RYMAN
THE CLIENT
Since its conception, Ryman has been a specialist stationery store offering a wide range of products and combining local convenience, helpful staff with expert product knowledge. A typical store’s inventory has 5,500 different types of products.
The Ryman brand values are quality, value, reliability and service. These have been developed and nurtured for over 100 years making Ryman the acknowledged leader in its field. Such high regard for customer care has allowed Ryman to build and retain a very loyal and satisfied customer base.
OUR SPECIFICATIONS
Ryman the stationer has had a B2C web presence for a number of years, they selected eibDIGITAL to work with them to create a true multi-channel solution which would incorporate enhancements the B2C offering, add extensive B2B functions and incorporate their 600+ store base. Our Specs:
A. Commercially viable
B. Flexible & adaptable to changing business & consumer needs
C. Delivered in time according to the business plan timetables
D. Supportable using the existing IT support & dev in-house resources
HOW WE DID IT
We developed a fully integrated site with 2 interfaces to serve personal and business customers with separate content as well as 3rd party integration:
1. Base Price
2. Volume related pricing
3. Customer specific pricing
4. Active discount matrix (Best offer applies)
Associated users
Credit settings
Multiple addresses
Invoice and statement requests
Account card management
BUSINESS ACCOUNT INTERFACE
Different home page look and feel
Specific pricing groups
Volume pricing discounts
Credit account functionality
VAT exclusive
Allow application for business account cards > full multichannel solution allowing application via phone, in store or on the new site. Business account customers are automatically allowed a 10% overspend on their credit accounts (we wouldn’t want to turn anyone away!), a notification is then sent to the call centre who contact the customer. % overspend amounts are completely managed in the CMS.
THE MANAGEMENT SUITE
User controlled (CMS) promotion carousels & a totally editable homepage layout
We also implemented a two way product feed for Amazon, allowing:
The technical challenges of this project were substantive – in particular the need to integrate existing retail and stock systems with a new ecommerce platform and a customised B2B account management environment.
The final solution provides Ryman with one of the most sophisticated multi-channel solutions in the market and a truly flexible and scalable platform for long term growth.
We work with leading technologies, As experts in ecommerce we bring to our customer relationships both great ecommerce platforms and fresh ideas to move web strategies forward. Ryman’s solution is totally .NET based upon Commerce Server, EPiServer CMS with Omiture Merchandising and Analytics.
Commerce Server builds on the foundation of .NET products such as SQL Server and Visual Studio, and open XML standards to provide a comprehensive solution for creating, managing, and maintaining e-commerce sites and Web business applications.
Commerce Server was built and tested to support large enterprises and to be deployed in 99.9% availability customer environments.
EPiServer is the leading supplier of solutions that enable true online engagement and drive business results for end customers. 4,700 customers worldwide use EPiServer’s technology platform that combines content, community, commerce, and communications with a configurable metrics dashboard. EPiServer CMS is the foundation for more than 20,000 websites and is used by morethan 130,000 web editors daily.
Omniture Merchandising™ enables retailers to execute online merchandising strategies that optimise marketing effectiveness through increased conversions and average order value (AOV). By improving shoppers’ ability to find and select products, and promoting products based on business goals and metrics, Omniture Merchandising helps retailers grow their online channel.
Our biggest changes are in bulk pricing, search and merchandising, a new product catalogue, layout, and merchandise categories
The requirements were based on three sources; experience and knowledge of best practice, feedback from our customers, and studying our competitors’ websites and what they are currently doing online.
We have feedback on the website, a research panel and our analytics and on all fronts we are seeing positive results.
Our analytics is showing increases across the board, and conversion rates are up. It also benefits us when it comes to PPC. Previously our conversion rates were relatively low so we were not as competitive with PPC. Now we can use it to drive more traffic to the site and convert more so it becomes a virtuous circle.
We have an ambitious plan and will be implementing an aggressive growth strategy to increase our online sales.
The new version, a much cleaner page with more white space and much clearer navigational links and clearer merchandising. In addition key areas, such as the search box, the shopping basket link, the free delivery offer, and the store finder are more prominently displayed. The result is a homepage which is much easier to understand and navigate from for visitors to the site. A big improvement
Providing effective and relevant filtered navigation improves the user experience, as it reduces the amount of cognitive effort required and makes it more likely that they will find a product that suits them.
The site search function works well and returned accurate results for the terms i tried out, as well as providing the filtering and sorting options to allow customers to refine their search results.
This new website represents a massive improvement on the old site in terms of user experience which should reward Ryman with increased conversion rates.