⛷ SkiWebshop uses guided selling to bring the in-store experience online

The Breda industrial estate may appear a bit dreary today, but stepping inside the SkiWebShop offices, one is immediately immersed in the familiar atmosphere of winter sports, where performance and conviviality go hand in hand. It's easy to envision the often youthful employees here out on the ski slopes. Winter sports enthusiasts among the staff, like marketing manager Joost Breuer, have an added incentive to meet their annual targets: successful performance means the entire team gets to enjoy a company-sponsored skiing trip. It's no wonder the company sees significant growth year after year.

Finding a suitable place to sit is a bit of a challenge. Despite being only three years old, the office is already bursting at the seams: models come and go for photoshoots with the new winter collection, upstairs there are bustling meetings, and Joost has just welcomed several new colleagues. "Normally, you could still find some space at customer service, but nowadays it's busy with calls all day," he remarks as we descend the stairs to the relatively tranquil reception area.

"You can definitely feel that the weather is starting to get colder," Joost begins as we take our seats at a table next to a pair of beautiful classic wooden skis. "As soon as it gets cold for a day, people start buying again." The season lasts only three months; before that time, the new collections need to be online, stocks need to be replenished, and new colleagues need to be trained. And nowadays, Aiden's guided selling software is also part of that lineup.

Last year, guided selling proved its worth in ski sales, with Joost noting that "more skis than ever" were sold. "That's of course due to several factors: our pricing and marketing, for example, but we believe that the product finder also contributed to that."

Indeed, good ski advice can certainly be beneficial: the selection is vast, and each ski has its own unique characteristics. "There are few people who consider it a hobby to thoroughly research all of that," Joost knows. "One ski is designed for high speeds, another for agility and tight turns, and yet another for off-piste. It's nice if you can just narrow it down to a top 3, so you don't have to click through all those skis."

Joost opens the product finder on his laptop and clicks through the steps. "I don't think we can achieve something equally as convincing with filters," he says. "You'd miss the flow in communication anyway." He points to the last page with the recommendations: "Look, here it says that we mount and adjust the bindings, and that customers get a free ski bag. It's really nice to be able to mention this at the right moment."

If you want to do well as an online store without physical shops, you need to gain the trust of the customer, Joost knows. "In the past, people often wanted to feel the fabric of clothing. That's why we invested a lot in photography and video." The good reviews confirm that the colors and materials are now reliably represented. According to him, the same applies to giving advice: "We're trying to bring the in-store experience to the online store, and a product finder can do that in a very human way."

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"Because the product finder performed well last year, we're using it not only for skis but also for ski goggles and helmets this year," Joost explains. "For example, we have goggles for people who wear glasses," he elaborates. "That's called OTG: Over The Glasses, and it's quite difficult for us to explain in product descriptions. It can quickly become quite overwhelming. Now we can simply ask: do you wear glasses, yes or no? Essentially, we're making difficult information easy by transforming a feature or characteristic into a concrete need and a simple question."

Not only is this convenient for the customer, but it's also much cheaper than building templates for new product pages, Joost adds. "Before you've fully developed that, you've already spent tens of thousands of euros. So, for us, a product finder is a very good tool as a middle ground: you don't need to create entirely new product pages, but you can provide much better advice. That's where the big win is for us."