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El Balcón is an omnichannel retail business that has been selling luxury and premium perfumes to Argentinian consumers for 40+ years, and recently implemented Sellesta Product Recommendation on their website to help shoppers discover the fragrances most suitable for them as quickly as possible.
We spoke to ecommerce manager Juan Cruz Usai do Val to see how the solution is working, what the results are, and his perspective on ecommerce trends today.
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Sellesta: Hi Juan, how are you? To start off with, maybe you can introduce El Balcón, your customers, and your challenges?
Juan: Sure! We are in the top five perfumeries nationally, selling premium and luxury fragrances, treatments, and makeup, including brands such as Dior, Carolina Herrera, and Paco Rabanne. In terms of customers 70-80% are female. While our customers span all age groups, our luxury products have a higher price point. The higher the price you have, the higher the income that is needed to make a purchase, and generally, you’ll find it in an older customer.
For retailers like us, differentiation doesn’t lie in price, but in the customer experience, across both online and in-store, and maintaining a competitive edge in the experience is a key challenge.
Sellesta: On that note, what kind of experiences are El Balcón’s customers looking for online?
Juan: In our industry, selling the product is not difficult. Buyers know exactly what they want, and the product sells itself. What we need to do is provide a differentiated experience through the online customer journey.
This means a number of things; reducing the steps in the customer journey, showcasing the product in an elegant way, ensuring the checkout experience is seamless, and removing any barriers to converting. Customers also expect the ability to pay in installments and fulfillment of the delivery promise. Beyond these key reasons to choose a particular webshop over another, there are some secondary ones, for example, some customers are repeat buyers from the business and may receive a gift for their loyalty.
I like to say ecommerce is a four-legged table: you are a logistics company, an advertising agency, a technological platform, and a call center for post-sales. If any of the four legs fail, the table falls.
“I like to say ecommerce is a four-legged table: you are a logistics company, an advertising agency, a technological platform, and a call center for post-sales. If any of the four legs fail, the table falls.”
Sellesta: Why did you look for a solution like Sellesta? Were you using anything similar previously?
Juan: The moment I saw the proposal I was very interested because I wanted to implement AI on our site and not be left behind with this technology. At that moment I was only using it for copywriting and I wanted to use it for other processes. The tool caught my attention because it helps improve the customer experience, which is what makes us different from the competition.
It has not replaced anything because we did not have a similar tool. In terms of facilitating processes, I think that it eases the decision process. Based on the questions it poses, it suggests the most suitable fragrance for the customer.
“I was very interested because I wanted to implement AI on our site and not be left behind with this technology. At that moment I was only using it for copywriting and I wanted to use it for other processes.”
| How Sellesta Product Recommendation works Sellesta Product Recommendation is a widget added to your webshop that helps your visitors find what they are looking for quickly, based on their answers to a series of targeted, AI-generated questions. When your visitor lands on your site, a pop-up might ask, “What are you looking for today?” with a few categories relevant to your niche. Then, the tool will ask a couple more questions based on their answers, guiding your customer quickly and accurately to what they want. With three or four questions, it will take them to the most suitable products, reducing friction, improving the customer experience, and increasing conversion in the process. Read more |
Sellesta: Was it easy to start using the Sellesta tool?
Juan: Yes, it was easy. They told me that I had to put in a Java Script code, I went and put it in, installed it, activated it and it started working. It took me about an hour. And the onboarding process was also super easy.
“We’ve been using the tool for three months and it has helped to improve the conversion rate by 15 to 20% in the events it was configured for.”
Sellesta: Can you tell us about the results of using the widget?
Juan: We’ve been using the tool for three months and it has helped to improve the conversion rate by 15 to 20% in the events it was configured for, which is all the way to the “Buy” button. So I guess from that 15% of people who reached the “Buy” button, it could drop to a 10% in sales increase, which is still good. The truth is that a lot of people used it. I knew visitors were going to use it, but I didn’t think so many would. In that sense I was surprised by the tool. The tool helps to improve conversion rates because it facilitates the decision process and product choice.
“I knew visitors were going to use it, but I didn’t think so many would. In that sense I was surprised by the tool.”
It’s also very flexible — I am considering implementing it in a healthcare webshop, which has nothing to do with perfume, but where it should still be valuable in helping customers find what they want.
Sellesta: Finally, what trends do you see in the ecommerce tools market?
Juan: Automation and the incorporation of artificial intelligence for cross-selling and up-selling. On the other hand, an intense pain point for ecommerce is integration between different tools. So easy integration would be an important thing to look at.
