Yarn.com

Yarn.com, the world’s largest online yarn retailer, has the brand power and customer loyalty to be a powerhouse presence online, but they needed an eCommerce website that would reach out to new customers while keeping the old ones coming back. With the WebLinc Direct eCommerce system, Yarn.com was able to expand its base using custom functionality, social commerce technology, and innovative design to truly define their brand and the DIY lifestyle.

One of the best examples of WebLinc’s functionality embracing Yarn’s brand is the new tabbed product detail page. Four tabs across the top of the product detail box encourage visitors to browse different “pages,” while enabling them to drop products into their cart. The first tab displays all the colors of each particular yarn with zoom images, specifications, inventory and price. The next tab showcases related patterns for that specific yarn, encouraging projects with which to use the yarn. The two remaining tabs provide areas for customer reviews and email-a-friend. The navigation gives crafters an in-depth and participatory shopping experience, all on a single page.

WebLinc also customized a back-end Package Product tool, enabling Yarn staff to create a kit made up of multiple products to be sold as a single unit. To create the kit, they need only enter the amount of yarn and needles needed for small, medium, and large patterns. For example, if a person wanted to make a sweater but didn’t know how much yarn or what type of needles to buy, they could select the “Sweater Package,” choose their size and the pre-determined quantities auto-populate the page.

The Package Product tool is great for people who are new to the knitting scene because Yarn.com, by its very nature, has a massive inventory with thousands of different possibilities --yarns, patterns, kits, books and more. This inventory, while daunting to beginners, was customary for WebLinc. Seamless database integration, regardless of the size of the database, is a hallmark of WebLinc’s services. Yarn administrative backend was also customized with an hourly inventory-update system that automatically re-orders products from their suppliers as the inventory depletes.

Thirty days after Yarn.com launched, site visits were up 10 percent overall with the amount of page views increasing by 50 percent. Visitors were spending nearly 25 percent more time on site, while and the bounce rate decreased by 13 percent. Thanks in part to the WebLinc Direct URL Aliasing functionality, Google organic traffic also increased by 22 percent.

New technologies and design aren’t the only things that have made Yarn.com what it is, however. The site and the company succeed through a combination of many years of hard work, a belief in the DIY ideal that so many of Yarn’s customers share, and the ability to build and maintain relationships. “There is no doubt in our mind that we picked the perfect partner for this project,” said Steve Elkins, part owner of Yarn.com. “We are confident the relationship with Weblinc will endure for some time to come.”

Visit the site:

www.yarn.com