Multi-channel retailer talks about customer choice in case study

Over the past few weeks, I’ve research, interviewed and written a case study about one of New Zealand’s largest and oldest retailers - a sort of Sears Roebuck to make a North American comparison. I suggest Sears because the ‘over-a-century-old’ appliance and electronics retailer Bond + Bond built their business - in part - by getting products, which otherwise would only be available to urban dwellers, to the rural communities.

In the case study, Linda Geary (business development manager for parent company Noel Leeming Group) emphasized time and again the reason for building out the website the way they did - the customer.

As she points out (in no uncertain terms):

“The long term holistic view of retail suggests that customers will choose their natural channel at the time of purchase and may change at will using a hybrid or mixture of channels. The point is, it’s the customers choice.”

It’s the customer’s choice!

Anyone who watches ecommerce deployments closely has observed the unfortunate phenomenon of “big companies doing it wrong.” Sometimes this is exasperating because you know they have the financial resources to give the customers what they want, yet they seem unwittingly duped by someone (whether internal pundit or external consultant) into doing it wrong. Sometimes companies forget about the fundamental reason to have an ecommerce site which is (no matter how you slice it) to provide shoppers with an easy, efficient and pleasing vehicle to spend their money.

This can be tough no doubt about it. Established companies must address their internal culture to move beyond the “because this is the way we’ve always done it” mindset and show the courage to forge ahead with new channels and embrace fresh ideas without “sacred cows” and protectionist attitudes. Rather than resisting change and wonder what might happen to other channels, Bond + Bond saw the web as a natural accompaniment to the catalog, call center and brick and mortar store, and integrated the website seamlessly.

Again Linda Geary points out:

“The Bond + Bond website operates as a fully integrated ‘clicks and mortar’ model, meaning that we have considerable advantage over pure online retailers as we already have an established brand, customer base and distribution network that comes from operating physical stores.”

Oh yeah, sounds good … but how’d they do that? Well, what I wrote in the case study is:

With the integration, all orders - whether originating in-store or via web or catalog - are fed into the same data structure for consistency and accuracy. This catch-all allows customer service representatives to ably assist with any order, at any time, regardless of the transaction channel.

This operational concept provides customers the freedom to conduct initial research online while purchasing later, either in-store or by phone, with no difference in price or promotions. Further, any problems with products or orders are handled with equal efficiency regardless of purchase channel. Plus all off-line promotions (TV, catalogs, radio, newspapers) are applicable online, further fostering confidence for shoppers who hop between channels.

The result is no more, “Sorry, that deal is only available in-store,” or “Pardon me but I can’t process returns over the phone for purchases over the web,” if you know what I mean.

By gluing the channels together, B+B effectively leveraged their established brand and regional reputation to create a sense of security and ease. Along with better serving existing shoppers, this openness will help more customers leap online to buy - customers who otherwise might bow out at the first signs of confusion if they think (for example) that a better deal can be found in-store or that support is only available for call center orders.

A few other nice touches are persistent cart total, keyword-laden URLs (great for SEO), thorough product descriptions (with means to email, print, view), saveable customer profiles and well organized site navigation including apparent phone numbers and return policies.

Great strategy, solid execution … but why did they build with Elastic Path? I’ll leave that to B+B’s IT DevMan (and rugby enthusiast), Darrin Harper, who notes the primary reason for their choice:

“We found EP to have the structural integrity to handle our goals of delivering a simple and effective shopping channel for our customers while keeping site development and management in-house.”

So now you probably really want to read the whole case study which also talks about the architecture and how they migrated away from IBM Websphere eCommerce to Elastic Path and what they have in mind next. For that, you gotta give Elastic Path’s (friendly) sales folks a call at 1-800-942-5282 or use the handy Elastic Path contact form or technical docs request form.