Document Actions
December 19 2008
Halfords revamps website
The bikes-to-car-parts retailer has just rolled out a significant site upgrade into which systems integrator Salmon has incorporated a brace of leading edge ecommerce technologies and strategies...
Halfords has rolled out a suite of improvements and enhancements to its website, the result of a nine month project with Salmon to rework the site and take it on to the next level.
Key site enhancements include:
- Car spares search. Customers can now search on car registration or make, model and year of their car for such items as oil, batteries, car bulbs and wiper blades.
- Introduction of 'Guided Selling' for child car seats, CD audio, bikes and satellite navigation products for customers who may not know which product to purchase. The customer can answer questions and the system will produce filtered list of best fitting options.
- Introduction of a call-centre support site to assist the customer through advice, ordering, payment and store reservation. The call-centre site leverages the same platform as Halfords.com site but with additional call-centre features such as 'place order on behalf of'.
Salmon has built the Halfords site on IBM WebSphere Commerce and has integrated specialist services from a group of well known names:
- Bazaarvoice Customer Ratings and Reviews and Customer Questions and Answers
- DirectNews, providing independent news and analysis on the Halfords product range.
- Adobe Scene7, for more effective visual merchandising with zoom, pan and mouse-overs.
- ITIM Zygon Product Information Management to offer customers the ability to find and buy specific parts based on their car's make, model and year.
- Coremetrics for site and cross channel analytics and tracking
- IBM Omnifind, for better search functionality and the provision of SEO-friendly URLs
Other site enhancements include:
- A new design incorporating CSS and Ajax
- A floating menu navigation scheme
- Improved management of content and product offers via e-marketing spots
- 'Faceted' navigation in search and browse to allow multiple customer paths and exposure to entire product catalogue
- An online 'advice centre' now displays relevant content based on search results
- "Quick order forms" that allow shoppers to input catalogue numbers for faster product selection
Steve Lowe, head of service and channel development for Halfords, said "We have worked with Salmon to evolve Halfords.com in accordance with our customers' shopping habits and to ensure that our online offering is reflective of our customers' expectations. This investment has centred on improving search, convenience, service; and cross-channel optimisation".
"With 80% of the UK's adult population living within a 15 minutes drive of a Halfords store, the principal purpose of the new website is to further encourage customers to visit a Halfords store", continued Lowe.
Subscriptions