The hydrant team have been working with the folks at Bath House, a luxury toiletries company based in Cumbria, for a number of years. As the company has grown and sales have increased year on year, we’ve always kept the growth of their business in mind when developing their online shop.

For their latest site development we chose Magento, as we wanted to work with a system that could accommodate the growth of their business and as they move into selling their products in Europe and the US. Key to maximising this growth was a clearer, more standard categorization of their product line.

In the past, Bath House products – toiletries ranging from soap and face creams to perfume and scented candles – were always categorised as “fragrance” on the company’s website. For customers familiar with their product range, this worked well. But for new customers searching for a particular product, we knew this wasn’t going to be enough. According to a company called Screen Pages, who recently used Google Analytics to study more than 31 e-commerce websites over a six month period, only 6.4% of all visitors use the site’s own “search” box. What this tells us is that it’s crucial for e-commerce sites to get their product categorization right so they don’t lose visitors who can’t easily find what they want.

So with Bath House we worked on creating more standardised categories that all users would understand; for example Bathing, Bodycare, Shaving and Gift Ideas. Using Google Analytics, we then monitored the click-through rates of the various options, making adjustments along the way until they were all on an even keel. Metrics such as this are a vital part of any online marketing strategy; if you understand them and use them as part of your decision-making toolkit, they can help you better understand your audience and therefore increase your revenues.

Within a few weeks of launch, Bath House was seeing a 40% increase in sales. Maybe this was because of the new design, or the new options available to the user, or the fact that the site was more search-engine friendly. But we’re confident that some of this success was down to simply helping the users find what they want.

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Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here