What did we do?
What's been bothering them?
For one, their previous check-out flow was hurting conversions. Second, a lack of realtime data management caused inaccurate inventory and pricing information to be displayed. As a result, a considerable proportion of orders were not getting delivered as expected. At the same time, Pharmabox was struggling with competitiveness in terms of price. But by tackling aforementioned issues, we could shift their focus over to delivering the best possible customer experience, and use that as a competitive edge.
How did we fix it?
A full overhaul to get all the basics right was definitely on the menu. Despite Pharmabox' massive catalog, we still opted for Shopify as the backbone for the platform as it supports integrations such as Sendcloud and Mollie out of the box. These deal with product delivery, and payments respectively. We've also implemented an AI-based search engine. Next, we added guest checkout, set up a brand-new CMS, revamped their navigation and product pages, added smart filters, and integrated their newsletter. All in just 4 weeks time, mind you.
What are the results?
Now for the good stuff. The new Pharmabox platform went live early December 2020. Comparing the data between January 2021 and May 2021, there's nothing but good news. The conversion rate? Increased by 70%. Orders placed? More than doubled. The bottom line, is that Pharmabox has managed to literally double its monthly recurring revenue, at the cost of just 4 weeks of teamwork.
What did the process look like?
4 weeks was all it took for the Pharmabox platform to go live. After the initial design sprint, we learned that product filters seem to work best on product category pages, and that people don't search for specific products all that often, but would rather search products based on intent; two very important learnings that shaped the focus for the following two weeks of execution. The final week was spent making sure everything behind the scenes was running as it should, and we were ready for launch.
Here’s what the final product can do!
Let's take a look at two crucial features that shape the customer experience.
A flexible, AI-powered search engine
Similar to when people visit a pharmacy in the real world, they usually don't ask for a specific product but rather a solution for their ailment. We've implemented that same logic into the search engine on the website using AI. Rather than searching for specific products, customers can now also search by symptoms, for instance.
Realtime inventory and discount updates
One of the biggest issues Pharmabox was facing, was that when people viewed products on the website, and the stock and pricing information would not get updated in real time, meaning customers would I.E. order products that were actually out of stock, despite the website indicating otherwise. Properly integrating a product data management system with Shopify's back end fixed the issue.
A team we can get behind!
Bothrs' solution-driven way of working enabled us to tackle these challenges much faster and more effectively than we could on our own. They made us feel like we were a single team working on this project, with the results to show for it.
Maxime Bernaert - Operational Director at COOP Apotheken