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Exploring New eCommerce Markets with Shopify.
When choosing the right eCommerce platform, ensuring that its functionality, core benefits, support, ability to scale and security all fit exactly to business needs. The same goes when looking to trial new products or testing new audiences online, however, the challenge is finding a platform that can be cost efficient and support business growth whilst in this discovery phase.
Just take a look at Uber, who used their same driver network back-end tech to bring to market UberEATS. Or Airbnb, who no longer just offer travellers a place to stay but deliver experiences that can be booked within a few simple clicks. And, do we dare mention Virgin, who's humble music beginnings sprouted into several large markets, including; TV, mobile, holidays and money.
Not to make this all sound simple, new ventures take a lot of time, research, testing and ongoing support. But standing still is arguably even riskier business, leaving the door open for competitors to monopolise on opportunistic markets. We’ve partnered with many mid-market businesses who have taken this very leap and have reaped the benefits of exploring new eCommerce markets.
Quick to launch with Shopify
Take our client Watco for instance, who already deliver and sell industry leading, high performance repair and coatings products to large trade accounts. They recognised an opportunity to expand their products to a different consumer base and therefore required an eCommerce platform that would allow them to quickly and inexpensively trial the markets.
Comparing available platforms, Shopify was a favourable choice as it enables businesses to quickly and efficiently build, market and manage their online stores. As a cost effective option, Shopify has many other benefits that attract businesses, including fast development through a library of templates, flexibility, scalability and ultimately offers no commitments, giving businesses full control of their store.
Using Shopify, Watco were able to quickly launch their new sites - Floorsaver, specifically designed for small trade and Paint People which caters for the D2C market. They leveraged the platform capabilities to develop their new sites within limited time, enabling them to start selling their products to their new target markets.
By utilising the flexibility of Shopify’s eCommerce functionality, 9xb’s UX Lab team improved the user experience of the new sites through features like the coverage calculator, multi-buy discounts, sticker overlays, monthly deals and sign up incentives to Floorsaver. The introduction of these features drove great results, including:
- 47% revenue growth year on year
- 25% increase in AOV year on year
- 33% increase in traffic year on year
Introducing the right platform and tools, Watco were able to stay ahead of the curve and deliver beyond the capabilities of their competitors - seeing a successful launch into the small trade and D2C markets.
The Shopify platform has offered many of our mid-market clients the opportunity to pilot new products and test new markets whilst keeping costs low and importantly not affect their existing propositions. As a quick to market solution, our client, Astrak Group have bolstered their existing offering into new locale markets, including Holland, Germany and Ireland.
Using the same design and layout, we worked with Astrak to duplicate their existing UK eCommerce store for their new desired locations. This included inputting new content in different languages and using the correct currency to match.
What is UX Lab?
UX Lab is a consultancy based service that takes eCommerce business objectives and turns them into actualites. Using a blend of discovery tools such as competitor analysis, user testing, website performance analysis and CX mapping, our team of experts accumulate powerful insights that are transformed into high performing actions.
