The Brand

John Smedley, a renowned British knitwear brand with a heritage spanning over two centuries, sought to enhance their shopping experience in alignment with their brand’s high-quality standards. With a diverse and often intricate product catalog, they required a solution that could cater to their customers’ needs with precision, speed, and efficiency. To meet these goals, they worked with their agency, Williams Commerce, to deploy Athos AI’s full suite of ecommerce discovery technology: Smart Search, Smart Product Recommendations, and Smart Category Merchandising 

The Challenge

John Smedley was experiencing several ecommerce challenges, particularly around enabling customers to find the right products efficiently. Jamie Austin, Head of Ecommerce Operations, remarked, “We knew our customers were struggling to find exactly what they were looking for on our site, which was impacting our conversion rates.” 

Beyond search functionality, there were also complexities around product recommendations and ensuring that merchandising within categories was optimized to showcase their wide product range effectively. 

Before turning to Athos, the team at John Smedley tried other options to address these challenges but didn’t see the desired results. “We were looking for a more intelligent solution that could adapt to our evolving catalog and customer behavior,” Austin mentioned. The decision to choose Athos came down to the platform’s unique combination of AI-driven capabilities and Natural Language Processing. 

The Solution

Since implementing Athos, John Smedley has seen a remarkable transformation in their ecommerce performance. Athos’ intuitive interface and powerful AI capabilities have allowed the brand to connect customers with their desired products seamlessly.  

Jamie emphasized how the enriched product discovery experience benefits from Athos’ additional features: “The color enrichment and color normalization tools have also helped ensure that customers see products in the correct shade, regardless of how they search or filter the catalog.” 

Athos’ product recommendations engine has been instrumental in helping customers discover complementary products. John Smedley has been able to leverage AI to display relevant product suggestions across the site, increasing the likelihood of customers finding products they hadn’t originally considered. This, paired with category merchandising, has allowed them to create more visually impactful and customer-centric product listings. 

One significant success has been with the “You May Also Like” recommendation block on the product detail page. Displayed at the moment when customers are deeply engaged with a specific product, this recommendation block has shown the highest click-through rate across all recommendation placements.“This strategic placement is about meeting customers when they’re most interested in related items. By displaying similar or complementary products on the product detail page, we effectively tap into the customer’s interest at a key moment.” Jamie Austin, Head of Ecommerce Operations at John Smedley. 

In addition to the product detail page, John Smedley applied the same “You May Also Like” recommendation strategy to the basket conversion page, where it achieved the highest conversion rate. The basket page is where customers have the highest purchase intent. It’s a perfect opportunity to cross-sell relevant items, maximizing our chances to boost average order value while meeting customers’ immediate needs.   

Feature Focus:

Category Merchandising with AI and A/B Testing :
Klevu’s Smart Category Merchandising feature has played a critical role in optimizing John Smedley’s category pages. Recently, the brand began experimenting with A/B testing, using Klevu’s A/B Testing tools within category merchandising to understand the impact of product order based on pricing sensitivities. This initial test involved showing 50% of visitors the lowest-priced items first and the other half the highest-priced items. 

Since Minimani is also able to monitor how product recommendations work from the data, they can see what people are interested in and change product recommendations to achieve optimized results. 

The Results

• 300% increase in search-led revenue in September since switching to Athos. 
• 17% year-on-year increase in conversion rate for September 2024 compared to the previous year. 

Looking ahead, John Smedley plans to continue fine-tuning their ecommerce strategy with the help of Klevu’s technology. They are focused on expanding their use of category merchandising and further refining the way product recommendations are displayed to better serve their customers. “We’re still exploring the full potential of the platform,” Austin noted. “The next step is to experiment with how we can continue to personalize the shopping journey.” 

Partner with Athos Commerce to transform your ecommerce store. With proven tools and expertise in search and merchandising, we empower businesses to achieve measurable growth. Contact us today to start optimizing your store for success.