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November 18, 2005
New e-Catalog Powered By ActivePoint Delights Online Customers of Maplin Electronics
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
November 18, 2005
1,000 - page catalog goes interactive resulting in rapid increase in online sales conversion rates to 15 percent of visitors
ActivePoint (www.activepoint.com), a company that brings in-store consumer shopping processes to the Web, announced that Maplin Electronics, with over 100 stores and 5 million online visitors monthly, is using an innovative interactive online catalog from ActivePoint. Since rolling out ActivePoint's virtual catalog, EasyFlip, Maplin's sale conversion rate averages 15 percent, based on usage of the new feature seen at http://www.activepoint.com/maplincatalogp10/enter.html.
"The challenge has always been to present all of our products in an intuitive and easy to view manner, as there has always been a problem as to how many products you can show online given things like bandwidth restriction, screen resolution, and the ability to interact," said Chris West, Internet Channel Manager of Maplin Electronics. "ActivePoint's EasyFlip, or what we call e-book, lets the customer interact like they would with our main printed catalog, but now they can hover over a product, zoom in, and get further details, and, the nice thing is it is integrated with our online purchasing process," added West. "The bottom line is that customers think the e-book is brilliant, and it's a good way of keeping our customers," West continued.
Sales at Maplin Electronics, a company that started over 30 years ago in the UK, have always been driven by its catalog, which today has some 12,000 items spanning about 1,000 pages. The company continues to print the catalog as it conveys information to customers in an easy-to-understand manner. However, the large electronics retailer needed a solution that would get that wealth of information onto its Web site while retaining its user-friendly nature.
Maplin monitors its e-book usage and has found that 11 percent of new customers make a purchase after using the new information tool, and 17 percent of existing customers that use the e-book go on to make a purchase. Overall, Maplin conservatively estimates that ActivePoint's EasyFlip will increase its overall sales by five percent.
ActivePoint's EasyFlip delivers the type of helpful, interactive experience customers are accustomed to when flipping through an "old fashioned" print catalog. EasyFlip can leverage the familiar sales circular or catalog with newly developed web-based features and can be customized according to each client's unique specifications. It can also be integrated with ActivePoint's TX5(TM) site discovery technology, interactive chat session and help desk to provide a highly interactive and profitable web site for retailers.
"Our vision is to improve the online buying experience, so that it is even more convenient and effective than walking into a store and talking to a sales associate," said Moshe Ofer, CEO of ActivePoint. "And I think we are getting closer to making this happen. Maplin's high sales conversion rates show plenty of promise in that direction."
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