J&R Electronics Inc. is migrating its JR.com from an InterWorld to a Blue Martini Software e-commerce platform, which will support hundreds of online videos of J&R’s store salespeople explaining the intricacies of consumer electronics products. “This will bring one of our greatest assets to the web,” vice president of e-commerce Jason Friedman tells InternetRetailer.com.
New York-based J&R, No. 171 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide to Retail Web Sites, operates a single, 200,000-square-foot store in Manhattan, where its sales staff is known for its ability to explain product details and market trends in consumer electronics, Friedman says. “We have tech-savvy consumers and Wall Street analysts who come to J&R just to come and learn from our salespeople,” he says.
The Blue Martini Software platform, now a part of Escalate Retail, will launch early next year. J&R will start out with a “couple of hundred” online videos, Friedman says.
Friedman, who built the original product database for JR.com when it launched in 1998 on the InterWorld platform, says the new platform will also provide product pages with far more details and comparison grids. “If a particular product is out of stock, the shopper will be able to more easily see the most similar items,” he says.
The new site also will be designed to provide a more streamlined clickstream to arrive at a final product price through the checkout process, and it will have a reworked shipping section to provide for more precise delivery dates and complete shipping costs, Friedman says.
In addition, improved inventory integration between JR.com and its store will provide for real-time updates of product availability on JR.com. “As soon as someone in our store buys an iPod, the inventory record will be part of our new web site,” Friedman says.
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