Grisoft Acheives Total Online Success Through E-Commerce Best Practices
In 2002, Grisoft decided to build and run its online software store using Digital River’s e-commerce platform. The results greatly exceeded expectations – from 2003 to 2005, Grisoft’s online sales rose by more than 800%.
Summary
Anti-virus software developer Grisoft grew rapidly from its inception in 1991 and quickly realised the potential to enter the global market place. The company turned to Digital River, a provider of outsourced e-commerce solutions and its element 5 platform, and now customers can purchase Grisoft’s AVG Anti-Virus software via a secure, user-friendly online store. As its Internet sales swiftly grew, and surpassed direct offline sales, Grisoft began to consider other opportunities open to the company through the Digital River platform. Today, Grisoft is successfully using Digital River’s marketStream online sales network, and its Fireclick™ web analytics service among other tools of its own.
AVG Anti-Virus software sold globally on the web
Grisoft was originally comprised of two people, including a programmer and a salesperson, selling solely to the Czech Republic market. The company began offering anti-virus protection software, which has continued to be at the core of Grisoft's range of comprehensive and integrated security and privacy solutions. The original product’s appeal quickly gained momentum throughout the country, resulting in sufficient revenue to recruit highly skilled programmers, leading to an even better product, and even greater popularity. By 2002, Grisoft began talks with Digital River and other e-commerce providers in a bid to make a global footprint. Grisoft realised that building an effective online store could be key in reaching a global audience and therefore acquiring new customers.
Lucie Aronova, sales and operations manager at Grisoft, explained, “More than 50 percent of our online sales are generated by US customers – it is clear that our e-shop is a significant factor in this. We have five top partners in major global regions, including the UK, France, Germany, Brazil and Australia that provide their customers with their own e-shop solution, but without Digital River, we would be unable to sell our products elsewhere.”
Driving online sales
Grisoft was attracted to Digital River’s element 5 platform because of the quality of the technology, the services, the multi-language customer support and the strong online marketing tools.
“Because our main requirement centred around expanding our global reach, Digital River’s localising capabilities have been key to the e-shop’s success – not only in terms of handling VAT and local language - both on the website and in customer service - but also for addressing compliance regulations and giving the pages an authentic cultural feel,” continued Aronova.
The majority of Digital River’s clients are software publishers and this specialization further differentiated the e-commerce provider for Grisoft. The fact that Grisoft users can now simply and easily download software with no need to wait for postal delivery has proven pivotal in driving sales.
Aware of the importance customers place on shopping via legitimate and user-friendly sites, it was also vital to Grisoft that its e-commerce provider be able to mirror its corporate brand.
“The implementation of the element 5 platform was rather seamless, and we were immediately happy with the way Digital River replicated the look and feel of the rest of the site onto the e-commerce pages,” said Aronova.
Affiliate marketing
Grisoft realised that selling through affiliate networks – a group of independent resellers that earn commissions on sales generated through their sites - is a simple and efficient way of increasing sales revenue. Digital River’s marketStream online sales network offered the most comprehensive service – providing Grisoft access to more than 50,000 retailers and affiliates as well as taking care of payments, reporting and providing subscription links. Grisoft has reaped the benefits, and expects a sales increase of 10–15 percent during 2006.
Aronova added, “We wanted an affiliate solution that would be a strong addition to our online store, ensure the best return-on-investment and offer flexibility. It was critically important that the affiliates were reputable, relevant to our business and would strengthen our messages. Digital River’s oneNetworkDirect sales network stood out because its affiliate partners were highly compatible to our business. As a result, we have been able to grow our affiliate base and generate an impressive boost to sales volumes.”
Website analysis
As online sales escalated and surpassed direct offline sales, the need for site optimisation became paramount. Clearly, thousands of users and potential users were clicking on to Grisoft’s site, but in order for this data to be analysed, Grisoft recognised that a more sophisticated tool was required. Digital River’s Fireclick web analytics service provided the robust solution Grisoft was looking for.
Aronova continued, “Fireclick is a powerful tool that helps us evaluate our website traffic and enables us to develop the site in the most effective way. It has proved to be a vital tool in disclosing and solving issues that appear on the Web site and optimising Web site traffic. For example, our statistics helped us notice and improve our renewal rate – Fireclick highlighted to us how our Web site users move through the renewal process on the site, and came up with improvements that have had a major impact on our renewal results.”
Further expansion
In March 2006, the Japanese version of Grisoft’s e-shop site was launched, and there is additional planned expansion in Asia and South American countries.
“Our online store has enabled us to expand exponentially. This rapid entrance into new markets has been a major factor in our success. We intend to dig deeper into more regions and use more tools to make the most of our store. With Digital River and its impressive range of solutions, we feel that we, along with our customers, are in safe hands.” |