Pulling Ahead in the Slump
Shane Evangelist loves a recession. Seriously.
The reason? According to the CEO of U.S. Auto Parts, the current slump in the economy has many consumers considering doing for themselves tasks they once paid others to do — like maintaining and fixing the family vehicle.
As a result, the online seller of aftermarket car parts is gaining customers while companies in other consumer-marketing sectors are losing them.
“We grew over 18% in June and followed that up in July, year over year,” says Evangelist.
U.S. Auto Parts does have one major challenge, however: a 70% shopping cart abandonment rate.
Why the high rate? Research and price comparisons.
“Over 80% of our customers are shopping three or more sites before they buy,” says Evangelist. “And over 50% of our customers are shopping six or more sites before they buy.”
He adds: “There’s no big brand name in aftermarket auto parts online.”
Big brands, such as AutoZone and O’Reilly, have done little to promote their brands online, he says. “The reason is that it’s an assisted sale,” says Evangelist. “Think about how you buy an alternator. You don’t walk down the aisle and put an alternator in your cart. You go up to the counter, say you need an alternator, and the guy behind the counter asks you a bunch of questions about the car you have and about the attributes of the part you want.
“Mainly what we battle is: ‘I’m not sure it’s going to fit my car,’” says Evangelist. “And we battle price. Typically, when you shop online it’s a price issue. In our world it’s a price and knowledge issue.”
To combat its shopping-cart abandonment challenge, U.S. Auto Parts last year launched a “re-marketing” campaign. Under the effort — undertaken with the help of its e-mail service provider Experian CheetahMail and its Web analytics provider Omniture — U.S. Auto Parts sends e-mails reminding people of their abandoned carts.
Compared to U.S. Auto Parts’ standard promotion e-mails, the re-marketing e-mails’ open rates — the percentage of people who have viewed the message with the graphics turned on — are double, bounce rates are 60% lower, click-through rates are 18% higher, and revenue per e-mail is 50 times higher, according to Evangelist.
RACE TO THE FINISH U.S. Auto Parts has tested a variety of approaches in terms of timing and what to include in the messages. Evangelist says getting to the customer quickly after cart abandonment — within 24 hours — is key.
In one surprising result, the company found that re-marketing e-mails that included the contents of the abandoned shopping carts performed less well than e-mails simply inviting the prospect to come back to the site.
“You don’t want to take a big brother approach and show them you have all this information on them,” says Houman Akhavan, vice president of marketing for U.S. Auto Parts. However, he adds, U.S. Auto Parts does tell the recipient why they received the e-mail.
“We do let them know they abandoned a shopping cart and we do give them the option of clicking on a link that will take them back to that cart,” he says.
Adds Evangelist: “I think they expect you to know what was in their cart, but I don’t think they like it when you start e-mailing that information around.”
And while he’d love to credit his firm’s marketing prowess for the success of its re-marketing campaign, he says he also knows some of the credit must go to the current economic climate.
“Great marketing tactics done in categories that are not receptive to buying are still great marketing tactics. They just don’t perform as well,” he says. “Great marketing tactics when you’re inside a category that is absolutely top of mind for people perform very well, which is why we’re finding a lot of our initiatives working well.
“We were doing the same thing last year, but we’re seeing a better result this year. We were just as smart then, but the marketplace is good right now,” says Evangelist.
