Best Buy is a specialty retailer that provides
technology products, services, and solutions to consumers. The retailer has stores around the United
States, Canada, and Mexico. In the
United States, 70% of the population is within a short drive of a company store
(About Best, n.d.). Brick-and-mortar
stores are important to the success of Best Buy. In 2014, it was reported that the company
owned 18% of the market share when looking at brick-and-mortar stores
alone. However, the company doesn’t have
as big of an online presence. Last year,
Best Buy only had 7% market share of the online category (Best Buy, 2014). To help grow the online program, the company
dedicated a lot of new strategies to the channel.
Online
Approach
The company is using an omnichannel approach as it
tries to hit a customer regardless of their location or device. This approach started after the company used
analytics to understand the impact of a customer using multiple devices when
interacting with the company. It was
proven that website visits are valuable even if there isn’t an immediate
return. One example is with mobile
devices, the company has reported that a customer who visits the website on a
mobile device is 15% more valuable to the online program. In addition, the company understands that
mobile visits can add value beyond online purchases. A lot of customers go online before visiting
a store. Therefore, after analyzing the
data, the company found that a customer that visits the website on a mobile
device becomes 25% more valuable to the overall company (Best Buy, 2014).
Best Buy is also making adjustments to improve their
online experience. The company is
working on several strategies including the conversion path, personalization,
and online and offline integration. The
conversion path relates to minimizing the amount of clicks needed to make a
purchase. Ideally, the company is trying to get it down to three. From a personalization perspective, the
company is trying to place products at the top of the page that makes sense
based on a visitor’s behavior and characteristics. Finally, the company is trying to integrate
the online efforts with the offline channel.
This included adding a pick-up in store option for online purchases and
integrating local store inventory levels to help with out of stock items
(Fitzgerald, 2013)
Tools
Having the right tools is vital to a company’s
success. From research, it looks like
Best Buy is investing with Adobe products to help them analyze their company. In 2012, Adobe wrote an article on the company’s
partnership with Best Buy and their use of the Adobe Insights tool. This tool allowed the company to analyze
online to store data, the use of multiple devices, and digital channel
touchpoints to understand the consumer’s behavior from an attribution standpoint
(Halbrook, 2012).
With the data needed for Adobe’s Insights tool, an
assumption would be that Best Buy uses other Adobe tools such as Adobe
Analytics to help analyze their online data.
Adobe Analytics is a real-time analytics platform that can help
companies understand customer interactions.
This will include a website’s visitor numbers, conversions, and attributes
attributed to each visit (Adobe Analytics, n.d.). Adobe Analytics allows Best Buy to look at
granular data to help create stories that lead to future strategies.
How
Best Buy Uses Data
All the data collected by Best Buy is used to
understand their customers in an effort to provide a better experience that
results in more conversions. Adobe’s
Insights tool helps with this objective as the company is able to gain a better
understanding of customer interactions. An
example can be seen when the company analyzes category level pages on mobile
devices. An obvious page that leads to a
store visit is the store locator page.
However, the Home Theatre Accessories category pages led 26% of visitors
to a store over a 2 week time period (Halbrook, 2012). This was surprising to the company and
allowed them to understand an opportunity from a landing page optimization
standpoint.
Optimization is a general word but it ties back to the
company’s reason for collecting data and describes the strategy for using the
data collected. Whether it’s
personalizing a visitors experience or making changes to the conversion funnel,
the company is always trying to make it easier for a customer to make a
purchase. To help understand the effect
of their changes, the company using analytics to create stories of success or
opportunity.
Additional
Tool
Since Best Buy is already invested in Adobe, the
company should look at other product offerings from the company. If they aren’t already using the tool, the
company should implement Adobe Test and Target.
It was mentioned earlier that the company looks at the behavior of
difference audience segments. The
example used was related to mobile Home Theatre Accessories category pages that
lead to in-store purchases. With this
knowledge, the company can implement personalized experiences through Adobe
Test and Target to help lead customers to the store. The tool can also be used to help analyze the
results to see the effect of any website changes.
Best Buy can use this tool to do testing across the
website whether it relates to personalization or A/B testing. An example of an A/B testing opportunity can
be seen on the company’s home page.
There are three category links that show on the home page as seen
below. The company could test various
categories in this space to understand if one category performs better than
another one.
Additional
Metrics
Best Buy’s website captures a lot of data that can be
transferred into strategies. After
looking at their website, the company should be collecting multiple conversion
metrics in addition to orders. This
includes registry creations, email signups, and app downloads. These metrics could be considered
micro-conversions for the company. Each one
of the micro-conversions will prove to have long term revenue value if analyzed
properly. Therefore, it’s important to
take these into consideration when analyzing the success of the website.
Data
Capture Opportunity
On the category pages, the company allows customers to
filter their results. As customers use
the filtering feature, Best Buy should be collecting this information. It can then be used to customize what
products show at the top of the page or in promotional banner ads. This data can also be used to create audiences
for personalization efforts for returning customers. Another opportunity to use this data could be
in paid media tactics if the company has a tool such as Adobe Audience Manager. This tool allows the company to target media
such as display ads based on website data.
Data
Analysis Opportunity
When trying to buy an item on the Best Buy website, it
takes at least 5 clicks to make a purchase.
The first click is made when someone places an item in their cart. While forming an example, the first click
promoted a pop up window that asked about adding Geek Squad. The interesting thing with this is that the
continue button was below the page fold on my laptop. The company should analyze the effect of this
pop up on the final conversion. If a
customer does continue with the purchase, Best Buy should analyze the point in
which people leave the funnel if they don’t make a purchase. This data can then be applied to a new design
strategy that looks at making a shorter conversion funnel.
Conclusion
If companies have the right analytics tools, they will
be able to perform a lot of different analysis projects on their website. Each analysis will form a story that leads to
future strategies. As companies
implement new strategies, it will be important to continue looking at the data
to understand the overall effect. In the
end, this will be a continuous project as the company tries to optimize the
customer experience.
References:
Adobe Analytic. (n.d.). Retrieved
December 7, 2015, from http://www.adobe.com/marketing- cloud/web-analytics.html
About Best Buy. (n.d.). Retrieved
December 6, 2015, from https://corporate.bestbuy.com/about- best-buy/
Analytics-enhanced reporting.
(n.d.). Retrieved December 7, 2015, from http://www.adobe.com/solutions/testing-targeting/analytics-enhanced-reporting.html
Best Buy To Benefit From Increasing
Online Sales. (2014, June 19). Retrieved December 6, 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/06/19/best-buy-to- benefit-from-increasing-online-sales/
Fitzgerald, M. (2013, November 20).
Best Buy Adopts an Omnichannel Strategy, Mixing Stores and Online Sales | MIT Technology Review. Retrieved December 7,
2015, from http://www.technologyreview.com/news/520821/best-buy-battles-back-online/
Halbrook, M. (2012, April 11). Best
Buy & Adobe Insight: Connecting Web & Mobile to Store Sales. Retrieved December 7, 2015, from http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/mobile/best-buy-adobe-insight-connecting-web- mobile-to-store-sales/
