Adams was suffering a higher drop out rate in checkout than expected.
After monitoring the problem for some time, Real TSP knew that the checkout page and payment process were optimised and that they were not causing the problem.
We turned our attention to improving the customer experience. All customers who had dropped out at the checkout page were contacted via email and asked to fill in a simple questionnaire in order to assist us in improving the experience. The response to the survey pointed, overwhelmingly, towards the cost of delivery, set at £3.75, as being a stumbling block.
We decided to test the impact of offering free delivery on the performance of the site as a whole. Over a week long period, we randomly offered 50% of visitors to the site free delivery, whilst the remaining 50% continued to have the delivery charge. We monitored the results and presented the findings to Adams. These showed that within the free delivery sample, the percentage of visitors who used the basket that went on to complete a purchase, increased by over half. This resulted in revenue up by 44% and operating profit by 37%.
Further analysis of the data indicated that even though the company received considerably more smaller value
orders than before, the vast majority of 'small order' customers came from new clients who
would come back to make repeat purchases and 'free delivery' provided a strong marketing
message and incentive across all purchases.
This experiment highlighted the power of Real Commerce and its associated modules to provide accurate, up to the minute data that can be used quickly and easily to implement test and longer-term campaigns to tackle specific issues or opportunities.