From November 2007

By Karen M. Kroll

Each month, some 1.6 million unique visitors stop by the e-commerce site of Abt Electronics, a Glenview, Ill.-based retailer of consumer electronics and appliances.

Not surprisingly, Abt’s management team wants to ensure that those visitors have access to accurate, complete and updated information on the products they sell, which range from air conditioners and rice cookers to videogames. “We’re interested not just in a single sale, but in informing customers about their best options,” says vice president Jon Abt.

Several years ago, the company began working with WebCollage, a New York City-based provider of web content integration. WebCollage’s application enables manufacturers to easily distribute marketing materials to their Internet channel partners; online retailers using the solution automatically receive updated product information from the manufacturers whose products they sell.

While Abt has only one bricks-and-mortar store, it occupies 37 acres outside of Chicago and keeps more than 1,000 employees busy. Each week, the store makes more than 6,000 product deliveries, and better than 90 percent of its business comes from repeat or referral customers.

Maintaining its reputation for quality service poses some challenges when it comes to online sales. For starters, about 75 percent of transactions at www.abt.com come from beyond the store’s market area. While that may seem unusual for a retailer selling bulky appliances, Abt ships most items of less than 50 pounds for free and sends most appliances for a flat rate of $78 each.

Additionally, about two-thirds of store visitors now begin their shopping trip by researching various products at the Abt website. Ensuring that these customers have complete, updated product information is critical but, given the range of products it sells and manufacturers with which it works, meeting this goal isn’t easy.

Abt relaunched its website in May 2007. While the management team was leery of outsourcing such a critical aspect of its operation to a third party, WebCollage’s rich media offering, including video, alternative images and 360-degree product modeling, means that the site is more informative, interactive and exciting.

Consistent presentation
At the same time, the presentation of information is more consistent among manufacturers, products and categories. For instance, most product descriptions consist of a paragraph outlining the product, and bullet point lists of product features, specifications, dimensions and warranty information.

This is possible because WebCollage constantly pushes product information from manufacturers to retailers selling their goods online. Abt’s website is updated every few minutes.

“Brand-conscious manufacturers that have invested a lot of time and dollars in creating their marketing assets” often find it challenging to get this information to the retailers carrying its products on a timely basis, without expending an inordinate amount of time and money, says Jed Alpert, vice president of marketing with WebCollage.

WebCollage’s application is offered free of charge to retailers; manufacturers pay the costs, as they benefit by ensuring that retailers featuring their products offer accurate and complete information.

According to WebCollage, most firms that implement its solution find that visitors remain on the site longer because the website is more visually appealing and offers greater amounts of information and product photos.

More significantly, the company says, these e-commerce sites typically experience conversion-rate increases of between 6 and 15 percent. (In Abt’s experience, visitors are being converted at rates 3 to 7 percent higher than before.)

Next up: Abt wants to double the number of buyer’s and installation guides available on the site, as well as introduce blogs and podcasts.

“We have knowledgeable people in our stores, and we want to get their expertise out there,” he says.