+26% increase in digital shelf search visibility por Shazia Amin

How a global domestic appliance brand used analytics to discover where and why product content was impeding visibility and conversion on Germany’s biggest e-retailers, and effect change to achieve a 22% increase in digital shelf performance.

The challenge: Limited visibility and weak conversion

This global domestic appliance brand has a 100+ year long heritage known for innovation, quality, and style. However, in the e-commerce arena, that same commitment to quality was compromised. Their e-commerce team was small and performed the bulk of its function manually, from managing content to tracking KPIs. Inevitably some details got lost in the shuffle: 

• Lacking keywords in product content - directly impacting search performance
• Inconsistent - and sometimes incorrect - product content, an influencing factor on conversion
• No visibility over customer feedback and ratings & reviews, another conversion factor
• No visibility over priority SKUs and where to focus 

In Q2 2021 the brand invested in digital shelf analytics tools with eStoreMedia to automate their manual processes, discover the biggest gaps, and action the highest priority issues with search and conversion. 

Why is search so important?

• 43% of shoppers use the  search bar first when they visit a retailer’s website
• Shoppers who use the search bar are 1.8x more likely to convert
• Top results sell as much as 80% of the category depending on the retailer

Our solution: The e-commerce perfect store framework

We worked with the brand’s e-commerce team to implement our digital shelf analytics tools to track the most critical KPIs across their highest priority SKUs, focusing on the German market as a test case.  We applied our “perfect store” framework to set up the tools and processes to more effectively execute their e-commerce function across top german retailers:

• Strategy: We worked directly with the brand to turn their manual processes into tasks they could automate with our digital shelf tools. This included weekly contact with their e-commerce managers to swiftly get them up to speed with the analytics. Our tools revealed that the biggest issues for the brand were lacking keywords, incorrect packshot images, and lacking ratings and reviews.
• Design: Having established initial findings, we worked with the brand to establish success criteria and the core KPIs that were currently blockers for digital shelf success.  These KPIs included: Share in Top 10 Search; product content areas like photos, rich content, and bullet points; and ratings and reviews (both quantity and quality).
• Delivery: We used eStoreCheck to automate the tracking of their KPIs across their portfolio at key German online retailers such as amazon.de, otto.de, and mediamarkt.de
• Measure: An intuitive dashboard delivered an aggregated digital shelf score which summarized their performance, while deep-dive reports allowed them to identify key problems at the SKU level and take action. Our reports are flexible and dynamic, capable of measuring everything with weights, targets and thresholds.

• Identify and close gaps: Our gap-closing reports allowed the brand to quickly take action on problems, and iterate the process to continuously improve performance across retailers

What is your Digital Shelf Score?

Our DSS is an aggregated score of e-commerce performance based on the most impactful KPIs that influence online sales.

The result: Significant gain in search visibility

Our tools revealed two mission critical gaps:

1. Lacking keywords in product titles and descriptions
2. Incorrect packshot images on numerous high priority SKUs 

With clarity, the brand knew where to focus, fixing the gaps having the most detrimental impact on search and conversion. By Q2 2022, a year later, the brand saw a

• +22% improvement in its Digital Shelf Score.
• +26% in search visibility across the biggest e-retailers
• +20% improvement in the most strategically important e-commerce category
• +9% improvement in their average reviews (and as much as +18% at some retailers)