AGU
Successful e-commerce built on camaraderie and know-how
With more than 50 years of heritage, Dutch cycling brand AGU inspires and enables everyday riding for everyone. In search of a new e-commerce partner, with the expertise and collaborative mindset to become an integral, decisive component of its business, AGU found its perfect match in Youwe.
AGU is driven by meaningful relationships. For its customers, this means delivering solutions for every ride, every challenge, every day. AGU combines the highest quality with the best price, and has a passion for cycling that connects with its audiences.
For AGU’s partners, meaningful relationships are built on personal connections, becoming close colleagues, and operating as knowledgeable, trusted extensions of AGU’s company.
AGU took time to refocus and prioritise its e-commerce, marketing personalisation and automation, and even the creation of a solid CRO team. Around the same time, in search of a 'one-stop-shop, AGU found Youwe. AGU no longer needed to purchase services from different suppliers. The company was able to build a strategic partnership with Youwe, with all services available under one roof. With Youwe appointed as a pivotal member of this team, a strategic, consultative phase of accelerated innovation and growth began to emerge.
A strategic partnership where the personal touch, mutual trust and collaboration combine to generate outstanding online results.
Our solution
A strategic partnership where the personal touch, mutual trust, and collaboration are combined to generate outstanding online results
We began by upgrading the open source Magento installation to Magento Commerce, working alongside AGU and using an agile mindset that resonated with the client’s project team. Starting with a B2C environment in Magento, and rolling out multiple country versions, we then moved on to creating a B2B environment for dealers and wholesalers.
This dealer portal allows wholesalers to discover the complete AGU offering, not only the AGU brand, but also a wide range of supporting brands that AGU offers to their wholesalers. This leading-edge B2B environment featured hundreds of thousands of products from dozens of brands, along with product catalogues and custom pricing. Whereas the previous B2B environment was outmoded, this new incarnation is an enjoyable and seamless online experience. Product information is readily available, product selection is easy, and smooth, hassle-fee shopping now comes as standard.
We also helped AGU ensure its platform was 100% GDPR compliant, navigating the regulations and helping with the required double opt-in for collecting customer e-mail addresses, as well as making all marketing communications GDPR compliant.
A fully integrated e-commerce landscape
By introducing the Alumio integration platform, working alongside AGU we united the website with their backend product lifecycle solution, Centric. Now, all prices, order flow and stock are updated and displayed correctly online. We also used Alumio to integrate the Magento shop with Akeneo, AGU’s product information management (PIM) system.
Moving forward, the integration with Akeneo will be further updated to ensure we create an e-commerce landscape that is equipped to serve AGU for the next five years and beyond. For CRO, we began with heatmaps, using Hotjar, and reconfigured AGU’s Google Analytics account for optimum feedback and performance. This meant we immediately started generating ideas for platform optimisation based on solid data. Combining data insights with customer feedback and market experience, we were able to prioritise improvement ideas and make rapid progress.
Our ideas and proposals weren’t just implemented. We leveraged quality A/B testing to make sure each platform optimisation is the right one. With continuous feedback and testing loops, close collaboration with development teams, and methodical documentation, implementation was effective, and platform improvements came swift and frequently.
Unleashing the power of Marketing Automation
AGU knew that its marketing automation tooling and efforts needed to improve, but the team was slightly unsure of how to proceed. The company was also unsure whether they used their marketing automation partner, Dotdigital, in the right way to get the most from it. In multiple ways we were able to show them how to use the technology to get the best possible results every time.
We organised a three-day training workshop for AGU’s team, demonstrating a wide variety of functionalities and explaining about email setups that potentially double the click through and open rates. While AGU already sent out basic email campaigns and weekly newsletters to its loyal subscribers, there was no personalisation. With the necessary training and direction, AGU began to increase revenue with tailored email campaigns.
The results
As strategic partners, together Youwe and AGU deployed a comprehensive and successful e-commerce offering
With a webshop primed and ready to compete for years with AGU’s biggest competitors, a multiyear contract and strategic plan has now been agreed upon. This is designed to take AGU’s IT infrastructure, platform and ecommerce successes to an even higher level.
Conversion optimisation was a key priority for 2022, and strong conversion uplift results have been achieved on limited budgets. With up to six A/B tests per month, an influx of valuable data allowed for exceptional results.
One example, for Germany, showed that communicating AGU’s heritage, beginning in 1966, resulted in a 14.3% uplift in conversions. Customers were enticed by the company’s long history of delivering high quality products.
In addition, a change to the cart and checkout setup led to a 9% conversion uptick for the German webshop, and an increase of 4.3% for the Dutch store.
Higher conversions with CRO
For email campaigns, changing the mindset from one of sending out weekly newsletters, to sharing personalised relevant emails has led to an open rate increase of 7%. Also, an abandoned cart email campaign has resulted in an increase of 21% in abandoned cart revenue recovery.
Optimising the webshop’s conversion rates will always remain an important element of e-commerce success. Akeneo, Alumio, and Magento are appointed as important partners and AGU’s digital marketing strategy will be shaped further with email and CRO. The strategic roadmap, built on close partnerships, has laid the groundwork for future integrations to secure AGU’s place on the international e-commerce landscape for many years to come.
