Plumbworld sees huge conversion increases
Plumbworld is the UK's largest independent online retailer of bathroom, plumbing and heating products, with annual sales approaching £12 million.
The results of Webcredible's work have been outstanding - our new site now converts 50% more visitors into customers and customer service issues have fallen by over 70%.
James Hickman, Plumbworld
Objectives
Having traded online since 1999, Plumbworld was in the process of applying some updates to its website but was ultimately looking for a total redesign of the site. The main objectives of the project were to:
- Increase sales by optimising conversion rates
- Improve the search engine optimisation of product and category pages
- Ensure the site offers the highest possible levels of accessibility
- Improve the site's usability, calls-to-action and cross-selling
- Give the site a more professional look and feel
- Allow the site to operate on PDA's and mobile phones
What we did
We carried out a comprehensive user-centered design project to ensure a redesigned site that was focused around the needs of the user. This began with an expert evaluation and competitor analysis which involved appraising the usability of the existing Plumbworld site and comparing it with its competitors' sites.
We then carried out interaction design to show how the website's pages should be laid out to maximise users' ability to find and buy products. This involved us collaboratively developing a set of wireframe templates for key pages such as product, browsing, search results, basket and checkout pages. We conducted usability testing on the wireframes to evaluate and optimise their sales effectiveness and made amendments to them accordingly.
We then designed and built the web pages for the new site. We wanted to ensure that the new site had a professional look to it, as well as using inspirational imagery to entice site visitors to become buyers. The final web pages that we delivered were optimised for search engines, fully accessible and W3C compliant.
This research and design process ensured that the redesigned site pages had the following characteristics:
- Fully focused around maximising online sales and conversions
- Optimised for search engines due to the highly efficient HTML structure and ordering
- Conformance to the highest accessibility standards, above and beyond AA-compliance
- Print-friendly so pages automatically fit on to A4 pages
- Lightening fast-loading pages due to the advanced CSS layout
- Fully cross-browser compatible
Results
Since the launch of the redesigned website, Plumbworld has seen significant gains in conversion rates. The new website now converts nearly 50% more visitors into customers and customer service issues related to site navigation have fallen by over 70%.
The usability lab was an eye opener for Plumbworld and watching real users attempting to locate products and place orders offered a valuable insight which had not previously been available.
What next?
Please contact us by phone on 0870 242 6095 or by e-mail at info at webcredible.co.uk. We'll discuss your user experience research & design needs and requirements with no pushy sales pitch and no obligation to you.
See also
- Uncover your users' needs and goals with our comprehensive user research offering
- Get a new website through our user-centered design and accessible CSS web design expertise
- Get our accessible and usable CMS so your site offers outstanding accessibility
- Attend one of our 10 fantastic Internet marketing training courses
