Out with the old and in the with new as sales rise dramatically for Wolsey

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Out with the old and in the with new as sales rise dramatically for Wolsey.

Amplience, the rich-media merchandising and marketing platform, has announced that Wolsey, Britain's oldest menswear brand, has revolutionised its online conversion after implementing the Amplience interactive merchandising platform.
 
Despite the accolade of being the longest standing menswear brand in the UK, the online store is a new venture for Wolsey, which launched its online store in 2011, 256 years after the brand was established.
 
Wolsey, who can boast Scott of the Antarctic amongst its illustrious list of former customers, selected the Amplience platform to improve the conversion of site traffic into sales.

 
"The ability to create rich interactive experiences, coupled with the explosive growth of high fidelity mobile and tablet devices, means that for the first time the mobile online experience can surpass the offline, but the challenge for many heritage brands is how to transpose the experience of quality and luxury that is seminal to a brand like Wolsey," said James Brooke, CEO at Amplience. "Consumer expectation is for a slick retail experience that allows the simplest route from desire to purchase. Using the interactive carousels and product hot-spots provided by the Amplience rich-media merchandising and marketing platform, Wolsey has struck an excellent balance, allowing the imagery to speak for itself, but still providing the merchandising detail that drives conversion."
 
The platform was implemented within two weeks, enabling non-technical users to create detailed and effective campaigns both quickly and painlessly. In addition to doubling the overall conversion rate on the site, products merchandised using Amplience have had a conversion rate 50 per cent higher than any other product sold online. Wolsey has identified that the interactive buttons that appear on its home page are some of the most clicked on the site with 19 per cent of the people viewing the Amplience modules engaging with the content
 
"We've seen a significant increase in conversion on the products that Amplience is attached to. We've been able to create an ecommerce experience that isn't just a purely transactional tool, it's an engaging customer journey," explained Kevin Robins, head of eCommerce at Wolsey. "As a fashion retailer the quality of the imagery is key to how successful our season is. Using Amplience we are able to make the best use possible of the photo shoots we invest in. The quality of our products is central to our brand identity and with this type of merchandising, we're able to best represent this online."
 
In line with the launch of its Autumn/Winter 2012 collection, Wolsey has expanded its use of interactive merchandising across its online store. The collection uses touch points much more frequently and future plans involve direct add-to-basket functions, whittling down thecustomer journey to a few clicks.