Developing a D2C proposition for the luggage wholesaler

Having struggled to diversify their B2B business to develop a Direct to Consumer arm in the past, POLARIS partnered with Rock Luggage to establish firm footing through a D2C sales channel on their own website, direct.

Business Case

Rock Luggage is a manufacturer of luggage that has operated for over 15 years, supplying the high street and online marketplaces. 

With a background largely as a wholesaler supplying brick-and-mortar high street stores, the business wanted to diversify and introduce a direct to consumer (D2C) channel.

The business had tried several agencies to help them get their own website and product marketing off the ground, but made little progress. After receiving a recommendation from another client working with POLARIS SEO Agency, Rock Luggage wanted to revisit their potential online in order to increase revenues within the business from end customers directly through a structured ecommerce SEO campaign.

Guiding the business on marketing strategy

Having discussed key objectives with the client, the POLARIS team launched a retail SEO strategy plan, which would allow Rock Luggage to focus on user experience, trust and authority to ensure both the initial visibility for customers researching suitcases online, and secondary brand led searches for the final purchase were apparent.

Rock luggage were already a successful manufacturer and wholesaler of their brand into high street retailers, but they wanted to diversify their business and capitalise on users going online and buying direct from retailers that they were missing out on because of a lack of the right focus.
They cared about having a relationship with an agency that would talk plainly, meet with them face to face to discuss progress, and be up front and honest about the time it would take to make progress against other sites in the luggage sector.

Our expert team directed an on page SEO strategy alongside an onsite technical SEO strategy that ensured the website was optimum for the needs of search engines, with our primary focus being Google UK, and that the website was designed to provide an efficient user experience that gave consumers the information and ability they desired at any point of their customer journey.

Optimising key product lines for an increase in sales

A major part of our on-page SEO strategy focused on improving category and product content, being sure to carefully time implementation to support new product launches. Rock Luggage’s Vintage style suitcase line was something of a hero product, so ensuring performance for the main category page was paramount.

Our team conducted extensive keyword research, in order to identify high-value terms that we could target through the Vintage category page. Once keyword targets were identified, we set to work implementing the page optimisation to ensure the page ranked and was capturing targeted traffic.

“Really good. They came in and got on with things and were clear on what their responsibilities were and what we had to do together to make our business work directly for customers.”

Anil Bijlani
Rock Luggage

After our optimisation work was complete, we secured multiple top 3 position ranks for the Vintage suitcase category page. In fact, the search visibility of the page was improved so much that production could not quite keep up with demand, as more people searching for vintage style suitcases wanted to buy Rock’s product line than the luggage ecommerce brand had product in stock for.

Rock’s vintage product category page still ranks in top 3 positions for target keywords, ranking 1st for the main target term ‘vintage style suitcase’.

Rock’s site outranks ecommerce luggage competitors for the competitive term, as well as retail marketplace giants such as Amazon, Ebay and Etsy.

Solution delivery

Using Industry Data and Ecommerce SEO Experience to Capture Key Moments in the Buying Journey of the consumer. 

By leveraging our experience as a leading ecommerce SEO agency, and our expert independent research and data analysis into the customer journey of purchasing luggage, the POLARIS team devised an SEO strategy that took the website to 1st position on Google, ahead of other retail giants including the likes of Amazon.

Our team considered the journey of a traveller and the time at which a traveller typically invests in new luggage. We considered the variations of search, including targeting users that search using luggage dimensions for airline carriers including EasyJet, British Airways and Ryan Air.

This was accomplished by utilising a fully functioning approach in all facets of SEO, from consumer study and targeting to digital PR and outreach. In addition to reviewing and developing landing pages with best SEO practice for user behaviour in mind, extensive research was done on competitor websites, allowing our expert team to form a winning SEO strategy for the luggage brand online.