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Case Study: How 31DOVER doubled its conversion using Shopware

31DOVER is the UK’s fastest growing online drinks retailer. They belong to DMD Ventures Limited and were created by the founders of Vanquish Wine, who named them after the original offices at 31 Dover Street in London. Vanquish Wine are London’s leading premium drinks distributor to the trade, supplying the capital’s top restaurants, bars, hotels and nightclubs with wine, Champagne and spirits for over twelve years. It’s this provenance, drinks expertise and industry strength that has enabled 31DOVER to grow into the UK’s leading wines and spirits online retailer.

Key Facts

Shopware Edition

Company

  • Online drinks retailer in London
  • 6 years in business
  • 20+ employees
  • 1,600 SKUs and growing

Industry

  • Alcohol industry

Characteristics

  • B2C
  • B2B 

Technical features

Implementation

  • Realised by Shopware Enterprise Partner GPMD Ltd
  • Implementation within 7 months

Relaunch Success

  • Conversion rate goes from 1.40% to 1.80%, an increase of 28.3%
  • Conversion rate is particularly improved for organic search customers, going from 0.90% to 1.88%, an increase of 108.1%
  • Transactions go from 5408 to 6063, an increase of 12.1%

Challenge

31DOVER’s old site had several problems that needed to be addressed. The conversion rate was low, and the design outdated. The ERP set up needed a complete overhaul, and there was a growing need to look at how best to serve the B2B arc of the business.

Naturally, 31DOVER also wanted to see sales growth, and a more streamlined shopping and checkout journey.

Solution

There were a variety of reasons that made 31DOVER move to Shopware. When looking at platform choices they wanted something that provided enterprise level out-of-the-box functionality, as well as a partner who could guarantee longevity and steady growth.

With Shopware, 31DOVER found an ecommerce platform that meets its requirements. Of great importance was the quick and easy presentation of products in the right places, as well as segmentation and personalised content, which is possible with Product and Customer Streams. 

“We want to provide customers with a truly emotional online shopping experience and by using Shopware we can bring brands to life. Making better, data driven and trend-led recommendations to customers of 31Dover to help them discover new, unique and craft drinks is at the heart of our promise,” explains James Bagley, CEO at DMD Ventures.

Agency partner, GPMD, revamped the overall design, look and feel of the brand. The re-designed checkout has meant that the overall average conversion rate has risen to 3+% month-on-month since site launch. Meanwhile, the ERP set up was re-integrated, removing the single point of failure by streamlining integrations between the warehouses and the current system, thus improving communication between all parties.

Additionally, the team addressed the task of how best to facilitate the B2B side of the business, and this project was built by GPMD from scratch. Shopware’s B2B suite was integral in building out 31DOVER’s wholesale arc: https://www.onstock.co.uk/ 

Shopware’s B2B Suite, has been developed for complex B2B business model requirements, and offers a powerful B2B framework with an extensive feature set and a high degree of integration through the framework approach. In addition, a tight control of rights and roles, budgeting and approval processes as well as a targeted customer approach through a customer-specific price function is possible.

“We are very satisfied with Shopware, as the software has a wide range of functions that we can use very well for our shop. With the B2B Suite, for example, we are able to create customer-specific prices. Shopware’s open roadmap also speaks for itself, because it keeps us up to date with regular updates and new features and trends,” says Frances Ekiko, Digital Project Manager at 31DOVER.

Future plans for the shop

James Bagley believes the new and improved site will help the company to meet its ambitious growth targets. They have invested in a new eCommerce platform to better cater for their needs, aid increased engagement with customers and allow them to stay ahead of the competition. They are already enjoying significantly improved performance, having increased conversion rates by on average 30%. Moreover, he has unveiled plans to increase turnover to £50 million by 2022.

Alicia Thompson, CFO of DMD Ventures, also looks positively into the future: “Now is a particularly exciting time to join, with UK drinks purchases still hugely under-penetrated within the online market and many changes and consolidations occurring within the wholesale industry.

There are many untapped opportunities on the digital side and DMD is positioned to become the market leader; we are primed for growth, have a great team in place and the opportunities are extremely exciting”

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