Case Studies
Helping a garden centre bridge the gap between in-store and online
Gordon Rigg is one of the largest garden centres in the North West of England, enjoying over sixty thousand sq. ft. of retail space. Yet their online presence wasn’t driving any revenue and a recent rebuild had destroyed their SEO rankings… that’s when they came to us.
Client:
Gordon Rigg
Website:
Scope of Work
Discovery & Strategy
Technical SEO audit
UX Wireframes, full mobile & desktop site design
Fully bespoke WordPress theme
Custom plugin to integrate with Vector 3PL system
Custom Events booking system
Project Summary
Gordon Rigg have had an online presence since 2013, with the online store showing slow but consistent growth year-on-year.
In 2020, a new and more modern website was launched. This new site refreshed the look and feel of the site, however SEO was not considered, redirects weren’t put in place and there are a significant number of technical SEO issues with the site. As a result, traffic to the website dropped significantly and never recovered.
In addition to this, Gordon Rigg made the decision to use CSY ePOS system with Vector in their stores and were looking to re-platform to an eCommerce system that would seamlessly integrate with this.
The Challenge
Gordon Rigg’s top priority was to restore their visibility within search results at both local and national levels. They needed a website with live integration with their in-store ePOS system to ensure accurate, real-time stock management. With a large proportion of their stock being seasonal or only available for a limited time, it was unrealistic and inefficient for team members to make manual updates. In addition to this, they needed automated stock tracking to reflect low or out-of-stock items across their three locations as sales occurred.
Gordon Rigg’s delivery model included local, bulky goods, and national options, with certain items restricted to specific areas. On their previous site, customers had to manually select the appropriate delivery method during checkout, leading to significant conversion issues. Many customers either neglected to add delivery fees or abandoned their carts altogether due to the complexity of the process.
Our Solution
To solve the issues, we had to first address the customer funnel, ensuring we removed as much friction as possible from the process. We then had to ensure the new website didn’t take a significant amount of the team’s time to manage by maximising the automations and integration available with their in-store systems. Lastly, we did a technical SEO deep dive audit, including a full URL redirect plan and optimised URL structure to correct previous mis-steps and improve search engine performance.
Getting the design and site structure right
Overall, the design of the new site required minimal adjustments, it had a few glaring CRO issues which we fixed – but the primary focus was on optimising the user journey from product page to purchase, refining the main navigation, improving the information architecture, and implementing a more effective auto-complete search functionality.
Getting complex systems to play nicely together
From a technical perspective, we worked with the team at CSY to implement a direct two-way integration with their Vector ePOS system. This allowed the team to add items to their till system with the correct price and information and then that product would be automatically added to the website, instantly – with a live stock level.
All orders would be passed back to the Vector system as well, so stock could be put aside for online customers, ensuring nothing was oversold.
Lastly, we added a direct integration with their shipping courier options and gave them a bespoke pick list and packing slip facility.
Fixing the SEO issues of the past agency
Addressing the SEO missteps of the previous agency was critical. They had not only failed to set up any redirects but had also split the site across a root and subdomain, fragmenting SEO performance. HappyKite unified the domains and developed a comprehensive redirection plan.
We mapped over 5,000 unique URLs for products, categories, events, pages, and blog posts, ensuring no broken links or 404 errors. Additionally, we reviewed historic URLs from the older site and implemented redirects where necessary, significantly improving search engine performance and user experience.
The Results
Overall, the project took longer than anticipated due to challenges with bypassing the clients company firewall to push images from their local system to the web for optimisation. However, since the site went live a year ago, and at time of writing, the results have been fantastic. Revenue, average order value, and visitors have all increased, while organic traffic has not only recovered but continues to grow.
Not only that, but the website now serves as an efficient tool for the back-office team, significantly reducing the strain on resources in their busy operations.
Conclusions
If you’ve got a physical store and dream of having a unified product, stock, order and even customer list then know that it is achievable and perhaps not as costly as you might think.
Also, if you’re going through an eCommerce project rebuild right now and either you or your agency haven’t got a transition plan in place for SEO, including a redirection plan then stop immediately and talk to us – you are likely to significantly harm your business if you re-launch without solid plans in place.