We had the pleasure of speaking with Rick Hoving, Senior eCommerce Manager at ASICS to learn why they chose Contentsquare’s Digital Experience Analytics platform to help future-proof their eCommerce website.

About Rick and ASICS

Rick Hoving, Senior eCommerce Manager As a Senior eCommerce Manager, Rick Hoving leads the EMEA website optimization team at ASICS, responsible for their eCommerce website asics.com and 14 outlet sites spanning across Europe. During the last five years, Rick says their online channel has grown exponentially.

“I’ve seen our eCommerce channel grow from the tiny island that it was five years ago to the instrumental sales channel that it is today.”

What are your key challenges and priorities?

The pandemic helped propel ASICS’ eCommerce performance, but it also brought new challenges by shifting Rick and his team’s priorities. “Most of our production takes place in Southeast Asia where they had strict lockdowns at the end of last year. This meant we struggled with stock capacity issues, which changed the whole nature of my role and my team’s focus. We had to prioritize and find smarter ways to use our available stock.”

ASICS homepage

Rick says he’s keen to put his focus back on customer experience, optimizing conversion rate, and future-proofing their eCommerce site. “Customer experience is a priority, such as making sure the website is optimized so people can easily find the right products,” Rick says, “At the end of the day, we’re a commercial team that needs to grow sales so conversion rate is my number one focus.”

Rick shares some of their strategic objectives for 2022, “This year, we’re looking at market expansion within Europe, mainly in The Nordics and Eastern Europe. We also want to grow our apparel sales, because the majority of our revenue comes from running footwear but we also sell a lot of other great products. In terms of devices, optimizing our mobile experience is key—80% of our traffic comes from mobile, but still, less than 50% actually convert.”

What stood out most to you about Contentsquare?

Before Contentsquare, the team at ASICS had access to traditional analytics data but needed a tool that would make data accessible to everyone—that’s what stood out to Rick about Contentsquare:

“I was impressed with the ease of getting relevant analytics when it comes to content, which is usually quite hard. As an eCommerce team, you think that analytics tools like Google Analytics will be enough. But with my team expanding, we’re going to have people joining that are more creative, who aren’t as data-savvy. It’s super important to me that everyone can easily get the insights they need.” — Rick Hoving, Senior eCommerce Manager at ASICS

Which features are looking forward to getting stuck into?

“The entire CS Digital suite is essential. It will help ensure that my entire team has access to visual data analytics,” says Rick.

He also highlights Find & Fix, which empowers both technical and business teams to create seamless experiences by removing friction points and slow performance.

“Find & Fix tool is super important for us because we work with a global digital team that owns and operates our eCommerce platform. The tool gives us a good look under the hood into what they’re doing and helps us prioritize what’s most important.”

CS Digital

Which teams are getting their hands on Contentsquare?

Rick’s extended team will be the first to implement Contentsquare into their daily work. “We have three different streams within my team that’ll get access to Contentsquare: The trading and merchandising team, the activations team who focus on content and campaigns, and the optimizations team who look after the website.”

Rick mentions their UX and CRO teams will also integrate Contentsquare with their existing A/B testing tools. He’ll encourage other teams across ASICS to get their hands on the tool, too: “If people hear we have a new tool, they’re more than welcome to reach out. We can then work together to understand how they could benefit from the tool.”

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How does Contentsquare align with your wider business strategy?

For the team at ASICS, finding a balance between brand and commercial focus is key. “In terms of our eCommerce site, we’re always on the fence about whether it’s a marketing or sales channel. Contentsquare will help me steer that conversation because right now decisions are mainly based on gut feeling,” says Rick, “We think that asics.com is our biggest shopping window and the main stage for our brand. While I’d argue that it’s the biggest traffic driver, and therefore the biggest extension of our sales platform,” explains Rick.

If you were to recommend Contentsquare to a friend, what would you say?

“It’s the tool that impressed me the most with how easy it is to get relevant, valuable insights for content and merchandising elements of our site. The tool is a game-changer for my team when it comes to making the right decisions and helping us build a more impactful website.”