Outdoor apparel maker Fera increases orders with new b2c site

Taking channel conflict head-on, winter sports apparel maker Fera International Corp. has boosted sales since launching a site designed to share the credit for sales with its retail partners, general manger Patricia Tung tells InternetRetailer.com.

“Since we integrated with the MWRC e-commerce solution in January, we have seen a steady stream of orders from all over the U.S. as well as international enquiries,” Tung says. “This is before having done any online marketing or e-mail campaigns.”

Fera redesigned its Feraski.com to offer e-commerce transactions for the first time, using the MWRC Online Sales Solution e-commerce platform from MWRC Internet Sales LLC. To keep its retail partners in the action, Feraski.com displays the names of retailers offering each product clicked on by shoppers. When making a purchase, a shopper enter her ZIP code, which makes the logos of their nearest Fera brick-and-mortar retail stores appear on their checkout page. The shopper then clicks on her favorite retailer to conduct the transaction, which results in that retailer getting a share of the purchase price even though Fera fulfills the order out of its own warehouse.

“So the supplier is no longer seen in conflict with its retailers,” says Jeff Miller, national sales manager for MWRC. The feature is designed both to make shoppers feel more comfortable about making a transaction in association with a known retailer, and to let suppliers maintain good relationships with its merchants while also benefiting from direct-to-consumer sales, he adds.