wrangler.com has a new look and feel, an interactive home page and a new ecommerce store. The Zobrist team developed the WebSphere 6.0 Commerce / Content site architecture to deliver an integrated brand experience on wrangler.com. (Brendan Walsh, Wrangler.com Project Manager.) www.zobristinc.com and www.wrangler.com.
S&S Worldwide, a national distributor of arts and crafts and sporting goods products, recently implemented a shopping cart abandonment program through Silverpop Engage that helps the company generate an impressive 25 percent conversion rate—more than seven to eight times the average conversion rate of 3 to 3.5 percent that Forrester Research reports retailers typically achieve. Busy people often put items in online shopping carts and then fail to complete the transaction. Within an hour of cart abandonment, S&S Worldwide automatically sends shoppers an email reminder to complete their purchases. The program operates using Web analytics from Coremetrics integrated with Silverpop Engage Transact, a dedicated sending architecture specifically designed for triggered transactional emails and messaging. If the customer still takes no action, the company follows up periodically with additional emails that offer various incentives for completing the purchase. Nye said the ability to send triggered, one-off messages with content relevant to the items in the abandoned cart plays a significant role in enticing customers to complete their purchases.
Silverpop, a leading provider of email and B2C customer engagement marketing solutions and multichannel B2B marketing automation, assists retailers with email marketing programs that build closer consumer relationships and drive revenue. S&S Worldwide is a national distributor of arts and crafts and sporting goods products for recreation, health care and education professionals. S&S has been in business for 103 years. Currently the company employs approximately 300 employees. (Carolyn Nye, marketing manager for S&S Worldwide.)
Powell’s Books is boosting online sales with a new email campaign that delivers book recommendations based on customer’s favorite topics. Launched in February, Powell’s Subject Newsletter has already returned open rates of more than 70 percent by delivering subscribers monthly book recommendations in up to ten subject areas based on their identified subject interests. The company, which began its email marketing efforts in 1999, offers book aficionados a suite of seven email newsletters ranging from a book review a day to a listing of its recently arrived used books. Collectively, Powell’s sends more than 27 million emails every year to its growing subscriber list that now tops more than 500,000 book readers. (Sam Whitmore, Powell’s Books’ online marketing developer.)
The world's largest independent tire and wheel retailer Discount Tire Company has implemented a combination of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Satellite for its growing e-commerce business. In 2000, Discount Tire decided to bring the management of its e-commerce infrastructure in-house after having outsourced it for several years. The IT team originally tried building a new e-commerce system based on a Windows platform, but the solution did not meet Discount Tire’s performance, reliability and stability needs. Additionally, Discount Tire’s use of IBM Lotus Domino Server was a critical aspect of its daily ability to meet business demands. Previously running on Windows, the lack of reliability and consistent downtime of its Lotus software was critically impacting its day-to-day operations. “Our e-commerce environment has to be available 24/7/365 at 99.99 percent availability, making it absolutely mission-critical. Our internal applications running under Red Hat Enterprise Linux include inventory management and email – things that people cannot live without,” said Will Darton, senior server support administrator for Discount Tire.
The Container Store, the retailer of storage and organization products, has selected Broadleaf Commerce as its eCommerce solution. The Container Store selected Broadleaf Commerce for its low cost, extensibility, and leading edge framework and technologies. By using this solution, The Container Store will be better able to manage their online catalog and shopping cart, provide customers with a more user-friendly online shopping experience, and reduce their costs. Credera, a business and technology consulting firm based in Dallas, has been selected to implement and customize the solution for The Container Store. (Tom Birmingham, CIO with The Container Store.)
The Container Store, founded in 1978, is the nation’s originator and leading retailer of storage and organization products. The retailer offers more than 10,000 solutions designed to save space and time in each of its 47 nationwide locations and online at www.containerstore.com. Sales for fiscal year 2009 will exceed half a billion. The Container Store is privately held.
Columbia Sportswear Company, a leader in the active outdoor apparel and footwear industries, has selected the Demandware eCommerce Platform as the foundation upon which to build its new business-to-consumer online channel. From its founding in 1938 as a small family-owned hat distributor, Columbia Sportswear has grown to be one of the world’s largest outerwear brands with annual sales in excess of $1.3 billion. Columbia offers an extensive product line that includes a wide variety of outerwear, sportswear, rugged footwear and accessories sold in more than 100 countries. Columbia.com is expected to launch on the Demandware eCommerce Platform in the summer of 2009, serving consumers in the United States, with other sites to follow to serve consumers in Europe and Canada. (Kerry Barnes, Columbia’s Vice President of Retail.)
Eileen Fisher, a clothing company with 44 retail stores and accounts at all major department stores, is to install Escalate Retail’s e-Commerce, Contact Center, Order Manager, and Fulfillment Manager modules to enhance the customer experience and drive additional revenue. Eileen Fisher designs clothes and was founded in 1984. The collection is sold by major retailers and specialty stores across the U.S. and Canada as well as in 44 company-owned stores and online at www.eileenfisher.com. (Lauren Croke, Director of Web and E-Commerce, Eileen Fisher.)
The Yankee Candle Company has selected Silverpop as its online engagement marketing provider. Yankee Candle has become the most-recognized name in the candle business and the country’s best-selling candle brand by sharing its customers’ “passion for fragrance” in every product it brings to market. Yankee Candle will engage its customers via email to share promotional messages and special offers. The company can now deliver one-to-one relevancy by considering factors such as recency of last purchase and average spend per transaction before engaging customers. Additionally, through Silverpop’s Share-to-Social capability Yankee Candle’s customers can now share special offers and new product information within their favorite social networks. (Dana Springfield, general manager of consumer direct at The Yankee Candle Company.)
