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DIGEST


AUSTIN REED UPDATESE-COMMERCEPLATFORM B


ritish fashion retailer Austin Reed is working with digital retail solutions provider Tryzens to update


its e-commerce platform. R


etail T echnology recently spoke exclusively to


Julie Slaymaker, Austin Reed e-commerce director and Steven Fenwick, Austin Reed web operations manager, about the project. “We want to be able to can emulate the premium


experience we offer in our stores,” Slaymaker said. But the retailer’s legacy web platform lacked support and functionality. “We were looking for something that would


be easier to manage, provided more out-of-the- box functionality and offered a better fit with our commercial business model,” she explained, citing the ability to offer product bundles online as an example


that would allow it to drive sales and merchandising around its suiting offers. The retailer is moving to an IBM WebSphere


platform in partnership with Tryzens and aims to re-launch the first of its sites this spring. Fenwick said: “While it’s still early days, the new platform is much more scalable. It’s also more flexible going forward as it uses HTML5.” “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel. But we


want a solution that will enable us to provide a good customer experience,” Slaymaker added. Terry Hunter, Tryzens chief executive, concluded:


“Austin Reed were very much looking for a technology company that understands systems integration, making sure the core e-commerce platform is integrated with the core business systems.”


SPECSAVERS BOOSTS WAREHOUSE OPS H


i Spec Lenses, part of the Specsavers global supply chain, recently updated its warehouse


management systems (WMS) to improve efficiency and support the distribution business of the optical retailer. John Rosser, Hi Spec Lenses general manager,


reported on the successful implementation, which manages the warehouse fulfilment processes of Specsavers stores in the UK, Ireland, Europe and Australia and is based on systems from supply chain technology provider, JDA Software. “There have been benefits in just about every part of the business,” Rosser told R


etail T echnology. “With


the old manual processes, good inwards could take weeks to put away for example, now it takes less than four days for over half a million units. And the core bit of the business – the picking for same-day dispatch – is


Econsultancy’s


first Technology for E-commerce Report, produced with digital agency Neoworks and based on a survey of more than 500 e-commerce professionals, has highlighted significant under- performance across many critical aspects of e-commerce IT and services. Only a fifth rated their systems as ‘good’ in respect of high- quality site search functionality, even though more than half of respondents (56%) said this was critical to their business. (E-c r


o


now much more effective, driven by the combination of the new WMS, voice-based picking technology and our RedPrairie application.” Since going live with JDA WMS software last July,


the company has improved efficiency levels by over 20%. “The important thing for me is the improved stock management,” he added. “We used to do two full stock takes a year. Now we do perpetual inventory and our stock accuracy has gone up significantly.” Now the systems are fully bedded in, Rosser said


he is hoping to get more even out of them. “We’re now looking from a business perspective at how we can share our learnings throughout Specsavers. Instead of looking at system constraints, I’m now looking for opportunities that have been made possible by the solution that we’ve put in,” he concluded.


mmere c eport highlights


under- performan


c e,


RetailTechnology. co.uk, 17 February 2014).


www.retailtechnology.co.uk


Winter 2014


07


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