Success Story: Sportpaleis.nl & Search

About Sportpaleis.nl

Sportpaleis has been active as a renowned sporting goods store since 1926 and is part of Sport 2000, a cooperation of independent sporting goods stores. With a store of more than 1100 m² in the Citymall in Almere, Sportpaleis is a household name in the Flevoland region. In recent years, the website Sportpaleis.nl has grown into the most important online sales channel, with customers spread throughout the Netherlands.

Almost a year ago, Sportpaleis.nl chose Spotler Activate Search on the advice of e-commerce partner Divide to offer visitors an advanced search function. “We noticed immediately that it worked. More orders were placed and the number of items per order also increased,” says Webshop Manager Donovan Weide of Sportpaleis.

‘Search worked directly. We saw an increase in turnover and the number of items per order.’

– Donovan Weide, Manager Online Store Sportpaleis

Strategic partnership with agency Divide

Sportpaleis.nl chose Divide because of their reputation in the field of omni-channel retail and their cooperation with interesting e-commerce parties, including Spotler Activate Search. “We have very regular contact with Divide. We discuss trends and developments to see if they are relevant for Sportpaleis.nl,” says Weide.

“We offer basic functionality from our platform. However, customer feedback has led us to look for a partner that offers more possibilities,” says Sherwin Shabazi, Account Manager at Divide. “Spotler Activate Search is easy to integrate and customers see concrete improvements in figures after just a few weeks.”

Football as the biggest driver of turnover

“If you look at our turnover distribution, a large part comes from football,” says Weide. “We dress and sponsor several football clubs in Almere and we make the difference compared to our competitors with our stock and high level of service. What you see on our website, we have in stock physically and we can deliver immediately. Especially in the last two years we have noticed a significant increase in the number of views. The focus this year is on working on a larger national brand awareness, which should lead to even more traffic.” Currently, 40,000 visitors are welcomed to Sportpaleis via the website every month.

Fully operational within a day

Based on a proposal from Divide, Sportpaleis started using the Spotler Activate Search software in mid-2023, with the aim of increasing the number of conversions. “We had two hours of training and it took us less than half a day to set up Search,” recalls Weide. “Spotler Activate Search is very pleasant to manage. After explaining it once, everyone can work with it. Now that a custom template has also been implemented, the search results are even clearer and we offer customers more filter options.”

Search results in line with search intent

The Webshop Manager of Sportpaleis does not have to think long about examples of results that the e-shop achieves thanks to Spotler Activate Search. “Nike Tech products are a popular product category. Previously, a search for ‘Nike Tech’ would bring up all Nike products. After we started using Search, you can see that we are able to bring the right results to the fore. This means that we sell a lot more Nike Tech products.”

Another example is football socks. “We always called Ajax socks ‘stockings’, in accordance with the official product name.” But whoever searched for ‘Ajax socks’ did not see the products. “Because we have set up synonyms in Search, visitors now do see what they are interested in,” says Weide.

Leads for new items in the shop

Through Search, Sportpaleis gains insight into trends that previously remained under the radar. “Thanks to the success of Almere City in the Eredivisie, we noticed a strong increase in shirts of the football club. Unfortunately, we did not sell these kits, but it was a reason for us to contact the club about this large demand to facilitate purchasing. Without Spotler Activate Search, we would not have had that knowledge.”

Longer visit duration and more site interaction

Since the implementation of Spotler Activate Search, the average time that visitors spend on the website has increased considerably. “We used to always think that we could best improve the user experience of the website with the navigation. With Search we know that this is not the case. Many visitors go directly to the search function and start their customer journey there. Thanks to our large range, customers encounter more products via Search. They browse via the search function. If customers are on your website longer, they also view more articles.”

Weide is looking forward to what is still possible with further optimizations of the setup of Spotler Activate Search. “Since the implementation of Search, we have received more positive website reviews. That our website is user-friendly and that customers find it easy to order something. Now is the time to start tweaking Search further. But the fact is that we are very happy with it now.”