Long-time Fry client Eddie Bauer has weathered changes in its business and changes in the retail industry and yet remains one of the strongest apparel retailers.

CHALLENGE

Originally built on a customized Fry platform in 1997, the Eddie Bauer site generated tremendous revenue.  The platform was so sound and robust that the site was cited by Gomez at the top of performance levels consistently for the last eight years.  But even given the success of the site, it was time for a change.

The structure developed in 1997 limited Eddie Bauer’s ability to efficiently change the look and feel of the site.  Eddie Bauer challenged Fry to develop a new site that eliminated the difficulty in periodically updating its look and that added rich new user-friendly features that would ease the shopping experience, support growth of the site, and keep it among the leading Web sites in the apparel industry.

GOALS

• Create a more efficient and flexible channel while eliminating inefficiencies and shortcomings of the old architecture
• Provide a better user experience to give customers as close to an in-store experience as possible
• Increase conversion by incorporating recent advances in Web site design techniques to a revised purchase funnel
• Regain industry leadership experienced in the early years of internet commerce

SOLUTION

EB benefits

Fry replatformed the EB site with its custom, license-free e-commerce platform, Open Commerce Platform (OCP).  New back-end interfaces were developed and integrated into the platform, including a real-time inventory system and order management system to reduce stockouts. Now Eddie Bauer is using a real-time data feed to update its site and a mix and match program with continuous product availability. A new content management system eliminated manual updates to the database.  Full A/B testing and dynamic content was added allowing Eddie Bauer to test content on sample audiences and change content where appropriate.

The separate presentation and logic layers that Fry built allow for easily changing the site fonts, colors and layouts, eliminating the need for redesigns.  The use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) eliminated the need to build with HTML tables and increased the flexibility of the page layouts.  And the content management system allows Eddie Bauer to change appearance and CSS without rebuilding the site.

In addition, the Eddie Bauer and Eddie Bauer Outlet sites were integrated onto the same OCP platform.

Shopper benefits

To enhance the user experience, the new site now uses product photography that is 25% larger than previous images and features multiple images of the same product with zoom capability, the ability to change colors, and the recommendation of similar products.  This amount of detail provides the user with a realistic view of the product being considered. The extensive use of Web 2.0 technologies allows the user to have multiple views of the apparel without opening a new page or refreshing the same one, emulating an in-store shopping experience.

As an enhancement to its shopping cart and as one more chance to generate a cross-selling opportunity, the new Web site has an interim checkout page that features the merchandise the customer is about to purchase, but gives them additional options to once more select a range of accessories, see product availability, zoom in on the product, read current promotions, and store the information in that particular shopping cart for up to 60 days.

RESULTS

The flexibility and robust design of the new Eddie Bauer site has given the retailer a powerful tool for their business.  It enables them to efficiently operate and update the site and provides a much-improved user experience for its customers.  Early feedback and press on the site has been highly favorable and has touted Eddie Bauer as being on top of its game once again in the e-commerce industry.  This cutting edge, easy-to-use, customer-centered new site may have been a long time coming, but confidence is high that it will have been well worth the wait.