Kidrobot Turns to SLI Systems to Boost E-commerce Sales and Strengthen Brand Visibility

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- SLI Systems (SLI.NZ) today announced that collectible toy retailer Kidrobot (www.kidrobot.com) has quadrupled conversions and increased orders by 13% since implementing SLI Systems to improve the user experience on its e-commerce site. Kidrobot has also extended the life of its custom-built e-commerce platform with SLI's ability to integrate video and other social media content into the site.

In November 2013, Kidrobot implemented several of SLI Systems' e-commerce acceleration solutions – including SLI Learning Search, SLI Rich Auto Complete and SLI Site Champion – to improve the relevance of search results, integrate social content and video into search and drive more traffic to its site. Now traffic is up and 87% of Kidrobot visitors find what they want in the first five results shown.

"From the capabilities of their technology to the helpfulness of their support, the whole package of working with SLI is a huge improvement from what we had before," said Kelsey Vendetti, e-commerce and digital marketing manager for Kidrobot. "Learning Search has created a better overall user experience, and when visitors use Rich Auto Complete, it opens their eyes to all that we have to offer – they're three to four times more likely to click on a search suggestion." 

By automatically presenting relevant products, images and other information in autocomplete results, SLI's Rich Auto Complete can help shoppers identify the preferred product as quickly as they can type in a name. SLI Learning Search continually increases the relevancy of search results by learning and improving based on users' site activities.

Making Collectible Toys Easier to Find and Buy
Kidrobot was established in 2002 as the premier creator and dealer of limited edition art toys, signature apparel and lifestyle accessories. The company has gained worldwide recognition for its collectible Labbits, paint-it-yourself MUNNYs, Futurama mini-figures and other designer art toys that are exclusive to the brand. In addition to its e-commerce site, the Boulder, CO-based Kidrobot has brick-and-mortar stores in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boulder and Las Vegas, and its products can be found at other leading retailers worldwide.

In recent years, as more people have become fans of the company's unique pop art toys and accessories, it became necessary for Kidrobot to greatly improve the online shopping experience. In early 2013, the company's e-commerce team identified four main goals for enhancing the online business: improving the site search function, integrating search with social content, boosting SEO and driving more traffic to the site. Its previous site search, which was part of its homegrown e-commerce platform, simply couldn't deliver the right results, nor was it capable of supporting the additional capabilities Kidrobot had identified.

"We give our products unique names, and it used to be that if you didn't get the spelling correct for an on-site search, you wouldn't find the product you were looking for," said Vendetti. "Visitors would search for something as simple as a t-shirt and get one result when in fact we offer over 20 t-shirt styles."

Vendetti's team turned to SLI Systems because its hosted site search solution uniquely met all of Kidrobot's business requirements, and then some. SLI also incorporates Kidrobot's videos, Instagram posts and other social media content into site search results pages. That is important for the brand given the high volume of activity on social media channels among its fans – for example, Kidrobot frequently sees more than 1,000 Likes on Instagram posts and more than 10,000 views of its YouTube videos. Such popular social content often cements a shopper's buying decision, resulting in more orders. Showing Vimeo and YouTube videos through its site search was something Kidrobot couldn't do before SLI, as its custom-built platform could not support it.

Kidrobot also benefits from SLI's automatically generated SEO landing pages for long tail keywords through its Site Champion offering. The landing pages rank highly in Google and Bing and provide high-quality SEO traffic to Kidrobot.com.

"Site Champion helps us by taking care of important SEO work that our small team wouldn't be able to do on its own," Vendetti said.

Click to Tweet: @Kidrobot Chooses @SLISystems Learning Search to integrate social media content and videos, and extend the life of its e-commerce platform. http://ctt.ec/ATob0

About SLI Systems
SLI Systems (SLI.NZ) provides leading SaaS solutions that help online shoppers connect to the products they are most likely to buy, directly driving increased sales and higher customer satisfaction for online retailers. With offerings that include site search, navigation, merchandising, mobile, product recommendations and user-generated SEO, SLI Systems is the most chosen SaaS- based site search provider to Internet Retailer Top 1,000 retailers. The company's patented technology continuously learns from the behavior of visitors to deliver the most relevant results possible. Whether via PC, tablet or phone, a site powered by SLI delivers the kind of satisfying search experience that increases conversion rates, secures brand loyalty and results in higher order values. SLI Systems operates on five continents. For more information, visit: www.sli-systems.com.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Nancy MacGregor Hill
RealTime Communications
510-733-6228
[email protected]
www.twitter.com/nmhill / www.twitter.com/slisystems 

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SOURCE SLI Systems