Bayard, Press group, Publishing and Digital, is a reference publisher in three fields: youth literature, religious literature and senior literature. Bayard operates in Europe, America, Asia and Africa.
With Bayard, Bayard Jeunesse, Milan and Twenty Third, the group publishes 150 magazines that represent 36 million readers worldwide, including 5 million subscribers.
Editions Bayard, Milan, Bayard Canada, Novalis sell 8 million books, publish more than 700 new releases per year, and offer 4,800 titles in their catalogs.
Bayard also has 150 websites worldwide, including 24 sites on the Magento platform: 16 desktop sites and 8 mobile sites!
Bayard has entrusted Clever Age with the takeover of its numerous Magento e-commerce sites in order to optimize the user experience, to develop the digital activities and to increase efficiency of the digital platform structure. These sites are numerous and are both for retail commerce (B2C) and for professional commerce (B2B).
TAKEOVER AND OPTIMIZATION OF THE MAGENTO SITES OF THE BAYARD PRESSE GROUP
Since the former migration of its sites to the Magento platform, Bayard Presse observed a significant decrease of the turn-over. In order to rectify this situation, Bayard has chosen Clever Age as a new partner to ensure the changes to be made on the digital media.
The main issues of the brand were to :
- Increase the turnover from digital activities,
- Develop the growth of digital activities (web, tablet, mobile);
- Improve the user experience,,
- Improve the efficiency of the digital platform structure and the sites performance.
AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT THROUGH SCRUM METHODOLOGY
Given the time constraints and in agreement with the client, we have chosen an Agile approach of project management. In the so-called “traditional” approaches, we expect the customers to detail their needs at the beginning of the project, which leaves little room for change. The Agile approach, on the opposite, offers more visibility because it involves the client from the beginning to the end of the project and follows an iterative and incremental process. The Bayard project was divided into 3 different sprints.
- Sprint 1: Specification phase
- Sprint 2: Production phase
- Sprint 3: Acceptance and deployment
At the end of these three sprints, the expected results were tangible and Bayard wished to keep working with Clever Age.
Thanks to the agile mode, we were able to work much faster and to follow the evolution of needs during the project !
MAGENTO CATALOG AUDIT AND SEO AUDIT
During the 1st Sprint, our teams of Magento experts went through the numerous Magento sites and the whole architecture with a fine comb. In total, they analyzed 24 sites : 16 desktop sites & 8 mobile sites. The objective was to evaluate the platform code to be able to make a diagnosis and then launch a corrective action plan. In order to carry out this full assessment, we made several audits:
- Audit of the Magento catalog (categories, products, attributes, etc)
- SEO Audit
- General configuration
This comprehensive diagnosis highlighted each critical point and it delivered an evolution scenario and associated implementation tips for each case. Bayard chose to integrate all the patches from the sprint 2 of the project.
The first optimization on the Magento sites focused on three main areas: SEO, monitoring and redesigning the user experience.
SEO AND MONITORING OPTIMIZATION
Several problems identified during the SEO audit were corrected at the earliest stages of the project. First of all, our experts have improved the catalog structure to avoid duplicate content problems and URL rewriting which had serious consequences on the sites performance.
We have also set up a monitoring system to identify and diagnose performance problems. To meet this need, we have chosen the New Relic solution.
FOCUS ON THE NEW USER EXPERIENCE
In order to increase the overall conversion rate of the site and improve the user experience, we have identified that several purchase journeys have to be redesigned. Clever Age carried out the functional and technical specifications, and then we handled the UX and functional design of several parts of the group brands sites.
Among the ergonomic redesigns, we worked on:
- The redesign of the checkout,
- The renewal of subscription,
- The customer area,
- The product sheets,
- The category pages.
All these changes had to be adapted to each store view, in other words, they had to be adaptable on the various sites / brands of the Bayard group.
Implementing a 1 step Checkout !
Bayard had as a main goal to simplify the purchase journey of its site in order to increase the subscriptions. So we developed a one-page checkout to boost conversion !
This page includes various elements such as the user connection (essential in the case of a digital subscription sale), customer information and bank details. In this specific case, it doesn’t include information related to the shipment or to the customer address because we are in the case of a subscription to a dematerialized product.
Similarly, for method of payment selection, Bayard (logically) choose to impose a method of payment by credit card for this type of product.
Bayard had as a main goal to simplify the purchase journey of its site in order to increase the subscriptions. So we developed a one-page checkout to boost conversion!
This page includes various elements such as the user connection (essential in the case of a digital subscription sale), customer information and bank details. In this specific case, it doesn’t include information related to the shipment or to the customer address because we are in the case of a subscription to a dematerialized product.
Similarly, for method of payment selection, Bayard (logically) choose to impose a method of payment by credit card for this type of product.
If you want to know more information about this project, you can read our dedicated article on the topic: “Create a simplified purchase journey with Magento 2“.
THE RESULTS
Bayard now benefits from a powerful, stable and scalable platform. The redesign allowed the group to offer a fluid and personalized navigation according to the visitor experiences.
In addition to its many dedicated Mobile themes, the brand plans to switch soon its sites to a Responsive Web Design display which will allow customers to view the entire catalog from any device in the best conditions.
