14 MULTICHANNEL
CASINO GROUP EMBRACES “PRECISION RETAILING”
the mobilised customer,” according to Casino Group chief information offi cer, Stephane Bout.
A Delegates to the National Retail
Federation 100th Annual Convention in New York gathered to hear how the French retailing giant was consolidating its major retail technology systems using SAP software to bring speed, personalisation and reach into its operations and offerings. “Our company enjoys a reputation for
innovation in the French and international grocery sector,” said Bout. “Our e-commerce operation is sells over €1 billion worth of products a year with over one million customers. “Our corporate strategy is based on
multi-format stores and channels; our private label operation, which makes up around 50% of our revenue; and, the idea of precision retailing, which is a retail experience tailored to meet the customers’ expectations. This represents a contemporary alternative to mass retailing approaches of the past, where now everything is driven by customer demand.”
major technology overhaul undertaken by Casino Group is embracing “precision retailing and
Bout outlined an SAP technology-enabled
business transformation strategy fi rst undertaken by Casino fi ve years ago that has seen the company consolidate a “fragmented IT portfolio, with 700 different applications and 30,000 batch treatments run every day”. He also told Retail Technology: “This was not compatible with the speed of retailing today.” To achieve this speed, Casino overhauled its processes with sales and fi nance, merchandising and master data management, business intelligence, and human capital and customer relationship management systems from SAP. Working with SAP, Casino Group defi ned three new levels of technology architecture. The fi rst contained the extended marketing database and multimedia product catalogue. The second was made up of the so-called ‘e-services’ that Casino Group makes available to its customers instore, online and to their mobile phones. And the third constituted the channels that delivered data to all types of electronically enabled devices. “This means we have a 360-degree view of customer knowledge, which ensures everything the customer has done with us in the past is stored in a structured and centralised way. This enables us to maintain a one-to-one relationship with the customer,” Bout added.
CROCS FULFILMENT
The global casual footwear retailer fi rst began implementing the provider’s Selling and Fulfi lment Suite in 2009, before Sterling Commerce was acquired by IBM in May last year. Brian Horsman, Crocs senior IT director
told Retail Technology that rapid international growth led the company to reorganise its supply chain so it could fulfi l multiple sales channels through one fulfi lment system and replace previously manually intensive reporting processes. “Sterling Commerce order management
and inventory reservation capabilities allows the fl exibility to do this while still giving
RETAIL TECHNOLOGY JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011
SUPPORTS MULTICHANNEL Crocs is using IBM Sterling Commerce software to create a smarter supply network.
RETRO E-TAILER BENEFITS FROM VIDEO
Truffl eShuffl
e.com, the offi cial online retro clothing superstore, is using automated online product video technology and services to improve marketing reach and sales conversion. Pat Wood, Truffl eShuffl
e.com managing
director, told Retail Technology: “We can’t afford professional models, studio and production costs. So Treepodia offered us a cheaper, automated solution for adding video to the site,” he said. Treepodia’s automated video technology uses retailers’ existing product images, marketing texts, user reviews, and merchandising rules to create engaging and effective videos, automatically. “We already have a number of data
channel representatives visibility of what stock residing in the supply chain is available to them. It is a cornerstone system,” he added. Horsman also said the global implementation of the suite would be complete this year and that the introduction of Sterling Commerce Multi-Channel Selling, to enhance its e-commerce capabilities, would also begin roll out. To date, the investments have help Crocs enhance its global inventory visibility across both direct and wholesale operations and improved the accuracy of its available- to-promise information. This visibility is also enabling it to meet our commitments to wholesale customers, including major retailers, in a timely and accurate fashion.
feeds to affi liates and others, so we simply sent them the data feeds behind the products. Within a week, we had 3,000 or so videos of our products to work with. It shows visitors all the same things about the products, but in one place, in a video format. We added theme tunes and videos to some to publish them to places like YouTube too,” added Wood. He said the company did exhaustive split testing of the new feature to evaluate its potential return: “Out of four test groups, including the control, we found the conversion rates of those for who the video automatically played when they clicked on the product was about the same as for those who it was an option, alongside the regular product views.” Given Treepodia’s pay-per-view charging
model, Wood said they opted to offer the video as an option. “That means we’re catering to everyone and not alienating the customers using mobiles or non-optimised browsers, as well as helping our SEO [search engine optimisation] ranking,” he added.
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