Australia’s largest online pureplay shoe retailer, Styletread.com.au, has recorded a 20 per cent rise in year on year growth for the period of January to March 2014.

According to Styletread, the introduction of new technologies and a greater focus on customer retention has helped boost the pureplay’s growth.

“It’s been a bumper year for Styletread’s year to date. Quarter one has seen us planning and executing detailed engagement and retention programs. The programs that have been put in place have delivered a significant increase in website traffic and repeat purchases,” Luke Wilson, Styletread’s marketing director, said.

The implementation of new features such as Bazaar Voice (ratings and review software) has helped with the growth of the company’s product reviews, with more than 3000 reviews in three months, as well as the introduction of multifaceted search engine, Fredhopper.

Styletread’s marketing and development team have been undertaking focus groups to better understand what new features are important to the user.  This has seen the execution of a revised left hand menu, development of reviews, and revised recommendation campaigns.

“We’re growing our customer life cycle. Not only by targeting new customers, but engaging and rewarding our existing customers to create brand loyalty and in turn creating return buyers,” said Wilson.

Ongoing functions include improved search engine functionality throughout the site and UX design implementations such as site colour designs are being put in place to ensure each customers shopping experience are more ascetically pleasing.

“Our biggest priority is our customer, and from start to finish (as a team) we are constantly thinking of new ideas, innovations and products that will help grow our business, community and customer base. We hit the ground running this year, and have some exciting new plans to come,” Wilson said.