Bavarian Clockworks sees 172% increase in traffic selling its timeless product on BigCommerce

The Bavarian Clockworks success story

For 25 years, Robert Ellis had a successful career working across a number of industries ranging from insurance to construction to hospitality. After selling his small business, Robert decided it was time to look for his “next step,” which he found in an unexpected market.

After extensive research, Robert identified an underserved ecommerce niche that looked ripe for disruption. So in 2015, Robert officially launched Bavarian Clockworks, a US-based, family-owned business selling the world’s highest-quality, certified Black Forest cuckoo clocks.

Choosing a platform to accelerate growth

As told to BigCommerce by Robert Ellis, Owner, bavarianclockworks.com

When I launched Bavarian Clockworks, it was my first online business venture. From the beginning, I knew it was important to find a platform that was going to let me operate the business the way I envisioned, without making compromises.

During the course of my research, I found several online resources that listed BigCommerce as a preferred ecommerce platform. Each mentioned that BigCommerce was well suited for businesses experiencing rapid growth. Given our firm belief that the company and our products would succeed, we felt most comfortable moving forward with BigCommerce knowing the platform would be able to meet our needs as the business grew.

The total platform package for converting customers

As told to BigCommerce by Robert Ellis, Owner, bavarianclockworks.com

Right out of the gate, we were very impressed with BigCommerce’s total package of built-in features and apps, which can be set up in minutes. The BigCommerce Marketplace offered everything we needed, and we liked that entire platform is built in way that allowed us to customize our store and backend to our exact liking.

I believed BigCommerce would be able to offer us a solution that could accommodate our growth – and it has. One application that has improved our conversion rate was the One Page Checkout by IntuitSolutions. The app streamlined our checkout process, improving conversion and improving the user experience for our customers. As a result, we also saw a significant drop in abandoned carts.

DIY ecommerce design made easy

As told to BigCommerce by Robert Ellis, Owner, bavarianclockworks.com

We really wanted our site to stand out. As a new to ecommerce entrepreneur, I also wanted to see what I was capable of doing on my own, with a small budget.

To launch the site, we selected a template from the BigCommerce theme store that I customized myself. We have around 350 products listed on our site, with about 2,000 photos. I took my time incorporating each of the photos and site graphics until it looked just right, but once it was time to launch our site the process with BigCommerce was simple.

Bringing brick-and-mortar customer service to online shoppers

As told to BigCommerce by Robert Ellis, Owner, bavarianclockworks.com

We're very proactive about our approach to relationships with vendors and customers and genuinely enjoy communicating with them. On the homepage of our website, our phone number is posted up in the top right corner in a large font, and we encourage customers to call anytime they need extra service or support.

We’ve received a lot of feedback telling us how refreshing it is for customers to have the option to call and get their situation resolved quickly, which isn’t always the case when shopping online. When it comes to the customer experience and the way we do business, we wanted shoppers to feel like they were interacting one-to-one with our team the way you would in a physical store.

Delivering content that generates sales and SEO

As told to BigCommerce by Robert Ellis, Owner, bavarianclockworks.com

When I settled on selling specialty cuckoo clocks online, I knew it would be vitally important to offer customers resources to explain the value and history behind our products.

To do this, we built a comprehensive resources page which is intended to help customers make an informed selection. Our user guides are the nucleus of the website. They provide huge value to potential customers, and it's also fantastic for SEO.

Every topic we write about is highly relevant to the product we’re selling and informed by the keywords people are searching for on the website, which we are able to identify using BigCommerce. Content marketing has played a critical role in our SEO campaign, allowing us to outrank larger and more established companies in search engines, and capture a bigger portion of our market.

We also generate sales from our customer reviews which enables customers to make informed choices before they purchase as well as improve discoverability.

BigCommerce customer support sets it apart from its competition

As told to BigCommerce by Robert Ellis, Owner, bavarianclockworks.com

Within any business, problems are inevitable. What makes a company stand out is how they handle those issues when they arise.

Anytime I've had a question about how to improve my website, BigCommerce’s support team has been a valuable resource. If I have a question and I can't find it through the resources available on BigCommerce’s forums, it’s reassuring to know I’m able to pick up the telephone and quickly get someone on the line.

Knowing that someone can help you immediately address an important issue is worth its weight in gold. BigCommerce has always been very good about that. BigCommerce’s personal approach to service truly stands out for me as a customer.