The Shop Usability Award 2015 was presented on September 10. Our long-standing customer Rudi Ring won what is probably the most coveted award in the eCommerce scene with his online store click-licht.de in the “Furniture & Living” category. The online presence is based on JTL-Shop technology. Together with the JTL service partner Kreativkonzentrat, a media agency from Dresden, the company from Recklinghausen has gone to great lengths in recent years to implement an extremely customer-friendly concept for click-licht.de. The two companies were therefore delighted with their current success and the Shop Usability Award 2015.
Back in June of this year, we wrote about the success story of click-licht.de in a blog post. Find out more about the company and its impressive development at:
https://www.jtl-software.com/blog/success-stories/click-licht-mit-jtl-wawi-shop-erfolgreich
The Kreativkonzentrat agency already won the Shop Usability Award in 2014 for the implementation of gastro24.de’s online presence in the “B2B” category. Managing Directors Martin Zilz and Niels Baumbach are extremely pleased that they were able to repeat this success in a different category just one year later.
On the occasion of winning this prestigious competition, we talked to Rudi (click-licht.de) and Martin (Kreativkonzentrat) and captured a few “winner’s voices”.
Rudi, how did click-licht.de come to participate in the Shop Usability Award 2015?
Rudi: “This year is the fourth time we’ve taken part, but unfortunately we’ve never won before. As the award is already a great recognition for us, it was clear to us that we would take part again this year.”
The Shop Usability Award is one of the most coveted awards in the industry. What does it mean to you to have received this award?
Rudi: “To have actually received the award now means a lot to me. The award is not only highly coveted, it is also the only serious award that exists for committed stores in the industry. This success shows us that our work was well invested.”
Martin: “Of course, the award is also a great confirmation for us that we are on the right track. When click-licht.de approached us in 2012 to migrate their XT:Commerce shop to JTL, nobody could have imagined it. In addition to the professional working atmosphere, a close friendship has developed over the long period of cooperation.”
Rudi, what motivated you to invest in the design and store usability of click-licht.de in particular?
Rudi: “If you want to be successful, you can’t work with off-the-shelf templates. It’s about creating an atmosphere that suits your industry. This is very difficult to achieve with standard templates.
Design is the figurehead of a store! The first few seconds decide whether the visitor takes a closer look at the store or leaves again. Usability is therefore the “craftsmanship” behind it! Only those who master both can be successful.
Quite a few store operators invest a lot of money in SEM and SEO etc. and are subsequently unable to properly “convert” the numerous visitors and potential customers. For this reason, it can be very expensive NOT to invest in usability and design.”
Martin, what was and is your objective, what have you already implemented as an agency?
Martin: “Initially, we primarily implemented the store template from scratch. Over time, however, we added more and more plugins for various features, many of which we have also made available to other customers via our online store, e.g. the Mega Menu, Ultimate SEO and now, above all, Dropper.
By the end of 2014, the basic technologies had changed to such an extent that it was time to develop a completely new version of the template, which is very lean in itself, but is enhanced with content in all important places using droppers.”
Rudi: “DROPPER is definitely our most important plugin. This plugin enables us to maintain unique content and react quickly to changes. We can change both content and individual sections of the store in just a few minutes.”
What do you think is the highlight of click-licht.de and what convinced the jury the most? What is better solved than in other stores?
Martin: “I think the customer notices how much love and brainpower has been invested in every corner of the store. We always try to create a competent, friendly and, above all, personal store atmosphere. Good examples of this are the product advisors, which are prominently displayed in many areas of the store. Likewise, the content in the shop goes beyond the possibilities of texts in the JTL-Wawi. For items in the store category “Rail systems”, for example, a helpful planning aid for such systems is displayed. Other features worth mentioning are the delivery time calculation implemented for click-licht.de and the very clean and simple checkout.”
Rudi: “I think there are three highlights in particular that convinced the jury. Firstly, click-licht.de is characterized by its personal atmosphere. Direct contact with our customers is very important to us.
The second highlight is our 360° images, which we present to our visitors. And thirdly, our clear checkout with its highly complex delivery time calculation is certainly a special highlight. We recalculate the delivery times of individual items every day, starting with the order from the supplier and ending with the receipt of the goods. These delivery times are displayed online and also communicated in the checkout.”
Rudi, what have been the biggest challenges for you in eCommerce so far and what do you think will be the three biggest trends in the coming years?
Rudi: “The future is always the biggest challenge. It’s not easy to get “qualified” traffic and still be successful despite falling margins.
In my opinion, the three biggest trends in the coming years include, firstly, retail stores that combine offline and online. In addition, the option of same-day delivery, i.e. the customer orders today and receives it today, will become increasingly important. And thirdly, storytelling is becoming increasingly important. Customers want to know the story behind the product and at the same time want to be bound by it.”
Rudi, where do you see click-licht.de in two years’ time?
Rudi: “We currently see it as our task to not only create an appealing store and maximum availability, but also to set up specialist stores over the next few years. In two years’ time, we would like to establish the first click-licht.de retail store.”
Will the soon-to-be-released JTL-Shop 4 also find its way into click-licht.de?
Rudi: “Of course. Shop4 is already running on a developer interface as a test environment. We are significantly involved in the development.”
Martin: “Definitely! Many of the new features in JTL-Shop 4 are based on the practical experience that JTL has gained with click-licht.de and us, for example the approaches to performance optimization. With JTL-Shop 4, we will return to the original development branch without having to accept any loss of performance.”
We would like to thank you for the nice interview and wish you all the best for the future!
