In the hyper-competitive world of ecommerce, merchants need any kind of an edge they can get. Pricing is one of the most critical areas as many online shoppers are price sensitive and deal-savvy, jumping quickly to another site with an offer that’s a few bucks cheaper.
Savvy Watch, an ecommerce seller of top timepiece brands, was looking for a way to present the most attractive offers while also protecting its margins. At any given time it could be competing with hundreds of ecommerce site selling the same brands.
“Customers would call our customer service line asking for a price match or a discount, or they would just leave the site and shop elsewhere,” said Ryan Wilson, CEO of Savvy Watch. “Such is life in the world of online retail; price comparison has always been part of the industry, and customers would bounce around site to site looking for the best deal.”
In 2015, Savvy Watch selected PriceWaiter, a service that lets ecommerce merchants push custom calls to action to shoppers on their site that let them make an offer, name their price, ask for price matching or ask for a volume discount.
PriceWaiter has automation logic that uses machine learning so merchants can optimize offers and sell as much as possible within customized rules they set up, such as acceptable gross margin levels. This leads to higher conversion rates as shoppers get a real time response to their offer and can check out immediately at their personalized price. They can also set up PriceWaiter to issue aggressive CTAs to cart abandoners, leading to more conversions that normally would have been lost.
Using PriceWaiter, Savvy Watch’s average order value over Cyber Weekend 2016 doubled compared to the average during the year. It also saw 25% growth in orders over the period as it increased its holiday conversions.
“With PriceWaiter we have the chance to convert that customer on the spot, before they leave to price compare elsewhere,” Wilson said. “We get the conversion, and the customer feels rewarded in their search for a value on a quality product. PriceWaiter also lets us collect email addresses on each offer, so we can keep in contact with the customer, create loyalty and increase conversion rates down the line.”
Consumers are often time pressed when shopping online, and will move on quickly if they don’t see the exact offer at the price they want. With PriceWaiter, Savvy Watch captures paid search traffic from sites like Google Shopping, targeting and converting shoppers at a higher rate before they’ve moved on to 10 other sites, saving on the cost of conversion in the process.
Wilson said Savvy Watch has been able to boost its conversion while not getting killed on margins by choosing to negotiate with a customer as it sees fit. If their offer is too low, Savvy Watch can counter with a higher offer that still offers a discount, with the average savings to the customer at about 10%.
“It’s important to understand that we control every facet of the transaction, so we’re not cutting into margins or converting sales that we’re uncomfortable with or that aren’t financially feasible,” Wilson said. “This kind of technology allows us to set parameters so we know that any accepted customer offer will never put us in the red. It meets our specific needs.”
Mike O’Brien is Senior Content Manager of Multichannel Merchant