Online Configurator Sparks an Increase in Average Order Size for Yankee Candle

Challenge

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For Yankee Candle, traditional catalog ordering presented a barrier to sales, because customers had no way to see what their custom candles would look like before they placed their orders. Yankee Candle was also
incurring significant incremental costs associated with its customer service operation fully supporting the retailer’s custom candle business.

Insight

Usability studies revealed that the inability to visualize the finished product was problematic, because customers ordering large quantities of candles for very important events, such as weddings, were leery of taking chances with quantities so large and for events so important. This insight led directly to the development of a dynamic “one screen” process, where customers can see exactly what their candles look like at each stage of the design process and can revise design decisions on-the-fly.

Approach

Molecular built a custom candle configuration application in eight weeks using Macromedia’s Flash MX technology. Through a dynamic “one-screen” interface, customers are guided through the candle design process. As a customer makes each selection, the rendition of the candle changes before his or her eyes, without the configuration application ever having to refresh the page. Once a customer is satisfied with the configured custom candle, he can add it to his or her shopping cart and be taken seamlessly back to the online shopping cart associated with Yankee Candle’s HTML e-commerce site. Information processed through the shopping cart is then automatically funneled through the retailer’s backend processes, eliminating much of the need for costly customer call center assistance.

Benefits

• Yankee Candle reported a 25% increase in average order size subsequent to the launch of the configurator.
• The company also witnessed a 70% decrease in costly call center complaints.