Ventilatieshop is a classic success story: from an installation company for air conditioners to wholesalers for installation companies, to a specialized webshop for professionals and consumers. The latter turned out to be a golden choice, but what would be a wonderful finish line for many people became the impetus for even greater adventures for Ventilatieshop — in close cooperation with Yellowgrape. The collaboration started with a new design and migration from Magento 1 to 2. Then there was trust and things really went wild, with an overall strategy for the Netherlands, Belgium and the rest of Europe. You can read the trip report here.
Jeroen Hendriksen was born into the installation industry: his father had a successful installation company for air conditioners and - since 2000 - a wholesaler for installation companies. In 2012, Jeroen came into the picture when he founded Ventilatieshop.com; a webshop that not only delivers to professionals, but also to normal consumers. That turns out to be a hit. The range and service are a perfect addition to the regular hardware store. DIY enthusiasts in the Netherlands and Belgium appreciate the knowledge-driven service level and the generous range of products. The webshop is rapidly growing in popularity and size and within seven years, the Ventilatieshop will convert more than 5 million a year.
It's 2019 when Jeroen Hendriksen and Commercial Director Christiaan Jansen knock on Yellowgrape's door. The shop has run on Magento 1 so far and it is time to upgrade to Magento 2; an excellent time for a new design. The guys at Ventilatieshop find the step exciting — a common position for entrepreneurs who have built a success formula with their own hands. The shop is like a child, everything has value and meaning. “Don't see the blue sky in the banner,” it sounded, for example. There is never a shortage of sacred houses.
At Yellowgrape, we love beautiful, clean designs, but the first and most important measure is always what the design does for conversion. This invariably leads to enthusiastic conversations with the client, something we attach great importance to. Together, you will come to choices that do justice to both the identity and the functionality. The layout was given a smarter layout. The menu, category and page structure was overhauled. Information was presented differently and the site was generously provided with proven principles of influence.
The blue sky? It stayed, but it took on a narrower, more visual appearance. And as the English say nicely: the Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating. Almost immediately after the launch of the new design in Magento 2, conversion increased by 15 percent. It would form the basis for a much more far-reaching collaboration.
“We love beautiful, clean designs, but the first and most important measure is always what the design does for conversion.”
We can calmly chat through 27 pages of relevance about the process we have taken with Ventilatieshop. The business case includes everything you can work on: analysis and redesign of all data sources, a total makeover of the existing marketing channels, setting up new channels, building 360-degree customer profiles, dashboarding, automation across the board, getting all relevant functions within Ventilatieshop itself up, cool campaigns, integration with the physical store. And those are the separate elements of the story. The real story lies in the capillaries where everything interacts smartly, reinforces, succeeds, paves the way to customer journeys where the final destination is unmissable.
The results show that it works. This is not the place for exact figures, but we can say that we are far outperforming our own, not childish growth plan.
Server-side testing CRO
Tweaking the CRO was an important part of the strategy. This time, we experimented with a CRO test that was set up server-side. In contrast to a regular A/B test, you build the variant in the website itself. From the website, you divide traffic between the original and the variant. You forward the tracked data to Google Analytics for final analysis. By testing on the server side, there is less impact on the loading speed of the page and less dependence on cookies.
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Ventilatieshop.com had considerable business in Belgium. However, you could see that the shop was primarily designed for the Netherlands. Part of the business case was an internationalization strategy. The first step was a separate shop for the Belgian market. That was still quite an exciting operation, especially when it came to SEO, as the existing customers now had to be redirected to the new site. Kudos to our SEO specialists who managed this process in a super tight way. Within 4 months, we had overtaken the market leader in Belgium when it comes to the most important SEO positions. The new Belgian shop is growing like a charm and exceeds all expectations.
Ventilate new countries
We have now analyzed the opportunities in other European countries. There are many of them. We have developed the first business cases. Here, we investigate the market, determine down to the decimal point what the targets are, and what strategy we follow. The first country will go live in the second quarter of 2022, with new countries coming soon. Europe is here we come!
Trust plays a key role in thoroughly intervening in someone's life's work. In that process, it is very important that you work together, put all the choices on the table in advance and provide them with a good, numerical basis.
When trust was firmly established after the design process, we got to get to work on the real work: an e-commerce strategy that optimizes all the individual elements, connects smartly and is based on a solid data proposition. The deal was one based on results. And the results went through the roof.
We are now in the final phase for now: rolling out business cases in other European countries. The rapid growth in Belgium promises a lot. Good news, also for the world, because ventilation is good for health and an important part of the energy transition. This case makes us happy!
