AllDorm Case Study

Small Changes Increase Average Order Size by More Than 10%

"Your college everything superstore!" touts AllDorm on their web site (www.alldorm.com). And they're not kidding. From those extra-long twin-sized sheets (designed to fit the standard dorm room bed) to magnetic organizers to blowup sofas to dorm room 'survival packs,' AllDorm is the that satisfies a college student's every need. AllDorm is a company that's intimately familiar with the college market and the typical dorm room�the company was founded by four college students in 2000, from the relative discomfort of their own dorm rooms�they saw that the college market needed a one-stop-shop to get everything they needed.

AllDorm's CTO Chad Arimura knew he need to get a grasp on how visitors were interacting with the AllDorm website. "With the amount of data available, analyzing the effectiveness of an online storefront can be a marketer's dream, or his nightmare. Our motivation in seeking analytics software was to obtain a "360 degree view" of our store. By that, I mean everything from branding effectiveness, to individual marketing campaign results, down to button layout and click through exposure--who's is going where through the site. Take out the analytics software," noted Chad, "and it's about as successful as trying to paint a picture blindfolded."

Before ClickTracks

"Suffice it to say that we had an idea that some areas of our web site were underperforming, but we couldn't put our finger on exactly where. Our gut feeling was that we were confusing our visitors with too many choices, and that our navigation wasn't exactly clear," said Chad.

Analyzing the site in ClickTracks confirmed their suspicions, and highlighted other areas of the site that needed some help. The paths that visitors were taking didn't lead them past other products that might be of interest�in other words, there was very little upsell. "Visitors weren't being drawn into other product categories or areas that were complimentary to the initial product they were considering purchasing," noted Chad.

After ClickTracks

After their ClickTracks analysis, the AllDorm team made a few changes. "After viewing visitor patterns in ClickTracks, we determined that made small tweaks not only to our navigation, but in our content," said Chad. "The changes that we've made addressed both of those issues, resulting in an increase in the length of time a visitor stays on the site by 20%. We've also been able to provide customers easier routes to related products, increasing our average order size by more than 10%.

ClickTracks is also 'the great leveler', settling debates between IT and Marketing. "When a decision needs to be made around a quantifiable goal (getting more users to click, increased retention to a page, etc.) we can now simply say to our developers, "Ok, make the change, we'll see if ClickTracks agrees with you". A week later, we'll check the data, if the results can be proven without a doubt, the change stays; if not, it goes. Why argue about something when our own users can settle every dispute?" Well said, Chad!