Kiddicare affiliate case study summary – October 2010

Established in 1974, Kiddicare is the largest privately owned nursery and baby supplier in the UK. As a family run business they offer one of the widest ranges of baby products, accessories and equipment stocking favourite baby brands including; Quinny, Maxi-Cosi, Britax, Graco, Maclaren, Baby Bjorn, Cosatto and Phil & Teds. They are now the UK's number one online baby shop with 400,000 customers placing an order within the last 12 months.

Initially Ve Interactive ran a 2 week trial campaign direct with Kiddicare, capturing their abandoned leads using our tracking software VeCapture. The remarketing campaign that subsequently went out (via VeContact) included an offer to those abandoned customers, and generated significant additional sales for Kiddicare.

Moving now to the affiliate model: in its first week, a remarketing campaign, (this time without an offer included), has achieved a staggering 40 percent conversion rate already! We are now working closely as an extension to Kiddicare’s marketing program, to help create bespoke campaigns to continue to move the needle on this.

Why Address Online Abandonment?
Most online merchants are focusing only on their online successes, using analytics tools to look at key performance indicators like conversion rates and cost per lead information. Here’s why it is important: US industry experts estimate that shopping cart abandonment is an $18 billion issue! $18 billion. This year alone. And that’s just the United States!

Abandonment Statistics
Online abandonment statistics are high, in spite of efforts to streamline purchasing processes. In 2007 Marketing Sherpa said that on average, 60 percent of all online transactions are abandoned and this has only increased. According to a very recent Forrester Research report, it’s now actually 88 percent of online shoppers that begin a transaction and don't complete! So it’s not rocket science to work out that this means if a website owner can convert a higher percentage of visitors, then revenue would firmly increase too. And depending on the cost of items sold on a website, each percentage point of abandonment could represent anything from hundreds to tens of thousands of pounds a month in revenue! So if the purpose of an e-business is to create and retain customers, then based on the mantra that it costs 5-10 times more to recruit a customer than to retain an existing one, successful conversion and retention of customers in a cost-effective is key to profits.

Digital Shopping Trends
Customer-initiated churn is complicated, the reasons behind it vary, from issues with shipping fees through to increased customer expectations. But behavioural factors are also key. Comparison-shopping is now a huge online trend. Researchers say consumers searching for goods or services online will visit an average of four websites within a 30-minute period. In other words, Internet -savvy consumers who now have 24/7 access to their favourite brands are using your shopping cart to browse and research, placing greater consideration on their purchases before parting with their money. But don’t give up on these abandoned leads! Remember - they showed enough interest in your brand’s products or services to actually commence a transaction on your website. So what about rebuilding bridges with them and nudging them towards conversion instead?

So when visitors abandon because they’ve been distracted by the myriad of choice out there in our ‘global shopping village,’ remarketing to them in a timely and appropriate manner could be the key to recovering their interest and beating out your competition.