AMS Inc.’s eCommerce Business Accelerates its Growth with the Help of Long-Term Partner, Silk

www.ams-samplers.com

AMS Inc. is a family-owned business that manufactures hand augers, soil probes, core samplers, and many other products that are used by individuals, businesses, non-profits, governments, and universities throughout the world. AMS’ partnership with Silk began in 2013, when the company asked the Silk team to build its first-ever eCommerce site. The initial site was built in Magento 1 and it served AMS well for many years.

But as the platform’s sunset loomed, AMS was anxious to migrate to Magento 2 for a variety of reasons. First, Magento 2 offers better security, including the latest version of PHP. AMS also wanted its customers to know that its site was fully PCI compliant. Additionally, Magento 2 greatly improves performance, loading pages in as little as 1.5 seconds, and AMS wondered if the faster speed could help boost conversions. Finally, the eCommerce team wanted to help their customers find products faster and easier, and a site migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2 seemed like the perfect time to optimize those workflows.

OUR SOLUTION

Because time was of essence, the Silk team leveraged its Magento 2 Accelerator solution for AMS’ Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration. Like many accelerator programs, the Silk solution offers plenty of pre-built functionality and out-of-the-box platform features to help the client get up and running as quickly as possible. Unlike those other programs, however, Silk places a heavy emphasis on discovery; rather than implement a bunch of functionality the merchant and its customers really don’t need, Silk guides its clients through an analysis of which features are truly necessary for launch, which can wait for future iterations of the site, and which will never provide any meaningful value. Thanks to the smart upfront planning, deep understanding of AMS’ business, along with the pre-built functionality, Silk was able to complete the migration and launch AMS’s new Magento 2 site in just eight weeks.

AMS also wanted to optimize its catalog structure, as well as do a better job promoting its most popular catalogs. Prior to the migration, the company’s 5,000 SKUs were organized into 1,000 categories, many of which were redundant. Finding a desired product required a deep understanding of the site’s catalog structure — hardly an ideal situation for promoting conversions and boosting AOV. To address this challenge, the Silk team analyzed four years of sales data in order to assess which products customers purchased together and to refine how products are sorted into categories. The team used this insight to introduce a new SKU workflow, along with an advanced search filtering system. Today, the most popular product catalogs are emphasized, and visitors have access to intuitive filtering capabilities that allow them to find what they need quickly and easily.

The Silk team will continue to meet regularly with AMS to assess the site, discuss any potential issues that need addressing, and to plan future enhancements.