Splash makes waves for Christmas

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Splash makes waves for Christmas.

Christmas is rapidly approaching and those investing in their ecommerce solution today will certainly reap the rewards. 'The largest online retail market [in Europe] is the UK, with 27 million online shoppers spending more than 700 Euros each online during the Christmas shopping season, accounting for a record breaking 20 billion in online sales.' After exponential growth since the launch of their new Advansys (www.advansys.com) developed website, Splash Direct (www.splashdirect.com) are well aware of the importance of choosing a proven scalable ecommerce platform.

Customer confidence - are your delivery rules putting up barriers?

The Advansys ecommerce platform offers sophisticated delivery rules, postcode checks, and a single page checkout. Many sites make delivery rules complicated creating a barrier not to purchase. Conversely, others lose out by not charging the correct amount based upon the customers delivery address. To counter this, Splash Direct's website allows the customer to simply enter their postcode in return providing a unique and accurate delivery cost. Ted Charalambides, Director of Splash Direct comments 'By simplifying the delivery process and eradicating any chance of confusion for the customer this has resulted in more sales conversions whilst at the same time protecting our margins

Intelligent product selection - are you selling products the customer will purchase?

By successfully integrating behavioural recommendation technology that expertly assesses each individual user's interests and suggests other products based upon similar patterns of previous shoppers, Splash Direct have seen basket values soar. Kurt Wilson, Managing Director of Advansys explains 'Using intelligence to mine your data is key to the run up of Christmas; you need to unlock the hidden nuggets of information and make your data work for you. Up-selling the wrong products can make or break a site in a competitive market.' By creating a more personal shopping experience Splash Direct have experienced phenomenal online growth in just 9 months becoming the benchmark for many others within their industry.

Re-branding your site - how do you keep your existing natural listings?

In developing a new ecommerce solution one of the critical factors for Splash Direct was to ensure that their existing natural rankings on Google for terms like bathroom accessories remained on page one. Simply changing the formats of the URLs without prior thought can be disastrous as many companies find out to their peril. By implementing server side mapping techniques against key departments, categories and product pages Advansys were able to inform the search engines of these changes from the existing cached pages through to the new equivalent landing pages in a seamless fashion without any loss in ranking.

About E Commerce Expo www.ecommerceexpo.co.uk

Advansys are excited to announce that they will be attending for the second year running E Commerce Expo that runs on 28th and 29th October in the National Hall, Olympia, London. E Commerce Expo ran for the first time in October 2007 when it delivered 2443 attendees (ABC Audited) and over 100 exhibiting companies. For 2008, 3500 attendees are expected and 130 exhibiting companies. The first E Commerce Expo in 2007 was a real triumph and with online sales growing at around 30% per annum e-commerce makes up a significant route to market, said Justin Opie, Event Director, E Commerce Expo. We are looking forward to record breaking attendance in 2008.

About Advansys www.advansys.com

Advansys are leading providers of scalable ecommerce and multi channel solutions that integrate into your existing business processes. Want to know more and to see the launch of our new ecommerce platform 2.0 come and see us on stand 510 or call us on 0845 838 2700.