Does SYOS increase sales?

We launched SYOS at the same time as a site redesign so I can’t isolate that our increase in online sales was due only to the SYOS.  However I suspect it has a lot to do with it since SYOS was the most requested feature by our customers.

I also can’t say that it increased overall sales because our sales are down across the board.  However while we are trending 10,000 fewer tickets sold so far this year, we have sold 10,000 more tickets online. 

My guess is that we have a lower abandonment rate online now with the SYOS (we really didn’t have good analytics until the relaunch so I can’t give actual stats).  However, we used to get a lot of calls with the customer already on our website in the middle of a best available order, asking what other seats were available.   Who knows how many sales were lost because someone not comfortable with best available didn’t bother to call or wait on the phone queue?  There’s definitely been a conversion of phone purchasers to online purchasers.   

We also charge a higher handling fee online than by phone so that resulted in a nice revenue increase.

It was definitely worth investing in the SYOS, if only to alleviate the queue time for on-sales and meet customer expectations.  Everyone expects an Amazon experience these days.

Susan M. Crockett

Chief Information Officer

Ruth Eckerd Hall & The Historic Capitol Theatre

1111 N. McMullen Booth Rd.  l  Clearwater, FL 33759

727.712.2757   l   Fax: 727.791.6020

scrockett@rutheckerdhall.net

Or even if anyone is not comfortable sharing specific %s, I'd be happy with just "yes, it seems like it did" or "no, not really".

We launched SYOS at the same time as a site redesign so I can’t isolate that our increase in online sales was due only to the SYOS.  However I suspect it has a lot to do with it since SYOS was the most requested feature by our customers.

I also can’t say that it increased overall sales because our sales are down across the board.  However while we are trending 10,000 fewer tickets sold so far this year, we have sold 10,000 more tickets online. 

My guess is that we have a lower abandonment rate online now with the SYOS (we really didn’t have good analytics until the relaunch so I can’t give actual stats).  However, we used to get a lot of calls with the customer already on our website in the middle of a best available order, asking what other seats were available.   Who knows how many sales were lost because someone not comfortable with best available didn’t bother to call or wait on the phone queue?  There’s definitely been a conversion of phone purchasers to online purchasers.   

We also charge a higher handling fee online than by phone so that resulted in a nice revenue increase.

It was definitely worth investing in the SYOS, if only to alleviate the queue time for on-sales and meet customer expectations.  Everyone expects an Amazon experience these days.

Susan M. Crockett

Chief Information Officer

Ruth Eckerd Hall & The Historic Capitol Theatre

1111 N. McMullen Booth Rd.  l  Clearwater, FL 33759

727.712.2757   l   Fax: 727.791.6020

scrockett@rutheckerdhall.net

Or even if anyone is not comfortable sharing specific %s, I'd be happy with just "yes, it seems like it did" or "no, not really".