Kean’s of Claremorris was first established in the Mayo town in 1905. Back then, it was a community pub and grocery store. Today, the shop sells a broad range of domestic appliances, computers and electronic equipment, garden furniture and homewares. A partner of United Hardware Group and Euronics, it implemented its first eCommerce site at the end of 2019 – a stroke of luck, as the physical store saw a dramatic reduction in footfall with the onset of the pandemic.
Kean’s of Claremorris first implemented an eCommerce platform at the end of 2019. After the retailer installed Shopbox in May 2022 its online business got another major boost, with an uplift in online orders and geographical expansion. Kean’s is now rapidly expanding from serving customers in a relatively small catchment area to providing a service that extends to all four corners of the island of Ireland.
The Challenge
“There was an immediate upsurge in online traffic and purchases after our online store went live. We had a lot of teething problems with eCommerce at the outset, but that’s to be expected. For example, the online shop went live before it was linked to our ePos system, so inventory wasn’t tracked,” according to Mark Kean, Director, Kean’s of Claremorris.
Kean’s refreshed the website with the help of a web design agency in mid-2020 and saw its online sales increase exponentially. “Very few people were coming into the store, even though we were providing an essential service and could therefore remain open, so we had to deliver everything,” Mark recalls. Yet, despite a couple of further refreshes, there was a feeling that the site was not yet ready to compete effectively after the lockdowns.
Then Mark Kean was introduced to Shopbox AI via a mutual contact at Retail Excellence Ireland.
“I looked at how Shopbox AI was helping other retail companies and listened to these companies’ recommendations and was convinced that we should give it a go ourselves.” Mark Kean, Director, Kean’s of Claremorris
Kean’s believed that Shopbox AI’s platform could help them to overcome a couple of persistent concerns. “We were getting a lot of feedback from shoppers saying they had trouble finding particular items. People were often unsure of the right search terms … perhaps they don’t know the brand they are looking for, whereas Shopbox is so smart that it guides people to the right products based on what they’ve already looked at and their behaviour,” Mark explains. “Shopbox also gave visibility to certain stock items that were being overlooked,” he adds.
AI-powered carousels on a Product Detail Page on Keans' website
Solution
Fast setup, ongoing support
The implementation of Shopbox was completely seamless – the software was uploaded remotely and just a few tweaks were needed to optimise its performance. There’s no need for ongoing maintenance, either. It first went live with the Shopbox AI Shopping Assistant in May 2022 and was upgraded to the curated homepage the following month.
Increased brand affinity
With Shopbox, shoppers can see similar products, and products recently viewed, in the bottom left corner of the screen. This helps guide people to what they are looking for, which brings shoppers deeper into the online store, increasing its stickiness.
“The more time a shopper spends browsing our catalogue and discovering relevant products that they might not even have known about, the greater their affinity with Kean’s as a brand,” Mark Kean explains. By engaging customers at every touchpoint, Shopbox decreases the bounce rate – and each interaction brings them closer to making a purchase. A carousel shows the shopper “other products you might like” based on what they have already looked at. This helps to boost sales in sometimes unexpected ways.
“We’ve seen products that were previously slow to move suddenly flying out of our warehouse because Shopbox finds them for the shopper.”
A seamless shopping experience
If people leave the site and then return, they can pick up where they left off. “Shopbox guides people from their first click through to checkout, even if their journey is interrupted, and even if the last product they looked at didn’t quite suit them. We’ve noticed a significant reduction in the number of abandoned shopping carts since we introduced Shopbox,” Mark says.
“The nice thing is that, while Shopbox engages with shoppers at every stage in their shopping journey, whether they’re on the homepage, on the product listing page or product display page, it is very unobtrusive.”
“I think this is important as a lot of people find pop-ups aggressive and annoying,” he adds. With Shopbox, it’s entirely up to the shopper whether they want to use its features or not.
The results so far have been exceptionally positive. Not least, a nearly fourfold increase (293%) in the conversion rate. Moreover, customers who use the Shopbox view, on average, spend over four times longer on the site per session and view more than twice as many website pages.
“Shopbox provides the kind of functionality normally reserved for global players like Amazon. It’s already making a significant contribution to our competitiveness and confidence to expand geographically as well as adding to the bottom line to support our growth.”
