The face of e-commerce in Canada is changing. At Le Site, we like to think of ourselves as ambassadors of the e-commerce revolution. For the last decade, we have worked hand in hand with numerous Canadian retailers including Rudsak, Keurig Canada, BrandSource, and iStore. We have enriched our clients’ e-commerce platforms through tried and true digital solutions, keeping in mind their visions and company mandates. As e-commerce visionaries, it’s no surprise that we are one of Canada’s largest Magento-certified partners. Our partnership enables us to push the boundaries of this versatile e-commerce platform and utilize it to its full potential. This first edition of MAGento is perfect for Canadian e-merchants like you. We’ve curated this selection of articles to shed light on key insights we believe all companies, both large and small, can benefit from. Inside, you’ll find conversion optimization tips, tangible technical tricks, a crash course on the importance of SEO, as well as two great case studies to learn what we’ve done for some of our clients. We hope this publication will enrich your e-commerce efforts and help achieve your goals. If you have any comments or questions about our inaugural issue, please contact me! Michael Bliah, Editor in Chief
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REACHING THE NEXT PROFIT MILESTONE Boost your bottom line with 10 tips that cover everything from smarter A/B tests to creative content. A world of conversion awaits!
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TOP 5 SEO MUST-HAVES
Step up your presence on Google, Yahoo! and Bing, while giving your brand the visibility it deserves, thanks to these search engine optimization tips.
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INSIDE MAGENTO
Working with Magento has its set of challenges. From integrating Magento to your ERP, to avoiding website crashes, we share our best kept technical secrets.
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EXPLORING THE ISTORE CASE
Our lead designer exposes the founding design principles behind Le Site’s creative outlook. Get a look and feel of what truly makes our work different.
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PPC WINS: JACK & JONES
Discover the compelling story behind the iStore website. This informative case study highlights the brand’s objectives and our tailored solution.
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SECURITY IS THE NEW BLACK
Hackers come up with dozens of creative ways to breach your business, every day. Start understanding the underlying threats you’re up against.
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INCREASE YOUR AVERAGE ORDER VALUE
Learn valuable marketing lessons and boost your cart value. The road from promotion to conversion is closer than you think
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WHO ARE WE?
The perfect place to get to know us. Le Site is a digital enterprise focused on building e-commerce websites and engineering omnichannel ecosystems.
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OUR VALUES & TESTIMONIALS
See what our clients have to say!
MAGento
Published by Le Site Copyright 2016 Montreal, Canada
REACHING THE NEXT PROFIT MILESTONE
Whether you’re selling umbrellas, office furniture or 3D printers, ensuring steady growth online is challenging. Multiplying sales isn’t simply a numbers game. In fact, analytics, business strategy, content, development, and UX play significant roles in the optimization of conversion rates. Here are ten tools to build conversion and kick-start growth.
OUTSMART A/B TESTS
OPTIMIZE YOUR CHECK-OUT
Testing is at the core of our e-commerce strategies. However, A/B tests are often rushed or conducted randomly. Make testing a priority by following these pointers.
When talking about conversions, check out is where the magic happens. Long and complex check-out experiences frustrate customers and increase cart abandonment rates.
• Start with concrete hypotheses based on your data. • Focus your tests on weaker areas of the website. • Restrict the experiment to new clients as changes may confuse some customers.
RETHINK IMAGE SLIDERS
Open-ended transactions plague retailers on a global scale: trillions of dollars are lost annually from abandoned carts. To counter this phenomenon, try these time-tested tactics:
Also known as “image banners,” “rotating sliders” or “carousels,” image sliders are a popular web design solution. Despite their mass-appeal, they aren’t beneficial to conversion rates. Here’s why:
• With shoppers moving to mobile en masse, opt for a responsive design. • Regain abandoned carts. It’s never too late. • Send a follow-up email 6 or 24 hours after abandonment.
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• Hide promotion codes. Keep your visitors from coupon-hunting.
END ABANDONED CARTS
• Simplify cart editing.
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• Consider adding a guest checkout option. A simple process leads to greater sales.
• Sliders distract visitors. They’re also often mistaken for ads. • Shoppers like to control their shopping environment. Sliders undermine that concept. Solution: Replace sliders with personalized static banners showcasing appealing offers.
DEVELOP A CONTENT STRATEGY
FOCUS ON USABILITY TESTING
PROVIDE MULTIPLE LANGUAGES
For many marketers, content is the future of e-commerce. From blogs to newsletters, content can take many forms. The key is to have clear objectives and to keep your audience in mind.
Having users test your website is a great way to find usability issues that may lower conversion. To tighten your testing routine, you should:
Amongst the many ways to gain market share online, translating your website is a budget-pleasing option to stimulate new sales.
• Create relevant and targeted content. Speak your customers’ language. • Establish durable relationships. Authentic content pays off. • Create a narrative around your products/services.
STEP UP YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION A clear and compelling value proposition is a gateway to a successful business. However, e-merchants often overlook this crucial strategic step. Here’s how to achieve such a goal: • Explain how you make customers’ lives easier. • Differentiate yourself from the competition. Why are you unique?
• Test with real first-time users. Look for patterns in their behaviour.
• Pinpoint the markets you’d like to penetrate.
• Identify the main sources of friction. These small usability glitches may be costing you customers.
• Learn about the cultural differences.
EXPLORE POST-CONVERSION MARKETING Post-conversion is one the most underrated steps in the marketing funnel. Setting-up confirmation emails or thank you landing pages are opportunities to boost conversion rates. Proposing the next steps can go a long way: • Check out these at similar products. • Opt in for a newsletter.
• Hire a translator. Google Translate isn’t your friend.
CREATE APPEALING PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS Lately, a lot of focus has been placed on product photography. However, to support stunning visuals, your products need compelling descriptions. • Connect with visitors through engaging copy. Stay away from dry descriptions. • Adopt your target customers’ language. • Contextualize your product. Storytelling sells.
• Share the purchase on social media.
• Display your key benefits. Customers shouldn’t have to look for them.
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TOP 5 SEO MUST-HAVES
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META TITLES
Writing catchy yet concise meta titles is crucial for SEO and social sharing. Meta titles are short descriptions of a page’s content, meant to ease users’ search process. They also help position your brand on search engines and boost clickthrough rates. Follow the guidelines below to achieve better results. • Every page should have a dynamic and exclusive meta title. • Limit yourself to 65 characters. Longer titles will be cut-off by search engines. • Write in Title Case and don’t forget to include keywords.
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2 3 4 5 META DESCRIPTIONS
RICH SNIPPETS
Located beneath meta titles, meta descriptions break down the content of your web pages. Even though these explanatory paragraphs don’t affect search ranking, they do favour visitor acquisition and improve click-through rates. Before diving into the right wording, consider these ground rules:
The perfect complement to a solid title and description, rich snippets are great assets for SEO. This add-on enables you to showcase additional key information (reviews, price, pictures, address…) to searchers, while giving them a preview of what your page may contain.
• Take the time to write informative and enticing copy.
• Mark up your website’s pages through Microdata, Microformats or RDFa.
• Keep meta descriptions under 160 characters. Aim for 155.
• Ensure the information displayed is up-to-date.
• Validate your products rich snippets.
• Craft an original description for all pages and use keywords.
HREFLANG TAG
SITEMAP
Dealing with both English and French-speaking customers can be tricky. On top of creating content in each language, you must ensure search engines take the right customers to the correct version of your website. This is when the hreflang tag comes in.
This repertory of your website’s content is the middle-man between the website, the user and different search engines. A sitemap is meant to guide search engines through the different Web pages and maximize traffic.
• Also known as rel=”alternate” this line of code can be placed in the on-page markup or the HTTP header. • Serving visitors in their native language from the get-go contributes to increasing their average time on the site and lowering your bounce rate.
• XML sitemaps (invisible to visitors) are submitted to search engines to give information about what is on your website and notify them when content updates occur. • HTML sitemaps (visible to visitors) are meant to enhance your website’s browsing experience.
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INSIDE MAGENTO As one of Canada’s largest Magento-certified partners, we wanted to dedicate one article to this e-commerce platform. We sat down with François-Xavier Degroot, our Lead Magento Developer and backend master, to pick his brain regarding some common challenges within the Magento platform.
Q1. HOW CAN MERCHANTS INTEGRATE
Q2. WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO AVOID A
Q3. WHEN AND WHY SHOULD A MERCHANT
MAGENTO WITHIN THEIR ERP SOLUTION?
WEBSITE CRASH DURING PEAK SEASON?
CONSIDER MAGENTO ENTERPRISE EDITION?
Define the right flows. There should be one flow for product, one for inventory and order sync, one for invoices and one for return merchandise authorization (RMA). Each flow should be determined before the integration process begins.
The short answer is to estimate traffic. To avoid costly server crashes, the goal is to forecast the greatest number of concurrent users expected. Based on this projection, the next step is to deploy the appropriate infrastructure to support this load of traffic: to which you should always add a 30% buffer.
Personally, I feel Magento merchants should start considering the Enterprise package when they start dealing with large amounts of product SKUs. A good rule of thumb is more than 30,000.
Choose the right method. There are a handful of ways to sync data between an ERP and Magento (Webservice, direct access to database, CSV files, XML files...). While each method comes with pros and cons, the best approach should involve three parameters: speed, robustness and availability. The more data can be exchanged with the ERP, the better the sync will be. Concretely, an efficient sync may prevent out of stock items from being sold. To anticipate is better than to adapt. There is nothing more frustrating than realizing that something is wrong without being able to identify where the issue stems from. Setting up notifications and alerts enables your business to prevent likely errors and keeps your website from losing potential sales. Test, test and test again. Since each ERP system has a unique set of specifications, it’s crucial to double check each step of the integration process, in order to avoid any interruption in the sync.
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Now is the time to test your assumptions. Once the infrastructure is ready to handle the forecasted traffic, run a series of stress tests. Experience has taught me that focusing on multiple scenarios allows me to confirm whether or not the influx will be supported. In parallel, this route certifies load times are acceptable for each page. Several online tools are available to run performance and load tests. Better safe than sorry. When crunch time hits and the traffic starts flowing, keeping track of the servers’ health is crucial. A foolproof monitoring strategy allows you to prevent problems before they occur. Steer clear of costly downtime, dreadful 404 pages, slow queries, unacceptable page load times and checkout errors with smart monitoring platforms such as New Relic, Pingdom or Google Analytics.
In a nutshell, this version offers more power and flexibility, which enables your business to spend less time and resources towards customizing your Magento website. Also, when compared to the Community Edition, the performance of the cache system is considerably higher in the Enterprise Edition. If you decide to upgrade to the Enterprise Edition, you’ll benefit from these useful features: RMA, customer segmentation, gift cards, loyalty programs, abandoned cart reminders and many more. These same functionalities can always be integrated in a Community Edition, but it’s more time consuming and the integration and maintenance of multiple modules (affecting Magento’s core basic modules) is challenging.
So there you have it, simple guidelines to start overcoming Magento related challenges. However, if you’re looking for some additional help to achieve this sync, feel free to contact us. We’d be happy to have a look at your processes and give your business the push it needs to succeed!
WE MAXIMIZE MAGENTO FOR LESS
EXPLORING THE iSTORE CASE ABOUT THE CLIENT iStore is a popular Canadian retailer and wholesale brand that was built around the unique idea of offering consumers the hottest new items of the digital age. It specializes in providing practical digital solutions, as well as innovative and trendy accessories for today’s popular tech products. From hip iPhone cases and wireless speakers to health and wellness devices, iStore gives today’s consumers the solutions they need to fit their digital lifestyle.
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OUR OBJECTIVES CREATE A COMPLETE ONLINE PRESENCE
CREATE A UNIQUE USER EXPERIENCE
When Le Site met with iStore, it was a popular retail chain that had not yet established an online presence for its brand. As its new digital partner, our main goal was to create a complete online experience that would complement its brand, engage its consumers and make its highly innovative products available to a wider audience.
iStore provides consumers with the hottest new items in the world of tech. Its devotion to excellence inspired us to create a unique user experience that would engage consumers and reflect its innovative concept.
PRESERVE BRAND IMAGE With its clean, minimalistic stores and its unmatched selection of the latest digital solutions, iStore has established itself as a no-fuss brand that stays ahead of today’s technological innovations. When we created its online presence, we matched and heightened the most important elements of the iStore brand to convey its uniqueness to online consumers.
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with many agencies in the past, but Le Site stands out as an agency that understands our business.”
Dimitry Zolotaryov, Director of E-commerce at iStore
OUR SOLUTION Since iStore had no previous Web presence, we began by developing a strategy that would help getting it noticed by potential online clients. A thorough analytical phase helped zoom in on its target market and determine what potential customers searched for online. This allowed us to ensure that iStore showed up in all keyword searches related to its brand.
the least amount of clicks. We developed unique search parameters within the website, so that people could find accessories by device, brand or even lifestyle. As a tech brand, iStore needed a website that would display well and function intuitively across all types of devices. As such, we created a responsive website with retina display that will cater to its tech-savvy audience.
We also analyzed consumer behaviour to create a website that could give people exactly what they were looking for in
We also added finishing touches and fun roll-over effects to make the experience feel more interactive. The creation of an
iStore Club allows returning purchasers to customize their experience and benefit from added savings. The result is a clean, beautiful and practical website that matches iStore’s brand image and provides a pleasant experience to consumers, whether they’re browsing for the first time or shopping for something specific. To top it all off, iStore’s new website received the “Best in Class” prize at the 2014 Interactive Media Awards. We couldn’t ask for more!
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PPC WINS: JACK & JONES ABOUT THE CLIENT With over a thousand stores in 38 countries, Danish fashion giant JACK & JONES速 offers cutting-edge clothing, accessories and footwear to men all over the world. Part of the BESTSELLER速 Group, JACK & JONES速 is experiencing extremely fast growth on a global scale.
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OUR OBJECTIVES
OUR PPC STRATEGY
JACK & JONES® Canada trusted Le Site to handle their digital ecosystem and build their e-commerce website on time for Black Friday 2014. Shortly after, the PPC holiday campaign was launched to drive online purchases from Canadian customers and build the brand’s recognition on search engines.
The initial search engine strategy was to focus on relevant keywords that were popular amongst the target audience at different stages of their online journey. All the keywords and phrases were then linked to the appropriate product pages to drive motivated traffic towards the right JACK & JONES® products. To ensure cohesive brand messaging, our SEM specialists aligned PPC efforts with the brand’s holiday sales events. The driving force behind our strategy was to optimize the allocated budget, in order to maximize return on investment.
OUR RESULTS
16% Total traffic increased MoM*
From December 22nd, 2014 to January 21st, 2015
25% Total revenues increased MoM
25% Total transactions increased MoM
385% Return on advertising spent
*Month over month
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SECURITY IS THE NEW BLACK What do Target, Ebay and Amazon have in common, other than being Fortune 500 companies? All have experienced severe security breaches in the last few years, such as credit card information theft and identity fraud. When it comes to hacking, websites’ sizes don’t matter. In theory, e-commerce managers all agree: website security must be a priority. However, the sad reality is that most of them do not take the time to understand the stakes at risk or look for proactive solutions to prevent catastrophic situations.
“Information security concerns everyone. After all, we’re exposed to information security risks every time we go online. No one should consider e-commerce without having security on their mind.”
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The first step towards a “safe website” is education: understanding the underlying risks and what these threats can entail is crucial. Aside from logic flaws, password management schemes and third party supplier intrusion, hackers come up with dozens of creative ways to breach your platform, every day. DISTRIBUTED DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACKS (DDOS) A DDoS attack is a CEO’s nightmare. Hackers manufacture a flood of traffic to your website which quickly overloads, causing it to crash -- and your sales to go down the drain. Attacks can last several days and are often seen as ransom notes. MEMORY SCRAPING MALWARE Malware can target data that’s stored temporarily and copy it in RAM. Some targeted JavaScript malware can even understand your payment process and can make its way to your customers’ credit card numbers.
SQL INJECTION When fishing for information, attackers can probe Web-based applications with SQL queries. Some databases are more at risk than others. At the end of the day, this depends on the strength of the platforms they’re built on. CROSS SITE SCRIPTING (XSS) This situation takes place when applications provide different browsers with untrusted user data. XSS can help achieve wrongful redirection while enabling invaders to take over users’ accounts.
Now that you have an idea of the major threats your website can experience, we wanted to go over a few cautionary measures to keep you safe: • Choose a highly secure e-commerce platform • Work with strong passwords • Partner up with reliable associates • Set up system alerts for suspicious activity and unauthorized code changes • Consider a Web application firewall • Use a secure connection for online checkout • Ensure your website is PCI compliant • Scan your website regularly for vulnerabilities and make sure your hosting partner is too • Avoid sharing login information by creating a unique ID for each employee
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INCREASE YOUR AVERAGE ORDER VALUE Average order value (AOV) is a defining metric for any online merchant, which focuses on the dollar amount associated with your average cart. The bigger the average sale, the greater the AOV. Increasing this number comprises several benefits, from increasing customer lifetime value to maximizing your overall revenues. That being said, tampering with customers’ spending habits can be a strenuous process for e-commerce managers. At Le Site, our result-driven experts rely on clever promotional calendars to optimize AOV.
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FREEBIES Everybody loves a freebie. The “AOV secret” behind product giveaways is really the order amount necessary to receive the promotional item. Shoppers will be tempted to meet the required minimum for them to receive a free gift. Expect your average carts to gain value while supplies last.
PRODUCT BUNDLES This timeless promotional technique is a play on mix and match. For example, a specific assortment of complementary products will make a discount available at checkout. Get 10% off when buying X, Y and Z together! You get the picture.
FLASH SALES & HOLIDAY PROMOTIONS A sense of urgency sells. Limited time events, such as flash sales (think of Black Friday or Cyber Monday) allow shoppers to benefit from sizeable discounts. When combined with free shipping, these short-lived promotions can boost your conversion rate and take your sales to new heights. Similarly, populating your promotional calendar with unusual holiday events and discounts (relevant to your product offering) enables you to drive sales during low season: Pi Day, Record Store Day, and Coffee Day could take on new meanings for your business.
FREE SHIPPING Driving customers to spend a certain amount of money to benefit from complimentary shipping is always a smart decision for online merchants. Not only does a predetermined price point for free shipping stabilize your AOV, but customers also tend to favour websites offering such a benefit, to simplify their decision-making process. You can also add a reminder for shoppers letting them know they’re only a few dollars away from receiving their order free of charge. This simple add-on can go a long way in securing sales from consumers.
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WHO ARE WE? “Le Site is a tight-knit team of talented, restless and curious individuals passionate about expanding the borders of digital performance. Our continuous learning philosophy and collaborative work ethic enable us to surpass our clients’ expectations. Our multi-faceted expertise has one common denominator: taking your results to new heights.”
WHAT DO WE DO? We push the borders of digital performance thanks to innovative e-commerce solutions.
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BUSINESS STRATEGY
DIGITAL STRATEGY
DIGITAL ANALYTICS
WEB DESIGN & UX
MAGENTO DEVELOPMENT
CONTENT MARKETING
CONTRACT RESEARCH ORGANIZATION
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
EMAIL MARKETING
PPC ADVERTISING
CLIENT DATABASE GROWTH
AFFILIATE MARKETING
CONTACT US TO KICKSTART A DYNAMIC PARTNERSHIP!
1-844-353-7483
info@lesite.ca
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OUR VALUES ARE EMBEDDED IN EVERY PROJECT WE DELIVER WE DON’T SETTLE FOR 4 STARS
WE FOCUS ON THE END USER
WE WORK TOGETHER
WE STAY CURIOUS
WE BUILD LEADERS
WE DON’T MAKE EXCUSES
WE LISTEN, THINK, BUILD, TRACK AND IMPROVE
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TESTIMONIALS
“Le Site is an A+ e-commerce agency. We took advantage of their A-Z digital service, which has made them invaluable to our organization. Their focus on strategic solutions and digital results has enhanced and re-energized our web business. The team’s personal touch and passionate approach make them a complete joy to work with. We highly recommend them.” Michael Borecky Director of Web Operations Mega Group - BrandSource
“One of the top e-commerce and digital marketing teams in the field. Le Site goes above and beyond to understand everything about your business, and to help propel you forward. Pragmatic in their approach, Le Site strives for results. They provide actionable recommendations adapted to complex realities. Put quite simply, Le Site gets it!” Severine Chriqui Director, E-commerce & Digital Marketing RUDSAK
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WORK WITH CANADA’S FASTEST GROWING MAGENTO-POWERED ENTERPRISE