As a B2B mail-order supplier of restaurant, hotel and catering products, VEGA saw mobile devices growing in importance alongside year over year. With more than a quarter of users engaging with their products on mobile, VEGA made the commitment to improve the user experience for mobile customers.
About VEGA
Supplier of tableware, barware, furniture and kitchen products for the hospitality industry
Part of Erwin Müller Group
Founded in 1993
www.vega-direct.com
Goal
Improve mobile user experience
Approach
Conducted detailed analysis of the existing mobile assets
Identified and executed user experience improvements
Used responsive design to ensure site worked on all devices
Results
30% uplift in mobile conversion rate for sessions that feature searches
27% uplift in mobile conversion rate
100% uplift in mobile revenue
The VEGA team understood that customers visiting the website from a mobile device may have special requirements. For example, while browsing VEGA inventory via smartphone they might be interrupted by guests, requiring them to complete their order later at the office desktop. Or, they might need to reorder from their mobile very quickly when glasses are broken unexpectedly during a busy evening shift.
Prior to making major changes to the user experience, VEGA and Google carried out a detailed analysis of the existing mobile assets. Through this process, they identified the most relevant areas for improvement of the mobile user experience. Because VEGA wanted to give users an optimal experience no matter what device they were using, a responsive approach emerged as the right choice the brand. VEGA then executed changes throughout the entire website.
On the homepage, the content was restructured to give less prominence to individual products in order to display top-level categories. This allowed users to get a better overview of the available product ranges, which were previously hidden in the menu. VEGA also exposed the search bar on the homepage, landing pages, product listing pages and product detail pages. Prior to this change, users could only access search on a mobile through a small icon in the navigation bar at the top of the page. This simple change led to a year-over-year uplift of 30% in mobile conversion rate for sessions that included searches.
"We plan to continue this successful data-driven optimisation process with Google in combination with an expanded A/B testing environment. As a customer-orientated company, this is the best way for us to get fast feedback on planned improvements."
– Mirko Lauer, Managing Director, VEGA GmbH
Previously, VEGA’s product detail pages were dominated by drop-down lists. Before being able to add a product to the basket, users would have to select size, colour, variants and style. VEGA simplified this by offering users the ability to add items to the basket first, then make more specific decisions after. Finally, the checkout was improved by restructuring the sign-in/sign-up screen so that clear actions are visible for every user above the fold. The forms in the checkout itself were also improved through live validation of all required fields. Live validating form fields like email address, phone number and postcode enables users to fix incorrect data immediately, reducing friction and abandonment.
Taken together, all of these improvements contributed to a 27% uplift in mobile conversion rate and 100% uplift in mobile revenue year over year. Encouraged by these results, VEGA is currently working on further improvements to the mobile user experience.
