredients. There will be gluten free pumpkin pie at my house for Christmas!

In both baking and business, the secret to success is often in the ingredients. Just as King Arthur Flour’s quality ingredients help ensure their customers’ baking success, the SLI Systems technology that powers their online community and store ensures visitors find and buy exactly what they need.

“SLI has very intuitive tools,” said Wilcox. “They implement new features quite often, so as they become available to us we consider implementing them immediately. We know that it’s easy to do and the results are very good.”

No wonder King Arthur Flour has increased its conversion rates from 3.7% to almost 6%, and has grown its search-based revenue to nearly 50% of its business. They make it seem as easy as pie.

What Do Young Consumers Want from eCommerce?

Posted by Erika StasiSeptember 23, 2013eCommerce, Navigation, Navigation Tips, Site Search, Site Search Tips, Social Media, User Experience

In my last blog regarding usability, I detailed some of the design features and functionality that make eCommerce user-friendly for an older demographic. The important features to optimize site search and navigation for the 65 and older user contrasts considerably with today’s youngest set of shoppers. These digital natives, ages 12-17 years old, are comfortable with evolving technologies, new features, and shopping concepts that take shopping online to a whole new level.

Investment firm Piper Jaffray, in its 25^th semi-annual study, found that 79 percent of teen females and 76 percent of males shopped online, with 70 percent of those teens shopping online at their favorite stores. Creating an engaging and valuable website is crucial in capturing the attention of young shoppers, who have never experienced a time in their lives without technology.

Important Features for the Young Online Shopper

Jakob Nielsen, a pioneer in the user experience field, has researched the usability features most important for the teen online shopper in his article, “Teenage Usability: Designing Teen-Targeted Websites.” Nielsen says sites geared toward the teen market should use less text and adhere to standard design layouts. Examples of such sites are HotTopic.com, KidRobot.com, and SpencersOnline.com. Nielsen points out some specific design features that are important for teens: use of bright color, high quality images, integrated media such as videos and music, interactive games, and links to social media.

The Influence of Social Media

Social media has become an integral part of the teen market online shopping experience. The 2013 Piper Jaffray survey confirms that Facebook and YouTube are still the favorite social media sites for teens, with 53 percent of females and 52 of males indicating that social media influences their purchases (especially Facebook).

Other non-conventional social media platforms such as Pinterest and Polyvore have created innovative ways for teenagers to connect with their friends, see what their friends are interested in, and link them directly to eCommerce sites where purchases can be made.

Polyvore, for instance, is a community-driven social commerce site where members pick and choose from a variety of clothing, shoes and accessories to create fashion collages. Users can see other community members’ and friends’ fashion boards. Below these completed fashion boards are links to external retail websites, where users can complete any online transactions.

Pinterest, like Polyvore, is community-powered and allows members to follow friends’ and like-minded individuals’ pinboards. Pinterest users can re-pin rich images of home design, nature, fashion, food and beverages, and an assortment of other items for their followers to see. Each image or “pin” links directly to an online retailer’s site, essentially sharing that link with a huge network of followers.

Surprising Findings on Usability for Teens

Compared to other demographics, the teen market is actually less affected by poor usability features such as errors (their own or at the fault of the site). In the case of negative usability, such as slower loading time, the teen market has been shown to forgive and forget more easily than the senior market. Longer load times can still be frustrating for any user demographic, and may seem even more so for a group that craves instant gratification. However, patience is something that the youth market has practiced because of all types of technology mishaps they experience on a daily basis. This is unlike the senior market, which isn’t completely absorbed by the tech craze of smartphones, tablets and laptops.

Why the Teen Market Matters

Although some will argue that tailoring eCommerce sites to attract the teen market isn’t as valuable because teens don’t have direct buying power when it comes to online shopping, they are extremely influential when it comes to the consumption levels of their parents. According to the 2012 Harris Poll YouthPulse, teen-influenced purchases account for over $211 billion worth of purchasing power! With 23 million teens in the U.S. alone, teens are making a huge impact to the economy and their parents’ wallets.

When considering the teen demographic in their site design and usability, internet retailers should implement those site search tips listed above as a starting point to capture their target market. Including non-product content such as social media links and interactive content such as Instagram, Pinterest, and Polyvore is a way to stay relevant and exciting to this young group. The key to engaging these Gen Z consumers is to keep it simple, avoid boring content, and consider using responsive website designs for multiple interfaces to keep your site fresh and fun.

Contact SLI Systems for a free site critique to learn how you can optimize your eCommerce site for this emerging youth market and other key market segments.

Boost Views and Repeat Visits with High-Engagement Content – Part 2

Posted by Shaun RyanJanuary 9, 2013eCommerce, Social Media

In my last blog, I mentioned that creating content that drives high user engagement is essential to compete in the new online commerce landscape. Online shopping is more social than ever before. I’m not just talking about “Like” or “Pin It” buttons for easy sharing (though they definitely help), but also features that create an impact for customers by providing relevant information and second opinions to ease decision making.

First, online retailers are encouraging users to upload their own video reviews and testimonials to their website through online video sharing sites like YouTube. Folica does this extraordinarily well, harnessing the opinions of thousands of customers who buy, test and share video reviews and tutorials of products on their site, even though they’re not getting paid to do so.

Second, eCommerce sites are creating their own videos and allowing them to be shared via social media and indexed alongside product content. Bulk Reef Supply creates their own educational videos to help those new to building saltwater reefs. These videos can garner more than 40,000 views, proving that content is just as valuable as the products they sell, since they help customers find the exact part or item they need. They have even enabled users to have the ability to grade the helpfulness of the content to increase engagement.

Third, social media interactions, blogs and other media mentions can be indexed into search results, like e.l.f. cosmetics has done. Search for eyeshadow, and you’ll find the most recent magazines that have featured e.l.f. eyeshadows, facebook and twitter mentions, and blog content. When you’re unsure if it’s the right product, seeing other reviews or mentions can help solidify your decision.

Fourth, online retailers are making sure their products can be shared on social media sites – for example, ‘Liked’ on Facebook or “Pinned” on Pinterest. This is a simple addition to any site and quickly becoming a standard feature that customers expect. Village Hat Shop does this well, including a “Like” and “Pin It” button on their search results page.

And lastly, online retailers are the ability creating the ability to shop on their social media pages. Motorcycle Superstore and Boden have both created gateways to their online stores through their Facebook pages.

How else have you seen social media and eCommerce integrated?

‘Tis the Season for Online Pinboards and Mobile Holiday Shopping

Posted by Kemberly GongNovember 14, 2012eCommerce, Mobile/Tablets, Social Media

This holiday season is looking good for online retailers, and interesting new trends are emerging in the eCommerce space for mobile and social media. Increasingly, shoppers are finding products and comparing them through social media and smartphones.

As numbers from eMarketer suggest, smartphones are now being used by 61 percent of consumers to research products while shopping in the store. Other figures from Econsultancy show that up to 38 percent of customers are following through with completing a transaction via that smartphone, and the numbers are continuing to grow every year. Be prepared to see a few tablets at the Thanksgiving dinner table this year and smartphones in hand while at the mall on Black Friday.

As an online retailer, it’s becoming increasingly important to enter the mobile shopping market by creating a mobile-optimized shopping site or app that lets users browse and buy products easily. Though apparel seems like it would be a difficult purchase to make via mobile phones, it’s actually one of the fastest-growing segments of the mobile market.

More shoppers are also turning to their tablets to shop online – it was reported in Yahoo!’s small business advisor blog that “in 2011 tablet users spent 20 percent more per order on average than desktop online shoppers and 50 percent more than smartphone users.”

The Boston Globe also reported that when customers use tablets to shop, they are more likely to be relaxed, shopping from their couch or in a comfortable location, which leads to longer browsing times and a more leisurely shopping experience. Some online retailers are also creating tablet-optimized sites that give a magazine or catalog-type experience with large images, videos and interactive features, which creates a sophisticated and engaging way to view products that is a step above the standard online shopping experience.

Pinterest is driving traffic to online retailers

Consumers are also turning to social media to find new products. Though Facebook was originally targeted as a way to reach groups of like-minded people, the true eCommerce explosion has occurred via Pinterest. According to the eMarketer report, “30 percent of traffic to apparel sites is coming from Pinterest.”

The grid format and image-heavy page layout places a variety of products front and center, and takes users directly to the source of the image with a couple of clicks. If your customers have pinned your product to their Pinterest page, their followers will see it immediately and find your product page by clicking the image. It’s no wonder Pinterest is revolutionizing the way people shop.

According to Shopify, Pinterest users are also more likely to spend more per average order than customers referred from other sites like Google, Amazon or Facebook. It was reported on Mashable that “66 percent of users regularly follow and repin retailers.” Conversely, only 17 percent of Facebook users do the same. This presents a significant opportunity for retailers to start and keep engaging with shoppers through the years.

As users’ engagement rises with mobile devices and social media, it’s imperative to remain relevant to today’s shoppers. Make sure your eCommerce site is optimized for smartphones and tablets and take advantage of the best social media sites to create new channels to promote and sell your products.

Are you seeing additional traffic via Pinterest, other social media pages or on your mobile site during the holidays? We’d love to hear from you!

Faster Pinterest Pinning Through Site Search

Posted by stevegMarch 6, 2012Site Search, Site Search Tips, Social Media2 comments

With the skyrocketing growth of Pinterest I’ve been on the hunt to identify all of the ways online retailers can use Pinterest to grow their business. I found countless articles and blogs with dozens of great tips. As I thought about why people use Pinterest, the idea of Speed Pinning came to me.

For those who don’t yet know about Pinterest, it’s a social sharing service that gives you the ability to create virtual bulletin boards or “pinboards” of the things you are interested in. These boards are made up of images and videos that you have “pinned” and can include your comments. As an added benefit, the images link back to the site where the content was found.

As I looked at this from the retailers perspective, I felt that getting customers to pin my products to their pinboards would be one of my first objectives. Pinterest does help you do this by providing an easy way to generate Pinterest button code for your site. The thought then occurred to me that customers might like a way to pin their favorite products even more quickly than they could by visiting every product page.

The tool that seemed best suited for this task was site search. By incorporating a Pin it button with every product on the site search results page, customers would be able to quickly assemble highly refined pinboards. To my knowledge, nobody has incorporate Pin it buttons into site search yet.

Since crafters and hobbyists were among the early Pinterest adopters, I reached out to Artbeads.com and suggested the idea to them. Their CEO, Devin Kimura had this to say, “When Steve called to suggest we put Pinterest buttons on our site search pages, I jumped at the opportunity. This is a great idea to get more of our items curated onto Pin boards, and leverages the work we have done to boost Artbeads brand awareness among Pinterest users, particularly those with an interest in beaded jewelry and fashion.” With Devin’s go ahead, the SLI site search engineers went to work and in about 24-hours they had the Pin it buttons up and completely functional on the Artbeads.com site search development environment.

artbeads-pinit-phase1
With Pin it buttons working, the next question to address is what is the best place for them to live. Since “pinning” is a popular activity for Artbeads.com customers, the best place may be up front just under the info buttons as shown above. Other retailers may want to place these in a more subtle location such as on an overlay when customers mouse over a product image.

Mockup showing Pin it buttons on mouse over

Another location for Pin it buttons would be to incorporate them into a Quick Look window as in this example below.

Mockup with Pin it buttons in a quick look window.

Artbeads.com will be making their final decision on the location of the Pin it buttons and expects to launch this new functionality to their customers in the next few days.

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