The ECMOD (European Catalogue & Mail Order Days) awards, designed to recognise business excellence for organisations engaged in direct-to-customer retailing across traditional and newly emerging channels, are the ‘Oscars’ for all direct commerce businesses and were held at Chelsea Football Club on Thursday 18th April 2013.
With a list of nominated companies including John Lewis, Argos, Lakeland and The White Company, Direct Golf came out on top in the Best Website category. Commercial Manager, Steve Lewis and Website Manager, Neil Rowett were on-hand to accept the award at the ceremony in London.
A delighted John Andrew, Chairman and Class AA PGA Professional, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to win this award. It’s great to be recognised for having a best-in-class web presence, not just in golf, but across a variety of retail sectors. We’ve worked hard over the past 18 months to redevelop the site and continue to adopt and evolve our offering to the benefit of our customers.”
Direct Golf UK deploy a state-of-the-art website, www.direct-golf.co.uk, with an online ordering facility that was completely re-developed and re-launched in 2012 to include an online TV channel, Direct Golf TV, and store in-store shopping for consumers to enjoy a genuine ‘brand’ experience, including availability of the brand’s entire product range.
The improvements to the DGUK website included mobile and iPad applications plus the creation of an online TV Channel that has correlated to a direct increase in sales and record year online, with sales up 7%. The number of visits were up by 14% year-on-year, while unique visitors rose by 7.74%, page views increased 4.25% and the average order value also increased by 6% in 2012 despite one of the wettest years on record.
The news follows the announcement that the specialty golf retailer has recently secured funding from RBS for £3.5m to help grow and develop the award-winning business to the next level.
“We got some exciting plans for the business going forward. Awards are a great benchmark for our business, but it’s important we continue to keep pushing forward and raising the bar” added the Direct Golf Chairman.
Direct Golf UKwww.direct-golf.co.uk