Zachy’s implemented search engine optimization and a recommendation tool for online customers just in time for the 2013 holiday season. After seeing incredible results from these implementations, such as a 98 percent increase in online transactions, Zachy’s plans to deploy responsive Web design for mobile users within the next month, aiming to take its revenue for the 2014 holiday season to the next level.

“Search optimization and our recommendations really opened the eyes of our upper management,” said Victor Castro, director ecommerce at Zachy’s, New York. “It was such a big win for us given the fact that I joined the company in October 2013 and we were able to turn over these implementations in a couple weeks.”

Mr. Castro joined the Zachy’s team October 15, 2013, and executed the new innovations during the second week of November.

Responding to needs
Zachy’s ecommerce conversion rate is six times higher than its in-store counterpart, and since Zachy’s is aware that its customers know what they like and want, the search tool serves as a resource for issues like spelling and offering comparable products.

Foreign wine companies can be hard to spell, so the search tool has learning capabilities to guess what the user is looking for, along with remembering certain phrases the user enters, which are turned around and delivered back to the customer in the form of suggestions and are stored as results in the SEO system.

These stored results have created landing pages for the company and for customers to also reference. So far, more than two million landing pages have been created through customers’ use of the tool.

The recommendations tool has resulted in increased sales by driving customers to purchase recommended products based on their likes and prior purchases.

Metrics obtained from these implementations show a 13 percent increase in online conversion rate, 130 percent increase in overall revenue and a 19 percent decrease in bounce back rates.

About 35 percent of users are utilizing the site search tool, and Zachy’s executives are hoping to continue to increase these numbers.

Mobile is next
Given the short time between Mr. Castro’s hire date and the start of the holiday season, mobile implementations were not possible.

However, this calendar year has been spent forming a Web responsive design for mobile users, which will feature a multi-address checkout system and will be a faster process given its mobile capabilities.

Zachy’s hopes to execute a Web responsive design on its mobile site within a month.

“Mobile is our number one consideration moving forward,” Mr. Castro said.

Final Take
Caitlyn Bohannon, editorial assistant for Mobile Commerce Daily, New York