Case Profiles / Multichannel
Case Profile: Sussan Takes Us Behind-the-Screen
- 17th February
- Natasha Sholl 100
Even with internal project management and a host of external solution providers for technical support, the journey online is paved with unexpected hurdles and unforeseen challenges. We go behind-the-scenes of Sussan’s launch online.
Sussan quietly entered the online space in December 2011 to industry accolades. But even retail giants have teething problems when it comes to getting online. We speak to Elizabeth Sherburn, Digital Manager, about how Sussan has evolved and the key challenges it faced when setting up its webstore.
Sussan began to work on the online store back in 2010 as a response to customers (especially VIPs and those in rural areas) demanding the ability to shop online. “We knew that they were already shopping online with other stores,” says Sherburn. “So from a competitive, customer and brand perspective it was a no-brainer.”
The time from deciding to get online to seeing the store come 
to fruition took longer than expected. “Knowing that we needed to do it and then actually working through the development of the site ended up taking us close to a year,” Sherburn tells us. “We launched on 9 December last year, just in time for Christmas!” Now that the store is live, the team is working out how it can further improve and develop the site and continue to drive and increase sales throughout 2012.
One of the reasons the online journey took longer than expected, was ensuring that the Sussan business model, brand and image remained intact. “Sussan has over 170 stores Australia-wide and our online store is viewed as a Flagship store,” says Sherburn. “This means we stock the full range of product that is in store as well as aligning offers, promotions and markdowns.”
The e-store also helps to drive customers in-store. “We know our customer is time-poor so our site plays a critical role in enabling her to research our product before visiting a store to purchase. So our online store is also driving offline sales. Being a heritage brand with such a large number of stores has also made it easier to get past many typical online purchase barriers, such as trusting the security of the site and returning products. As we continue to develop online and digital initiatives we see the integration between store and online becoming increasingly seamless.”
The development of the online store was a huge project for Sussan and involved nearly every internal department as well as a large number of external software providers. Sherburn tell us that at the start of the online retail development, the decision was made to project manage everything internally, apart from the technical build. This created its own challenges. “Dealing with a number of external software companies as well as all of our internal departments was a challenging part of the project,” she says. “Internally we also needed to educate the business on how etail would impact and involve every department from buying and planning to logistics and customer support. However the knowledge that we gained as a business from being exposed to all the decisions required throughout the project was invaluable.”
One of the biggest challenges was keeping the customer at the forefront of decision-making. “It was also really important to us that the online store was true to our brand strategy and right for our customer. This meant constantly keeping our customer in mind when making decisions on design and functionality as well as finding ways to bring our brand strategy to life online. This not only provided some software customisation challenges, but also required the change of some internal policies and systems. Although this slowed the project development at some points, we believe that the site we launched was true to our initial strategy and right for our customer.” As Sherburn tells us, sometimes its better to launch later and get things right from the beginning.
As most online retailers will sympathise with, the technical challenges mounted up. “Integrating the new site with our existing IT systems and software (including our VIP Loyalty program) was challenging for our technical agency and our IT department. Defining all the technical requirements in detail at the start of the project assisted with this, but as with any technical project there were still unforeseen issues which we had to resolve mid-build!”
Behind the scenes, Sussan uses IBM Websphere Commerce, Open Text CMS, Coremetrics Analytics, Bazaarvoice for reviews and rating, Epsilon for email and Freightmaster.
Next up, we find out the key features and website initiatives that differentiate Sussan’s offering and help it stand out from the online retail crowd.
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Sounds like although Sussan have been slow to establish their digital channel for selling, they have really embraced the customer-centric design approach to developing their new e-commerce store. Good on them for sticking to their guns when faced with technical challenges to ensure their site is still focused on ensuring their customers achieve their user goals.