The specialist informed us that the lens material is also of great importance to customers, together with the diopters and the radius of curvature. For example, silicone-hydrogel lenses are significantly better for eye health than hydrogel lenses.
Linzmarket online store
Launched August 17, 2017
Linzmarket.by is an online store of contact lenses and lens care products.
When the client contacted us, they already owed an online store. The site was on stream, although the sales were not sufficient. With regard to the sales from mobile devices, it was especially noticeable.
The customer requested us to create a simple and user-friendly website that will increase Internet sales.
Analytics
At the beginning of the project, we analyzed the customer’s site, the users’ behavior there and singled out some questionable moments. For example, we found out that users left the site because the filter was too high at the top of the site pages on mobile devices.
In addition to the online store, the customer owns a chain of optic stores and ophthalmologic offices. We continued to work on the project by studying the buyers’ behavior in offline. We visited an optic store in one of the city’s shopping centers and observed how customers were purchasing lenses.
So, the first two clients bought lenses with the prescription of the ophthalmologist. They were interested in whether the lenses of a specified type and with required diopters were in stock. We will say in advance that this kind of behavior turned out to be the most typical.
Many customers, though not all of them, asked about a particular radius of curvature in addition to diopters.
Clients often bought a solution together with the lenses.
In the optic store, we spent about 3 hours. Staying there, we also talked to the seller. As a result, we learnt a lot of useful information about the customers’ behavior of customers as well as found out about the problems they came across while making purchases.
Here are the main outcomes of our study:
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Approximately 80% of customers strictly follow the prescription of the ophthalmologist and regularly come back to buy the lenses of a specified type. They usually remember the name of lenses very well or can visually detect the packaging of lenses.
The remaining 20% select the lenses on the spot.
- For many customers, it is important not only to have the lenses with the required diopters, but also with the required radius of curvature.
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Among them are usually those customers who feel discomfort when wearing the lenses prescribed by an ophthalmologist, or those who would like to buy lenses at a lower price. In the store, customers often choose to buy colored lenses.
While making a purchase, these customers mainly get focused on the type of lenses: daytime, continuous wearing, astigmatic, colored, etc.
- Customers often buy a solution together with lenses.
After the optic store, we went to visit the medical center, where lenses could also be bought, and talked to the ophthalmologist.
We also found out the following:
- It is crucially important to consult an ophthalmologist while selecting lenses.
- Patients often do not know enough about the benefits and harms of lenses, the rules of wearing them, and eye health.
Implementation
Menu and Home Page
Do you remember our finding out that 80% of customers regularly come to buy the lenses of a specified name? In order to simplify the search process for these users, we moved out the ‘Brands of lenses’ section to the main menu. This section possesses an expanded drop-down menu that contains a list of lens names. To make any search more convenient, we grouped the names of the lenses by brand. Under the names, we placed the tips on the type of lenses.
We placed the images of lenses in the drop-down menu for those who visually remember the products. The user can see the images appear while hovering over the item titles.
The client can immediately get from the drop-down menu onto the page of the product required.
We added the ‘Lenses’ section to the menu for the remaining 20% of users who usually make their decision about buying lenses in the store as well as for the clients who visit the site for the first time and are not yet familiar with the variety of the store. Here, the lenses are grouped by types: daytime, colored, astigmatic, etc.
Clients, who would like to try another brand of lenses, can make use of a quick search function that we introduced on the home page. The user can specify the period of wearing lenses and the radius of curvature and choose lenses from the proposed options.
Customers can often act thoughtlessly and independently change the wearing schedule or the optical power of the lenses (Why not try weaker lenses?). In the case of wearing schedule, it is not crucial. However, changing a lens optical power without consulting a specialist may lead to vision deterioration. We warn the buyer about it next to the quick search form. At the same time, we sell medical services.
We also added to the home page the information about special offers and popular products.
Product Page
The information on the product page is provided for in order of importance: first, the most important features of lenses (material type, wearing schedule, replacement frequency); then, the lens parameters selection form and the ‘Add to the Basket’ button; and below, the rest of the information.
As we have found out, customers often purchase solutions together with lenses. Therefore, we provided for the possibility of ordering the solution directly from the lens page.
Basket
Customers can order the same product with different parameters. For example, if the vision acuity of the right and left eyes is not the same, the lenses with different optical powers are required. On the basket page, we introduced the grouping of these products for a more convenient viewing.
Order Page
The order process was thought through and implemented in such a way that the buyer would not have to go to the other site pages in order to clarify the information about the order content, delivery and payment.
For example, by choosing a delivery method, the buyer does not see all the methods, but only the ones available for the specified delivery city.
The cost is indicated next to each delivery method. It is recalculated according to the total sum of the order.
The available payment methods depend on the chosen delivery method. That is why the order process was made to be carried out in stages.
User Account
Customers who regularly order the same lenses can make use of the reordering function provided by the user account. Due to this function, the order process is reduced to a few clicks.
The user account also allows the client to see the status of the current order and to look through the detailed information about it.
‘Question – Answer’ Page
On this page, the user can ask the ophthalmologist about the rules of wearing lenses and eye health in general.
Results and Development
A month later, after launching the site, we analyzed the statistics of visits and sales and compared it with the statistics of the old site. On the new site, we have managed to reduce the number of abandoned baskets by 15%. The average check has increased by 11%.
Working on the site was not finished after its launch. Now we are involved in developing and improving the online store.
We will share the most interesting improvements that we have already achieved.
Case #1
After analyzing the customers’ behavior on the lens page, we saw that on their mobile devices the users did not pay attention to the ‘Left’ / ‘Right Eye’ tabs, nor did they use the ‘Only One Eye’ checkbox. That checkbox was intended for buying lenses with the same parameters for both eyes.
When the users needed lenses with the same diopters for both eyes, they simply filled in the form for the left eye, marked the required number of lenses and pressed the ‘Add to the Basket’ button. In this case, the form indicated an error, since the fields for the right eye were mandatory to be filled in.
The same story happened when some users who wanted to buy lenses with different parameters did not notice the ‘Left’ / ‘Right eye’ tabs and tried to buy lenses by filling in the form for the left eye twice.
In addition, with this pattern of behavior, users often could not figure out why the total number of lenses always included one piece more than the number they had marked in the form. This used to happen as the number of lenses for each eye was marked at ‘1’ by default.
After seeing this behavior, we realized that the order form of the lenses turned out to be too complicated. As a result, we removed the ‘Only One Eye’ checkbox, made the ‘Left / Right eye’ tabs more explicit and introduced the fields for the second eye as optional. The form no longer indicated an error if the parameters for only one eye were written down. The number of lenses got marked at '0' by default.
Case #2
Another case. As the description was detailed, the product page on the smartphone turned out too long.
We noticed that buyers while reading a detailed description were often distracted from ordering lenses and went to the other site pages. To help the users come back to the order of the products, we added an anchor link at the bottom of the page. It brings them to the lens parameters selection form. If the user has already added the product to the basket, we change the anchor for the ‘Go to the basket’ button.
Results of Testing Improvements
Case #1
By using Yandex Metrica Webvisor, we made an analysis of the new users’ behavior while looking through the product page. 95% of cases lived up to our expectations. Users can easily fill in the fields firstly for the left eye and then for the right one, and add the goods to the cart.
The customers whose both eyes are rated at the same diopters can fill in the form in any convenient way: by filling in the forms for both eyes or only the form for one eye.
Case #2
A month later, after introducing the anchor links to the product card, we analyzed what percentage of users added the goods to the cart from smartphones and compared the result with the previous data. Thus, the conversion increased by 1.55%, provided that the online store did not make any promotions within this month and there were no changes on the site.
We conclude that the changes proved to be really beneficial.
The website is available at:
linzmarket.by