When Digital River Inc. surveyed its e-commerce customers earlier this year and asked them to rank their top new application priority, the response was crystal clear: web analytics.
But rather than build a solution entirely from scratch, Digital River decided the quickest and most expedient way to add web analytics to its suite of turnkey e-commerce applications, was to acquire FireClick Inc., an established analytics company with a diverse base of more than 300 customers, including Gap, Guess, Victoria’s Secret, American Eagle Outfitters, Famous Footwear, Lillian Vernon, Guess, RadioShack, Sketchers, Ann Taylor, Patagonia, Jos. A Bank and Venus Swimwear.
Digital River acquired FireClick in early June. Today, FireClick is a stand-alone Digital River division concentrating on selling its core analytics offerings—Analysis Suites, Reporter, Index and Site Explorer –to the Internet retailing market and integrating its various tools into Digital River’s e-commerce outsourcing solution.
“FireClick rounds out what our customers have been asking for, which is a robust analytics tool that can be easily incorporated into a complete e-commerce platform,” says Dave Alampi, Digital River’s vice president of product marketing and management. “With the addition of FireClick, our online retailing customers can now track and benchmark customer behavior all the way through the transaction to the cash register.”
Digital River is counting on FireClick to give it an edge in the market for Internet retailers looking to gain efficiencies and economies of scale by outsourcing most of their e-commerce and fulfillment functions.
Digital River believes FireClick will give it a competitive edge in the outsourcing business by offering web retailers a premium application such as web analytics as part of a turnkey package.
“This technology increases the depth of online site analysis that can be performed by companies using our e-commerce solution,” says Digital River CEO Joel Ronning.
FireClick will also help Digital River gain exposure to more chain retailers and cataloguers in various web merchant categories. “We have a strong foothold in the computer space, but need to extend our brand to other aspects of retailing,” Alampi says.
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