Three decade old physical wholesaler and distributor making it big online with more than 35 listed categories 

Kole Imports started as a family business, run by two brothers focusing on selling tools and hardware equipment in San Diego, California around the early 1980s. When business boomed, they officially instated Kole Imports as they began importing more and more merchandise. With a 250,000 square foot warehouse along with a 10,000 square foot showroom in Carson, California, they have tons of different items listed under a massive 35+ category inventory. They have proved time and again that they are not only a dollar store merchandise supplier but also one of the largest wholesale direct importers in the US.

Being a leading distributor of general merchandise, Kole Imports & Closeouts have a wide variety of sale schemes, from limited time offers to clearance sales. With the website coming into focus as the shopping dynamics has shifted from the typical 9 am - 5 pm window, they realized much sooner than their counterparts that customers would expect better usage of their time and money and would want a service which is as personal and robust as a physical store and as fast and optimized as technology would allow. With this in mind, they created a very intuitive and comprehensive website ensuring that all marketing channels were aligned to the company's motto.

Make announcements in realtime

Being in the wholesale business for over 3 decades, they knew that in order to bring the same level of oneness and dedication as an actual distributor, they would need to rely on something much more and ‘in the moment’ than the traditional email and social media marketing. Their website went through multiple rounds of a facelift. And to ensure that customers were able to find that they needed on the website, the categorization was precisely done and UI was kept as easy as talking to your distributor to get your most popular goods.

With more and more customers buying online, it became increasingly important to know those customers better - in terms of their buying habit, preferences and of course building an audience so that they can be engaged consistently. Since customers had to register to make a purchase, emails became a primary form of contact with the online users. Relying heavily on emails, their marketing strategy worked quite well. The one point where it drew a blank was when it came to retargeting users who dropped off somewhere in the buying journey and never really reached checkout.

“We were looking for other mediums to reach out to our customers to communicate news, deals, etc, knowing that some of our customers would prefer push notifications than email. We were not really looking to solve a problem but more like bettering the Kole Imports & Closeout experience.”

- Jason Halfaker, Director of eCommerce

Customer focused engagement and retargeting

When Kole Imports zeroed in on web push notifications as a new digital marketing channel, they had the agenda and strategy already chalked out.

A: Target those who drop off without making a purchase via a drip campaign based on their "age of drop off" to improve and enhance the checkout experience

B: Remind users about timed and clearance sales

Given the laser focus on customer experience, the execution of their push notification strategy has been meticulous and well timed with the right frequency. This perfect strategy ensured that the audience did not get spammed in the first place. Rather it created a perfect blend of engagement and retargeting that ultimately translated into roughly 50 transactions on a daily basis.

Interacting with new subscribers flawlessly and in a timed manner

The Welcome Notification Playbook which ensures that newly acquired subscribers are targetted with timed drip campaigns worked like a charm right after it was enabled by contributing, on an average to ~37% of total revenue generated from push notifications!

This drip notification campaign consisted of limited offers, best sellers and new arrivals were carefully structured to ensure that it piques the user’s interest gradually and envokes a sense of excitement to browse and further transact.

Personalized retargeting campaigns acted as the boomerang - reminding people to complete the transaction

Since Kole Imports is a place where people usually buy products in bulk for either their stores or personal usage, retargeting when it comes to abandoned carts works a bit differently from the traditional mantra to "get-them-within-24hours". Shoppers usually place a ton of items in their cart over a couple of days, compare and then finally make a purchase. Having seen tons of physical shoppers taking their time to make a purchase, Kole Imports team knew that they had to replicate a similar scenario for their online store as well.

Spaced at 3 days, 5 days and 7 days of abandoning the cart, the Recover Abandoned Cart Playbook ensured that the users received timely reminders of their items in cart, on those days when they were most likely to complete the purchase. Moving upwards in the marketing funnel, Kole Imports also set up the Playbook for Retargeting Product Viewers, thus reaching out to users on the basis of their buying intent as well, further closing the inch between payment and drop off.

Conversion Rate and Revenue skyrocketed

The addition of the Playbooks created a positive dent in terms of conversions with a whopping 97% increase in the conversion rate from iZooto!

And now with less than half a month into 2019, the contribution to the overall revenue has touched 6% while the revenue has grown by 22% and there is a 9% improvement in the overall conversion rate as compared to last year. iZooto continues to be a key channel in the top 10 marketing channel list for Kole Imports as it grows year on year and the ROI stays attuned with the other big players in that list.

“ROI is in line with email marketing which has some of the best returns in the business.”

- Jason Halfaker, Director of eCommerce