The right tool in real time at Westfalia

Westfalia achieved strong increase in total sales through the use of personalized product recommendations.

Westfalia | Personalized product recommendations

The Westfalia Werkzeugcompany GmbH & Co. KG is one of the most successful generalists in Germany. In addition to their comprehensive range of tools, the company sells a wide variety of technology items, household goods, health and recreational products, pet supplies and agricultural items. The company was established in 1923 in Schwerte, getting an early start as a classical catalog merchant for high-quality tools. Nowadays other customer channels such as brick and mortar retail outlets and online shops play a central role for Westfalia. The company relies on the prudsys Realtime Decisioning Engine (prudsys RDE for short) to help provide its customers with the perfect shopping experience and highly relevant personalized deals at every touch point and in real time. Thanks to its ease of integration, the personalization solution was effectively incorporated into all of Westfalia’s international online shops in a very short time.

CHALLENGE

Personalized, relevant recommendations for each visitor

Quick implementation of the software in all of the local shops

Increased time spent in the online shop, increased conversion rates and sales

SOLUTION

1:1 highly-relevant personalization

Automated delivery of product recommendations in all online shops

Real-time analysis of user interests as well as inclusion of historical data for recommendation calculation

RESULT

Improved quality of recommendation

Implementation of consistent customer orientation

Significant increase in overall sales

12 % sales from recommendations

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Marios Papadias, Head of Online Marketing/eCommerce at Westfalia, had this to say about the cooperation:

“We have been working successfully with the prudsys AG for many years. We were able to implement the new personalization concept quickly and smoothly. We are beyond satisfied with the results and look forward to the upcoming projects.”

The objective

Westfalia runs five successful online shops, each carrying up to 40,000 products, in five countries. In 2015 the strategic decision was made to give the topics of personalization and customer service maximum priority in order to significantly raise the service level and personalize the shopping experience for all customers. The goal was to personalize product recommendations in the online shops in real time, enabling the company to meet the current interests and needs of each individual customer at all times. This would then increase both customer satisfaction and sales.

The solution

In 2015, those responsible drafted a new personalization concept for Westfalia that was in line with the changed requirements. In addition, with the help of the Marketing Factory Consulting GmbH, the prudsys RDE was implemented in all of the mail order company’s online shops within a few weeks. The real-time analytics system is one of the most successful personalization solutions in the world. The module prudsys RDE | Recommendations collects customer behavioral data in the shop and uses it to calculate highly personal recommendations in real time. Both current behavioral data as well as historical transaction data, if available, are used. Using the prudsys RDE enables improved customer service in the online shop and taps perfectly into cross-selling potential. Especially given the great product variety at Westfalia, customers benefit from personalized recommendations at different points in the online shop.

The result

The project’s success was evident shortly after the implementation of the prudsys RDE with a significantly increased conversion rate and sales from recommendations amounting to 12 % of the total revenue. Based on the compelling results Westfalia is planning to personalize other customer interaction channels. The linking of the module prudsys RDE | Newsletter is underway so that newsletter recipients can also receive personalized content. The company would also like to carve out innovative paths in the future with personalized printed catalogs.