Fusionsoft Builds A Strong Case For A New Antler Website
Fusionsoft builds a strong case for a new Antler website
Companies that have their own ecommerce websites often want to be able to change the content of their sites themselves. To streamline many of the sales and promotional processes, the ecommerce sites also need to be integrated with other corporate systems. Leading UK luggage company, Antler, decided that the solution to both of these issues was to ask Fusionsoft to develop a new ecommerce site using its highly successful Weblinc product. The new site has subsequently increased Antlers website sales by 59%.
Antler is a leading manufacturer and distributor of luxury travel and holiday luggage. The company has been selling luggage since 1920, when it developed leather-covered wardrobe trunks for passengers on ocean liners. Within the UK, the company now distributes its products through High Street retail outlets and own brand labels.
The business issues
Since 2007, Antler has also been involved in direct online sales to consumers through its own website. However, this soon proved to be inadequate, with several key issues emerging:
Lack of integration The site wasnt integrated with any of the companys back office systems. This meant that any changes to product prices or descriptions was a very time-consuming process as was the development and promotion of special offers. Antler wanted an ecommerce site that would be fully integrated with the companys Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. This would ensure that most of the tasks that had previously been handled manually (such as prices, product descriptions and offers) could be automated.
Lack of control Although the original site had its own content management system, many of the areas could still only be updated by the website developer. Antler wanted to assume total ownership of content updating. The company therefore needed a website that would enable the content to be managed entirely in-house, without any reliance on the website developers.
Lack of flexibility - Antler wanted the same website to be used by its business-to-business (B2B) trade customers as well as individual consumers. It also wanted to move away from manual fax or telephone orders and migrate to a self-service web ordering solution.
Gary Capell, Antlers Development Director, says: One of our highest priorities was to procure a solution that would be much more search engine friendly. We also wanted to be able to use our in-house graphic design team to design the look, feel and brand of the website. We decided that the success of the new website would be measured by whether or not it managed to increase the turnover of the previous site.
The options
Fusionsoft was invited to pitch for the development of the new website. This came as a result of a recommendation from Antlers IT Manager, who had previously seen a highly successful project been carried out by the company. Fusionsoft offered Antler a number of options:
Content management and integration The first alternative was for Antler to keep its existing content management system and integrate the site with Fusionsofts ecommerce engine, which in turn would be integrated with Antlers ERP system. The second option was to use Fusionsofts content management system and ecommerce engine and integrate these with Antlers ERP system.
Hosting Antler was given the choice of hosting the solution in-house or using Fusionsofts hosting partner.
Delivery The entire solution (both the consumer and trade elements of the website) could be delivered at once, or it could be delivered in a phased approach - with the consumer section first, followed by the trade section.
The benefits
After detailed discussions between teams from the two companies, Antler asked Fusionsoft to deliver the entire solution. This would be hosted by Fusionsofts hosting partner, eliminating the need for Antler to invest in additional infrastructure and licenses. The hosting solution is fully managed on a 24x7x365 basis, which also removed the need for Antler to allocate internal resource to support or maintain the website.
It was agreed that the solution would be deployed in a phased approach. The consumer element of the website subsequently went live first, followed by the trade component three months later.
Fusionsofts approach offered the following benefits in response to Antlers main business issues:
Integration Fusionsofts ecommerce engine has had excellent references from clients. This includes examples where the ecommerce engine has been successfully integrated with AS400-based ERP systems, especially System 21 which is used by Antler.
As Fusionsofts solution was designed specifically for integration with back office applications, it was able to provide a high level of integration with Antlers processes. As a result, all of the tasks that were previously carried out manually are now automatically updated by Antlers back office applications, including the ERP system.
Control Fusionsofts content management system is one of the most search engine friendly systems available. It delivers extremely good visibility across Google, Yahoo and Bing, providing Antler with a great opportunity for its keywords to be found on the first page of search engines.
The content management system is also extremely easy to use. This has given Antlers team total control over all of the content input, editing and updating. The system has allowed Antlers graphics department to design the website brand and to choose the whole look and feel of the site. It also allows the department to deploy HTML offers and promotions straight off the home page, without needing to involve Fusionsoft.
Flexibility - Fusionsofts ecommerce engine has provided discrete solutions for both the consumer and trade parts of the website. Each trade customer can log in and start a new order; update a previous order; view expected deliveries; view their account balance; and manage all of their orders online. This significantly reduces the overhead for managing trade orders.
The consumer and trade sections of the website (www.antler.co.uk) were both successfully implemented. Antler now manages all of its own content and graphical updates. The companys ERP system automatically updates the website with pricing, availability, product descriptions, product sizes and specifications.
A good example of the benefits of this automation can be seen from the governments move to reduce VAT followed later by an increase back to the original rate. Antler only needed to update the VAT rate once on its ERP system. As the website displays the prices from the ERP system in real time, the prices that appeared on the site were automatically adjusted.
The verdict
Gary Capell comments: Within the first 12 months of the consumer section going live, we grew sales income by 59% through the website. Most of our keywords achieve a first page ranking on the major search engines, which helped enormously towards the attainment of our sales target.
The trade site has also been a great success partly because it is very easy to use. Its a very simple process to turn orders into delivered products. This has taken the pain out of transactions and has encouraged our trade customers to use the site for ordering rather than using fax and telephone orders. The trade site is now also able to promote new products and slow-moving stock as well as displaying volume- related sales incentives.
He concludes: We have been delighted with the quality of Fusionsofts service and the professionalism of their team. The new website will play a major role in our future sales and its ease of use and functionality will further enhance our high levels of customer service.
by: Bill Bikes
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