+70%
Mobile revenue
Products:
Objectives
Centralize global e-commerce and create an omnichannel experience
Expand beyond bus ticketing into profitable attractions market
Design a fast, mobile-friendly experience with rich content for multiple countries
Move to platform that handles B2B and B2C on a global scale
Results
+70% mobile revenue
+24% mobile traffic
+50% mobile conversion
+20% in SEO year-over-year
“We were losing sales, we needed a totally new e-commerce solution. One of the key things for us was to become future-proof, and mobile was absolutely central.”
Andy Furlong
Executive VP of Marketing and e-commerce, Big Bus Tours
A total digital mobile commerce transformation
Big Bus Tours is the largest operator of premium, open-top sightseeing tours in the world. Founded in 1971 as a family business, the company provides “hop on, hop off” bus tours in 19 cities across four continents. In 2015, they were acquired by Exponent Private Equity, and embarked upon a journey of total digital transformation with mobile commerce in mind.
Their goal? To centralize their global e-commerce operations into one omnichannel experience and expand from the bus ticket industry into the lucrative attractions market, offering experiences like Madame Tussauds and the Empire State Building. But their legacy .Net platform was holding them back.
For a business with no physical products or fulfillment needs, the Big Bus Tours operation was complicated: On any given bus there can be customers from 60 different countries, demanding multiple currencies and languages. They needed a new mobile friendly website with a responsive design that was content rich, yet lightning fast, even for mobile customers in a foreign city.
Creating a simple, powerful mobile commerce store
Big Bus Tours chose Born Group and Adobe Commerce to realize their mobile commerce vision. “Big Bus Tours needed to launch across 18 global sites, mobile friendly and on a fully responsive design, with huge amounts of content,” says Claudia Summers, of Born Group. “They also needed a platform that could handle B2C and B2B on an international scale.” The answer was simple, they would design and develop a fully responsive design site on Adobe Commerce. Furlong agreed: “Adobe Commerce has a powerful, simple UX that really works for us.”
Paulo Roseghini, the project manager at Born Group, says: “We simply customized Adobe Commerce templates. Adobe Commerce is a mature platform with built-in mobile commerce features, it allows more control on the whole code system, it was easy to upgrade.” Big Bus Tours decided to keep extensions to a minimum, keeping the site light on its feet. They did use Intilery to provide a single customer view tool, optimization, and A/B testing. “It was easy to layer in, with all the flexibility that Adobe Commerce delivers,” adds Furlong.
For Big Bus Tours, the Adobe Commerce template gave the company the power to adapt, fast. Now, when they acquire existing bus tour companies and their routes, they can create a new store view, populate the content, and go-live in hours rather than weeks. But the main selling point was the cost, says Furlong. “For a business of our scale, Adobe Commerce was the best e-commerce solution.”
“Previously, e-commerce was a roadblock. Now, if a competitor in New York launches a new route and new promotion, within a day we can react to it.”
Andy Furlong
Executive VP of Marketing and e-commerce, Big Bus Tours
A mobile commerce revolution with phenomenal results
The project took eight months to complete, and Big Bus Tours went live with a “big bang” in December 2016. “We unplugged and re-plugged,” explains Andy Furlong, “but we lost nothing in terms of SEO. The launch was tense, but remarkably smooth.” As an e-commerce veteran with countless digital launches under his belt, Furlong had prepared his board for “some months of pain,” yet the most disruption the company noticed was a 10% dip in bookings that only lasted a couple of days. “We didn’t drop a single place on SEO. We’ve actually now built a 20% improvement in SEO year-on-year. Everyone was walking on water!” says Furlong. “By the end of launch week it was back to normal, then the growth curve started climbing.”
The results were breathtaking. Big Bus Tours enjoyed their best Easter period on record with a staggering 65% increase year-on-year. Conversion rates soared 50%, and mobile conversion simply exploded, with mobile revenue up by 70%. The old Big Bus Tours site was averaging £40,000 per day in November 2016, but that figure climbed to £100,000 in May 2017, exceeding their forecasts. “Now we can optimize, and constantly look to improve conversion, and that’s massive for us,” says Furlong.
The new mobile commerce solution made Big Bus Tours future-proof and ready to dominate new markets and add new cities, like Sydney and Darwin in Australia. Their plans now include Uber-style bus tracking and a video-rich attraction hub. Thanks to Adobe Commerce, Big Bus Tours is well on its way to realizing its ambitious e-commerce vision, to become more than just a bus company.
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