Sales are up 70% over a year ago at the web site of athletic gear manufacturer and retailer Under Armour Inc. since it relaunched its site on a new e-commence platform, Mark Kuhns, vice president of e-commerce, tells Internet Retailer. Conversion is up 30 basis points year over year, Kuhns adds.
The new platform supporting the relaunched site combines internally developed elements and purchased point solutions for three targeted areas, Kuhns says. In preparing for the new site, the company surveyed 50,000 customers and found they mainly wanted simplified navigation, more product detail and description, and to be able to see products closely so they could better understand the attributes of what they were buying online.
UnderArmour had a wish list of its own. Any changes to the e-commerce platform had to integrate easily with its existing back-end technology and offer the flexibility to add updated content easily. It wanted the ability to make changes on the new platform from a central location but distribute them globally across the brand’s eight international web sites. Under Armour also was looking for speed in serving up and delivering on the online shopping experience.
Reviewing the options across building, buying or outsourcing to support these goals, Kuhns and his team ruled out a completely outsourced solution because they concluded it likely would require too much customization, time and cost. Since the internally developed back-end technology was working well, the platform didn’t need a complete rebuild, either, though the team did wind up building some new pieces. One of those pieces was a global site management tool giving greater control of the site to marketers and merchandisers.
Based on what they had learned from customers, Kuhns and his team focused on acquiring technology for image management, search and analytics, eventually partnering with Scene7 for imaging and Omniture for analytics. While still looking for the right vendor for search, Kuhns says he’s happy with the build-buy hybrid model the company eventually settled on.
“We focused on best-of-breed technology solutions to enhance the consumer experience,” he says. Under Armour is No. 229 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide to Retail Web Sites.
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