YPO’s strategic ecommerce optimisation
Maximising Value for the Public Sector amidst challenging economic times
Maximising Value for the Public Sector amidst challenging economic times
YPO are on a remarkable business transformation journey. Their mission is to improve the procurement landscape, offering an extensive range of products and services at unbeatable prices to various public sector organisations, including local governments, schools, emergency services, and more. With an unwavering commitment to serving UK communities, YPO strives to deliver the utmost value to their customers.
In their pursuit to deliver exceptional value to customers, YPO recognises that a fully optimised commerce experience is critical to their success. Their goal was to empower their customers to effortlessly compare products, access personalised recommendations, easily access offers and vouchers, and ultimately enjoy a seamlessly streamlined basket-to-checkout journey.
In order to accelerate innovation and time to value, we have adopted an agile approach to enhancing the digital customer experience in the form of a Business Transformation Retainer. This allows us to deliver incremental advancements to their ecommerce website, ensuring maximum value for their customers while improving operational efficiency.
Leveraging Sitecore’s Experience Platform, we have developed a foundation ecommerce site using flexible components, allowing for fast and easy content management and continuous improvement via A/B testing. Using the data captured combined with an ongoing programme of customer feedback, we have delivered several key enhancements to transform the customer on-site experience.
With a vast catalogue of over 23,000 products spanning various categories, from stationary to furniture, findability became paramount. A redesigned website navigation featuring multi-level categorisation gives customers access to a wider variety of product categories when browsing. This includes the option to browse by sector and product category, resulting in an impressive 363% uplift in page views. Additionally, the newly introduced mega menu showcases more imagery and serves as a platform for personalised promotional content, effectively alerting customers to the latest offers available to them.
YPO has embraced cutting-edge technology by integrating AI-powered search capabilities for customers who prefer to search over browsing. Leveraging intelligent algorithms, combined with some localised customisation – customers are swiftly guided to products and recommendations that are highly relevant and personal to them. Through enhanced navigation and search, customers can choose the most convenient journey for them, maximising their satisfaction.
Using Sitecore’s Experience Platform, we have joined forces to improve the public sector customer experience through personalised, omnichannel campaign management. A standout example of this is the customer loyalty campaign, launched at the end of 2022. The goal was to prompt as many customers as possible to use their loyalty vouchers before they expire. Using our library of components, a highly optimised landing page was created tailored to each user’s available vouchers.
YPO also enabled customers to use multiple campaign codes for a single order, delivering even more value. Targeted promotions through paid and social channels further amplified campaign success, resulting in impressive outcomes. The campaign period witnessed a 65% increase in total orders value, where campaign codes were used and also a staggering 152% in order discount value.
YPO focused on creating a frictionless checkout experience by analyzing behavioural data and conducting user testing. Improvements were implemented, including enhanced delivery messaging, improved payment options, tabbed design to guide customers through the checkout stages, and personalized product suggestions. These enhancements recently yielded record-breaking results for YPO’s commerce site, with February seeing a 16.7% YoY increase in total online order value (driven by an 8.3% rise in average order value and a 7.7% increase in total online orders). Checkout abandonment also significantly reduced, falling to just 19.99% in February 2023, 4% below the monthly average.
YPO is a 100% publicly owned company owned by 13 local authorities. They supply products and services to various organisations, including schools, local authorities, charities, emergency services, the public sector, and businesses like nurseries and care homes. The company’s profits are reinvested in the public sector, providing them with exceptional value for money. With an extensive range of approximately 30,000 products and 100 frameworks sourced from leading UK suppliers, YPO meets the diverse procurement requirements of many types of organisations. By leveraging the combined demands of multiple customers, YPO negotiates the best deals, offering customers a comprehensive selection of competitively priced products without compromising on quality or service.
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