A trusted business partner for 50 years

Following Signet’s launch in 1968 with the sale of two refillable marking pens, the company made it its mission to support Australian businesses aspiring to make their mark. Today, the company sells secondary and tertiary packaging essentials ranging from shipping cartons and packaging tapes to protective packaging, stretch film and strapping. Its 60,000 customers span industries such as retail, manufacturing, wholesale and distribution, agriculture, and construction.

Culturally, the company embraces the Australian can-do, entrepreneurial spirit of its co-founders, brothers John and Bob Winson. That spirit was evident in Signet’s decision to make it even easier for its small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) and large corporate customers to buy from the company.

Taking a digital-first approach

Historically, Signet customers purchased products at one of six nationwide retail outlets or via the company’s call center, where they interacted with knowledgeable experts who could advise them on their purchases. In recent years, however, more customers, particularly SMEs, began to place orders online – the most cost-efficient sales channel for the company. The question was, how could Signet persuade even more customers, including large corporations who preferred traditional, face-to-face interactions, to do the same?

The answer was a full-scale digital transformation in which Signet would migrate from a custom-built, legacy IT infrastructure to a modern ecommerce platform enabling quicker, more efficient, and more personalised shopping experiences – a value proposition that it hoped would overcome any hesitation to buy online.

“To serve our rapidly growing customer base better, it was clear that we had to evolve into a digital-first business,” says Suzie Young, Head of Digital and Direct Marketing at Signet. “To deliver more value and convenience to our customers, we decided to adopt B2C best practices and create dynamic, tailored digital journeys for everyone from small business owners to large corporations while making our portfolio of 5,500 products more visible, accessible, and easier to navigate.”

Laying a foundation for the future

Following an extensive search for an ecommerce partner, Signet chose Overdose, an Australian consultant and Adobe Gold Solution Partner, to help shape its digital strategy and approach.

“We were impressed by the Overdose team’s depth of experience and technical skills,” recounts Hugh Pembroke, E-Commerce & Digital Lead at Signet. “They were also a great fit culturally and we could see them as a long-term partner.”

In identifying an ecommerce platform that could address all of Signet’s business requirements, Overdose suggested Adobe Commerce.

“Adobe Commerce immediately felt right,” says Young. “The strength of the Adobe brand inspired confidence and the platform itself offered the stability, security, user experience, and personalisation we were looking for. There was also the fact that eight out of the ten agencies that pitched us recommended Commerce, and that it was priced competitively.”

The solution also offered the ease of integration that Signet required – with its ERP, CRM, and reporting systems, and with third-party offerings like the Google Display Network and marketing automation and personalisation solutions.

“Our legacy platform lacked out-of-the-box connectors and APIs, which made every integration highly customised, complex, and costly,” says Young. “In contrast, Adobe Commerce is designed from the ground up for seamless integration.”

Personalising online transactions

Working throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Overdose team set out to fulfill a wide range of objectives for Signet. The first was to create personalised site journeys for every customer that would replicate the service experience of its other sales channels.

Overdoes developed a three-tier foundational system in which every customer is linked to a company, job role, and relevant data. This gives them certain rights depending on their profile – for example, a regional manager can order supplies on behalf of multiple office locations. Customers can view their account data by logging into the My Account section of the site. There, they can also create shopping lists, view orders, check the status of track-and-trace shipments, search their transaction history, print invoices, revisit recently viewed items, pay invoices, and more.

“The self-service capabilities enabled by Adobe Commerce are transformative,” explains Young. “Our customers tend to make repeat purchases of essential equipment and supplies, and by logging into My Account, they can now reorder in a few clicks and have all relevant information to hand.”

To make Signet’s 5,500 products more appealing and accessible to customers, Overdose matched tiered mega-menus to customer profiles. A customer working in construction, for example, will now see products suitable for their industry, creating a more tailored browsing experience.

Another priority for the ecommerce team was to accommodate Signet’s complex business rules and pricing structures. Many Signet customers, through historical negotiation, have different pricing agreements. The website thus has to show contracted pricing at every step of a customer’s journey, whether they are browsing category or product pages, conducting site searches, or receiving promotional pop-up banners. Here, integration with third-parties Algolia and Nosto helps create pricing unity.

Personalisation is also used to dynamically change site content to be more relevant. For example, if a customer browses a glove category during a promotion, the products will appear on banners or pop-ups in My Account when they next log in.

Checkout flows were another area of focus. As Signet sells to a wide range of businesses and the occasional consumer, multiple checkout journeys were created to align with different account creation processes. This resulted in three unique checkout flows, each with its own data fields, payment types, and workflows.

Overdose also spent time improving mobile functionality, which was key to driving more customers online. Now, navigating and buying on the site with a mobile device is easier and more intuitive than it was before, and customers can find what they’re looking for in fewer clicks.

Hard work pays off

Signet’s leadership team is delighted with the public response to the new ecommerce site. Since the company’s migration to Commerce, six in 10 customers are now using the site versus other sales channels.

Web revenue has increased by 25%, driven by 18% more shopping sessions and user experience improvements that have reduced cart and checkout abandonments by 27%.

Additionally, the number of new customers and lucrative SME customers using the site has increased by 9% and 35%, respectively.

Looking ahead, Pembroke and the Overdose team plan to optimise certain sections of the site, such as the product and category pages, to improve conversion rates. In addition, they will add features and make refinements based on data analysis and customer feedback.

“With our previous ecommerce infrastructure, it often felt like we were standing still,” says Pembroke. “Today, we’re able to provide a market-leading omnichannel experience that allows customers in the remotest corners of Australia to get the support they need. Adobe Commerce has empowered us to achieve our boldest aspirations, in much the same way the Winson brothers did 55 years ago when they set out to make their first sale.”

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