1. The proposal
Chemist4U is an online pharmaceutical provider that sells thousands of products to their clients across the country. With such a high volume of products, along with their requirement for a safe and secure site to prevent drug abuse, the company also needed an eCommerce solution that included an advanced filtering system to increase the efficiency of the search tool, alongside many additional features designed to improve their customer experience.
2. The process
The original Chemist4U site was a basic template with no advanced search facilities. We needed to create more effective ways for the customer to search the products and purchase items quickly. Thus, the first challenge was to re-categorise all the products into a format that could communicate with the filter.
The second challenge involved increasing conversion throughout the site. Chemist4U had a conversion rate of approximately 8%. They wanted to increase this to 15%, with a further increase to 20% after 12 months. We were given free reign with how we reached this objective.
Another major challenge was cloning the site as a way of using the current product range and decreasing development time. The site did not possess even half of the facilities needed for easy migration.
Many new challenges arose from the solutions we created. As we needed to increase conversion, speed and ease of use were critical. Our first solution was to make the checkout process quicker. We generated an Amazon payment facility for one-click purchasing and integrated Google API for an auto-fill option for credit/debit card payments.
We built the filter using a plugin to decrease development time by 14 days while still redesigning the front skin and activating relevant filters. We installed a mega menu facility so that customers could click into sub-categories and products with greater ease.
A large part of the conversion increase was within the front end design. This involved moving buttons and boxes, creating related product algorithms on product pages, and installing third-party applications, to name a few. As part of the conversion criteria, we installed VE Interactive, a conversion tool that analyses website behaviour and creates offers for customers that are about to leave the site.
Lastly, we created a module that categorised the clients according to their purchase history, gender, time of purchase and 12 other factors to segment their contact information into multiple after-sales software outlets.
3. The results
Within month one, Chemist4U sales figures had increased by 12%, most of that coming from returning users. By month three, VE Interactive generated 17% of new sales from customers about to leave the site. By month six, conversion had risen from 8% to 21%. These modifications from Castle generated over £115,000 worth of additional sales in only 20 weeks.
