When the use of their web shop grew, Brødrene Dahl’s existing search solution could no longer cope with the 30,000-product catalogue. To better service the growing online customer base, Brødrene Dahl initiated a web shop update.
Brødrene Dahl, Norway’s leading wholesaler for plumbing, heating and sanitation products, is focused on delivering their services by embracing digital innovation and smart IT solutions.
Having implemented Voyado Elevate, providing automated online merchandising powered by AI, the solution delivered a 38% sales growth already the first month.
When the use of their web shop grew, Brødrene Dahl’s existing search solution could no longer cope with the 30,000-product catalog. To better service the growing online customer base, Brødrene Dahl initiated a web shop update. To improve the customer experience, they wanted a faster and more responsive search , and improvements of the site navigation and product recommendations.
“Above all, we wanted to increase product exposure and improve search by utilizing user behavior from our site. We thought AI and automation could be the solution,” explains Thomas Fehn, CIO & CDO at Brødrene Dahl.
The search for a solution to address these issues were initiated and several options considered. In the end, Voyado Elevate was chosen because of its ability to drive product exposure across the whole site through its innovative- search, product recommendations and navigation.
“It was what we were looking for – an automated solution with machine learning capabilities that enables every customer to see the most relevant products wherever they are on the site,” Thomas says.
The new web shop was launched in July 2018 as planned. To secure implementation quality, a technical proofing was performed just before launch and a success review after launch. Before handing over site management, the online team got an introduction through Apptus Academy and an introduction was held to the business management.
“Elevate used a lot of historical data, between 3 to 5 years’ worth containing around 1 000 000 million transactions, so the system quickly understood our customers,” Thomas continues.
With Elevate in place for over a year now, the company already sees positive results. Already in the first month sales went up.
“We see that the positive results come from delivering smarter results and recommendations to our customers. Thomas says. We saw sales grow from the first day we turned Elevate on but. However, we didn’t realize the potential at first. We’d previously seen growth of around 10-15%.
We got 38% with Elevate in the first month! It has performed far beyond expectations, and it is clear that automated merchandising has a place at the heart of our e-commerce activities and focus on customer experience,” Thomas explains.
AI and automation have become an important part of Brødrene Dahl’s e-commerce operations. Apart from astonishing sales growth, they see reduced costs and time savings since no manual interventions are needed.
“The more insights we get about the customer and the customer journey, the smarter solutions we can create. And it just works. We don’t do anything to it. We have not manipulated it or made any technical adjustments,” Thomas points out.
“I said to my team, let’s see what the performance looks like after a year, does it still have this growth or is it flat? We saw that in September that we were 30% up again compared to September last year! So why do anything to something that works? We just let it run and deliver results each month.”
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