Borders` beta site is already driving in-store sales
Though it won’t support e-commerce transactions until early next year, the beta version of BordersStores.com is already driving about $2 million in sales to Borders stores each week, vice president of e-business Kevin Ertell tells Internet Retailer.
“This proves the value of e-mail marketing and the web in driving up store sales,” he says. Borders has been using e-mail and search engine marketing to attract visitors to its beta site (beta.bordersstores.com) where visitors use a store locator to find one of more than 1,200 Borders stores.
The new BordersStores.com will replace the Borders.com site hosted by Amazon.com Inc. as the book retailer’s e-commerce site when it goes live with e-commerce functionality in January, Borders says.
The new site is designed to mimic the appearance of a physical book store, with an emphasis on images of book covers as if displayed on a rack. “It looks and feels like a bookstore,” Ertell says.
It also offers more video content that will feature live performances in addition to recorded content, including a recorded video interview of Bill Clinton, conducted by Borders content director Rich Fahle, about the former president’s new book, “Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World.”
The new site, developed on IBM’s WebSphere Commerce platform, is also using new site search and navigation technology from Endeca Technologies Inc., a customer reviews application from Bazaarvoice Inc. and software from ChoiceStream Inc. that provides cross-channel shopping and product recommendations, Ertell says. It also uses Sterling Commerce for order management, he adds.
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