Shade Station sees +50% Conversion Rate and +54% revenue from on-site search

Shade Station is a UK-based retailer of designer sunglasses, prescription optics, and watches. The company’s USP is that it has its optical lab on-site, meaning it can glaze chosen frames in any prescription and have them delivered to its customers the next day, rather than having to wait the usual 5-7 days for online retailers. Shade Station has three brands (Shade Station, Glasses Station, and Total Watches), each with websites in 37 countries.

On-site search is currently being used on various Shade Station websites. Shade Station is the leading brand and, as such, gets the highest traffic levels. Initially, they wanted to set up Spotler Activate Search within the UK site to test its effectiveness. They have since rolled it out to the US and Australian sites, too, as these also receive significant enough traffic to warrant the investment.

“Our search is now lightning fast and brings results that speak for themselves.”
Jon Walden, Online Consultant Shade Station

From ‘no results’ to clever product display

“The implementation was really simple. As with any new system, it took a bit of trial and error to get used to how to tag our data and set up our filters within the control panel, but now we’re used to it, it’s easy to use. I had a great experience with the Spotler support team, as once I’d raised a ticket, they acted directly, so everything displayed exactly how we would want it to. The insights into our queries without results were surprising: many people were misspelling our key brands.

Previously, this would have brought up zero results. With this search functionality however, the search realises what our customers are intending so we can show them our full collection and they actually find what they are looking for.”

“Spotler has great aftercare. The support team is very knowledgeable and quick to sort out any issue.”
Jon Walden, Online Consultant Shade Station

Why use this Search solution?

“In the first month after implementing Spotler Activate Search (compared to the same month in the previous year), we had a 33.53% increase in conversion rate from site search visitors. This led to a 48.26% increase in revenue from visitors using our search.

Since that first month, we’ve refined our search engine further by adding more filters, tags, etc… If I look at the period since we went live with the tool (compared to the previous year over the same period, 1 September – 10 March, versus the same period last year), our conversion rate of visitors using site search is up 50.20%. Revenue from those visitors is up 54.78%!”

Ease of implementation

“Before Spotler Activate Search, we used our search on the website; it couldn’t find close-match products and was much, much slower than using Spotler Activate Search. Often, results pages could take several moments to appear. Using this module means our visitors get accurate results immediately, and it’s showing in the massive increases we’ve had in conversion rates from those visitors.

The great thing about Spotler is the ease of implementation. We received some excellent aftercare from the support team. They are very knowledgeable and quick to sort out any issues. Our search is now lightning fast and brings results that speak for themselves. I would highly recommend this solution to others. I’ve already recommended it to several people I know who’ve been looking for a better search experience on their site.”