Globus Baumarkt sees impressive results with FACT-Finder since going live on Cyber Week.
With an annual turnover of more than €1.8 billion, Globus Baumarkt trade stores are one of the most prominent home improvement retailers in Europe. This DIY company distributes its extensive product range in more than 90 physical stores and 4 online shops. Whether in e-commerce or in stationary markets, the strategy of this DIY giant focuses on customer satisfaction.
In order to meet customers’ demands – over 1.5 million visitors per month – in their online shops, Globus Baumarkt turned to the search and navigation solutions provided by FACT-Finder. The results since going live on Cyber Week are a 20% increase in conversion rates compared to the previously used search provider and a 50% decrease in bounce rates.
Error tolerant doesn’t mean error tolerant
Globus Baumarkt has been awarded, for a consecutive ninth time, as the most customer-friendly DIY store by trade magazine diy and awarded number one in customer satisfaction and consulting by IFH Cologne. Globus Baumarkt’s awards show that the company is doing its utmost to meet the wishes and requirements of its customers. It was therefore important for their e-commerce team to use a more reliable and intelligent site search than before, explains David Büschler, Online Marketing Manager at Globus Baumarkt.
“Every month more than 1.5 million visitors come to globus-baumarkt.de, of which one-third prefer to use the search function. Before we had FACT-Finder, customers often didn’t find the right products or didn’t find any at all. The search engine we previously used was simply not as error-tolerant as we had hoped. That’s why we decided to integrate FACT-Finder – and are very satisfied with it. Customers can now find their desired item, even if they enter several search terms incorrectly. We ourselves are surprised at how quickly the switch to FACT-Finder has been reflected in our sales figures because, since our go-live, our search-generated conversion rates have risen by 20%.”
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Fast integration followed by going live
Globus Baumarkt uses the latest version of Shopware for its online store. FACT-Finder was therefore integrated by webweit, one of the leading Shopware agencies. The webweit-developed interface for FACT-Finder made it possible to go live with the search feature just three weeks after the start of the project; navigation was later implemented. Everything was done during this time – from the system installation to uploading more than 300,000 product data, to quality assurance.
The website went live during Cyber Week. David Büschler says, “Despite the increased traffic to our online shop during Cyber Week, the FACT-Finder go-live went smoothly. It’s easy to see that FACT-Finder and webweit are a well-rehearsed team.”
Consulting accelerates ROI
“It was important to us to take advantage of our new search engine right from the start,” Büschler continued. “That’s why we utilized FACT-Finder Consulting right from the start of the project. Our personal consultant provided us with enormous support in preparing for the go-live, for example by analyzing and optimizing our product data. A backend training course was also held before the live event. It not only gave us a complete overview of the FACT-Finder functions but also valuable tips for improving the customer journey. That was very helpful for us. Together with our consultant, we then developed a strategic plan detailing which measures we would implement and in what order. This allowed us, from the beginning, to implement functions with the biggest effect on sales.”
Bounce rates are cut by half through guided selling
What the team learned, they put into practice. An example is the guided selling campaigns that Globus Baumarkt, along with FACT-Finder, created. These advisory campaigns support customers in choosing the right product by providing guidance and support. It’s the online equivalent of a sales consultant in a stationary store: interactive, helpful and intuitive. It works through a question-and-answer format that helps customers refine their search results by restricting unwanted products. The more questions answered, the more FACT-Finder filters the results, leading to a selection of highly-relevant products.
Even inexperienced DIY-ers can quickly find what they want. David Büschler can measure the effect of this function. He says, “Guided selling campaigns work very well – almost always cutting the bounce rate on the corresponding results page. These campaigns are also a great way to show our product expertise online, interact with customers and respond to them even better.”
Guided selling is the online equivalent of an in-person exchange: interactive, helpful and intuitive.
Ranking rules: sort results in a targeted manner
FACT-Finder provides Globus Baumarkt with another option for displaying its USP on its online shops by controlling product rankings on results pages. “When a customer makes a search request, we want the result to meet their expectations but also be in line with our sales goals. FACT-Finder’s automatic result optimization is very convenient for us because it continuously sorts the most popular products upward. We then refine this sorting with the help of ranking rules. In this way, we determine which products appear at the top of the results. In our case, these are products from advertising or products for which we offer an exclusive guarantee. We also have our own brands sorted upwards and thereby increase their sales,” explains David Büschler.
Rankings can be manually defined as well as intuitively generated through FACT-Finder’s automatic search results optimization (ASO) module. ASO is a self-learning mechanism that improves search results automatically using the click and purchase information of customers, ensuring that highly-likable products are featured prominently.
Globus Baumarkt is able to position products with exclusive guarantees at the top of the search results through the ranking rules feature.
Multiple services, one objective: conversion
An online shop may have a lot of visitors but it’s crucial that the search engine is leading them to purchases. With online shoppers agreeing that the search function is one of the most important elements of a website, be sure that yours is error-tolerant – don’t let typos stop a sale.
Once you have optimized your search and are providing customers with accurate and relevant product results, it’s beneficial to align customer needs with your sales strategy. Implementing ranking rules enables you to easily customize how results are sorted in accordance with your USP.
Integration is quick and easy through a plugin developed by webweit, that incorporates FACT-Finder’s conversion-enhanced functions into Shopware environments – regardless of high numbers of individual SKUs or complex environments.
Achieve the full potential of your online store with the support of FACT-Finder’s e-commerce experts. A consultant will provide assistance every step of the way, from technical needs to adjusting module features that meet your specific objectives.
The implementation of FACT-Finder services helped Globus Baumarkt maximize the performance of their online shop, increase conversion rates and reduce bounce rates.