Ecommerce

Increasing Revenue with Data-Driven Design: Q&A with Blue Acorn

By Tinuiti Team

Data-driven Design, Development & Optimization

kevin-eichelberger-blue-acornFrom budget management to communication, we discuss the most common challenges facing eCommerce design, development and optimization for retailers in 2015 with Founder and CEO at Blue Acorn Kevin Eichelberger.

Blue Acorn is a Demandware LINK Solution Partner, a Magento Gold Solution Partner, and maintains certified partnerships with Google Analytics, Monetate, and Optimizely. They help brands and retailers leverage qualitative and quantitative data to grow their revenue and deliver results their sites.

Q. What are the most common challenges retailers face?

Budget Management:

“Our clients have long to-do lists, but also have budgetary and timeline constraints. Our clients trust us to to help them prioritize and focus on initiatives that provide the greatest benefit available for the cost, and that’s where our data-driven philosophy comes into play.”

“The reality is, every site has room for improvement, and every client has a list of things that could have been done better. We gather and analyze data to determine what impacts the customer the most, and then prioritize those that will have the most impact based on numbers.”

Communication:

“As with any service-based business, communication is key to ensuring successful relationships. Our clients are located throughout the United States, so we’ve adopted systems and business practices to focus on over-communication.”

“While our clients represent varying industries and each have their own personality, we look for clients whose values align with our own. The more we understand our client, the better we are at communicating.”blue-acorn

 

Q. What advice do you have for retailers struggling with design, development and optimization solutions?

“It’s a struggle for everyone. I don’t know of a single organization that has the budget and time to do everything they want. It’s about prioritization, not just what you think will make a big impact, but what’s going to make the biggest impact for your customers.”

“Is it rolling out a new feature? Changing your design? Redefining your checkout flow? You shouldn’t be answering these questions, your customers should.

Q.What is a bold prediction that you have for online retail in 2015?

“I’m typically not one for bold predictions, but we’ve been hearing about “social commerce” for years without it gaining much traction. I believe Pinterest will make a big splash in this scene with their roll out of buyable pins. Pinterest is, after all, a very curated and targeted collection of products based on the end user.”

“There’s also pressure from investors to monetize and generate revenue from other social networks, and maybe 2015 will be the year they crack the code to generate revenue through commerce.”

About Blue Acorn

“We look at our business as continually improving, and there are accomplishments that happen here every day. A culture of continuous improvement is an accomplishment in itself. We built a 115+ person business without any outside debt or funding and we did it in a city not necessarily known for technology.”

“We’ve drawn a lot of talented people to the area and created a 100% Charleston-based, in-house team. At the end of the day, we measure our success based on the successes of our clients, and there are too many of those to mention.”

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