Normans, www.normans.co.uk , is one of the country’s leading specialist suppliers of musical instruments and accessories. Established for over 50 years, the company delivers the highest standards of quality and service to customers in the UK and throughout the world.
Background and Objectives
Normans has a significant online presence, supplying schools, pupils, local education authorities and musicians around the world. The company had an established site, but wanted to make a number of significant changes to the design and add functionality to further enhance the user experience. They also wanted to increase conversion rates that would generate a greater return on investment.
The site objectives were spread across two phases:
Phase 1
- A site upgrade from Aspdotnetstorefront (ASPDNSF) to the latest version.
- A redesign to reflect the company brand and quality products.
Phase 2
- A powerful onsite search with filters to make it easier for customer to find products.
- A one-page checkout.
- Upgrade hosting to deal with the growth of the business
The Solution
Following a rigorous selection process Normans chose Xanthos, (www.xanthosdigital.com) specialist in ecommerce, for the redesign and redevelopment of its website. Xanthos were selected because of the company’s proven track record as well as its outstanding reputation for designing high quality ecommerce websites that increase conversion rates.
The Xanthos team focused on delivering the following:
- Site wireframe and redesign including a large dropdown mega menu to allow easy navigation.
- A smart one-page checkout to improve the buying process.
- Pay4Later integration allowing customers additional payment methods.
- Hosting switch to Rackspace, increasing reliability and security.
- Ongoing support
The solution was built allowing Normans to manage products, orders and promotions cross-platform. The redesign included a large drop down mega menu for easy navigation and the ecommerce software (AspDotNetStorefront) was upgraded from an older version (8) to 9.3.1. The new version being based on master pages (allowing Normans to define common structure and interface markup elements), includes an advanced sales promotion engine, and one page checkout.
Xanthos built an on-site search with instant display and custom filters to allow customers to filter their search results or results on product list pages according to their requirements.
The inclusion of a smart one page checkout means that customers don’t have to remember if they have an account or not and they do not have to go through 5 steps to make their purchase.
Results
The site now receives a significant amount of traffic and the eCommerce platform’s high-performance architecture has been designed to cope with the high volume of visitors the site attracts each day.
Conversion rates increased by 48% in the 3 months following the first upgrade, translating to an increase in revenue of 118%.
Conversion rates increased by a further 30% in the 3 months following the second upgrade compared to the same period of the previous year.
Gareth Haines, Managing Director of Normans Musical Instruments, said:
“Customers love our web store and regularly compliment us on both the look and functionality of the site. When the new site went live we saw an instant increase in conversion rates and traffic has continued to increase month on month.”
He added:
“We have a great working relationship with Xanthos. The combination of their ‘can do’ attitude, technical expertise, and understanding of the commercial environment makes for great development and support.”
If you feel your business could benefit from an Ecommerce Website Redesign, then be sure to get in touch with the team at Xanthos, who would be more than happy to help.
