Background
Wiggle is the UK's number one online cycle shop and one of the top five most popular online sports shops.
Wiggle is motivated to remain miles ahead of its competitors which presents a continuous challenge, mainly due to the evolving way in which consumers interact with the internet.
The Challenge
A key goal for Wiggle is to ensure their website not only represents the brand, but also delivers a consistently fast and compelling user experience, no matter what type of device the customer is using to visit it.
With the increase in volume of visitors to the site from mobile and tablet devices (currently over half of all purchases from the site come from smartphones or tablets), Wiggle wished to ensure that every visitor to the site got an outstanding user experience. While the content on desktop and mobile would be broadly the same, Wiggle wanted to ensure that visitors on mobile devices still got a super-fast user experience rather than waiting for pages to download.
A further thought was around the context with which the mobile device is used. Wiggle noticed quite a lot of the mobile traffic was driven by outbound email and would arrive at the site soon after the emails had been sent. This demonstrated that mobile was becoming the go to place to open emails and action them immediately.
Wiggle also noted that while visitors were happy to purchase relatively low value items on the mobile, big ticket purchases (such as carbon bicycles) were still predominately made from the desktop.
The Solution
Knowing that there were key differences in the user experience to overcome on different platforms, Wiggle has extended the role that 51Degrees Device Detection has on their website to drive a more streamlined and effective user experience for mobile users.
When a customer visits wiggle.com, 51Degrees can accurately identify the type of device used. It can also detect device properties such as screen size and mobile browser. This ensures that Wiggle delivers the right content and experience regardless of whether they are visiting on a mobile, tablet, or desktop computer.
Furthermore, Wiggle can send an appropriate version of the webpage to specific devices. For example, lower resolution images can be delivered to smaller screen phones which means the webpage downloads more quickly, resulting in an improved user experience.
The Result
Thanks to 51Degrees Device Detection, Wiggle saw a 220% increase in the number of mobile sessions and a 33% increase in conversion rate on mobile devices.
Speed is of the essence for Wiggle. The company is determined to deliver a web experience that loads quickly for customers. Wiggle’s mobile site is 2.7 times faster than comparable responsive design sites that have not been optimized for mobile, something that is critically important to the web team.
The excellent results means that Wiggle is confident in the data 51Degrees provides as it continues to develop in line with its increased mobile users.
[51Degrees Device Detection] allows us to serve up a site that is faster and tailored to mobile devices. Dave McDermidWiggle
When Wiggle installed the new version of 51Degrees onto the relevant servers, the process was straightforward and the upgrading very easy.
Wiggle downloads the latest data file on a weekly basis from 51Degrees and this too has proved over the years to be a very straightforward process.
To summarize, Wiggle's benefits from using 51Degrees Device Detection were:
- Commercial success: 51Degrees helps Wiggle to achieve and maintain site targets, as well as improve conversion rates and reduce bounce rates.
- Time and resource saving: by using 51Degrees expert and accurate product, internal time and resources can be deployed elsewhere.
- Reliable and accurate: 51Degrees is proven and works extremely well in line with Wiggle’s site structure. The 51Degrees accuracy and reliability helps Wiggle to maintain a competitive edge.
- Easy to install and “upgrading was very easy” (Dave McDermid, Wiggle).
- Happy customers: delivering the correct web layout to customers combined with an extremely fast load time makes for happy Wiggle customers.
About Device Detection
Device data ages quickly as new products are released every day. For the best detection results, a good device detection solution needs to be as up to date as possible to ensure customers are getting an immersive shopping experience.
Device detection is an important facet of personalisation but does not require a user to register or share personal preferences. Armed with this information, websites can send content that is not only optimized for detailed device specifications but also contextualise the likely environment of the user, delivering a better user experience.
since 2012, Wiggle has been successfully using 51Degrees Device Detection to provide granular, reliable and business critical device information. If you wish to benefit from 51Degrees, you can start your free trial today.