www.hawkshead.com
www.dare2B.com
www.beargryllsstore.com
www.craghoppers.co.uk
www.us.craghoppers.com
www.us.beargryllsstore.com
www.fr.dare2b.com
www.de.dare2b.com

Regatta Group launch new websites for Craghoppers, Hawkshead and Dare2B in the UK and internationalize with sites for Bear Grylls and Craghoppers in the US

Salmon, specialists in delivering eCommerce solutions have been working with Regatta Group, the leading outdoor family clothing, footwear and equipment brand since early 2008. 

Challenge

Following the acquisition of Hawkshead in August 2007, Regatta was witnessing the cost of managing the brands on the web increase to unviable levels. Chris Bulmer, Group IT Director at Regatta said “We had little control over our website infrastructure which was increasingly disparate and outsourced across various suppliers.  Our costs were becoming unmanageable and effort was centred on general web maintenance and technology – as opposed to launching new brands, special promotions or differentiation.”  Regatta selected Salmon to design, develop, integrate and support new websites for their brands including Hawkshead, Craghoppers and Dare2b in the UK.  Following their successful launch, Salmon were then engaged to launch two additional international brands Craghoppers in the US and Bear Grylls in the UK and US.

Solution

Regatta selected Salmon’s Application Framework for eCommerce (SAFE™) as they wanted a strategic platform which would support the whole group, as well as their international expansion plans.  Bulmer continued “We needed a solution that was quick to implement, would scale to meet customer needs as our online business grows and provide all the tools necessary for online marketing and promotion of our brands.  SAFE™ and IBM WebShere Commerce collectively ticked all the boxes.” 

The new sites developed by Salmon leverage IBM WebSphere Commerce and its extended sites functionality, which allowed Regatta to launch new sites quickly and easily. 

Chris Bulmer went on to say, “Internationalisation has its challenges. We needed to make sure that our technical infrastructure would scale to meet the new demands from the additional sites in the US and that the speed and functionality wasn’t put at risk, as problems like these can lead to site abandonment and ultimately damaged brand equity, however I can confidently say that by working with Salmon these risks were thoroughly mitigated against.”

The new US stores replicate the UK stores but instead display the products with prices in US dollars and allow US data capture of customer information at point of registration. Some minor changes to the design and layout of some of the fields on the product details page have been implemented across all the sites and delivered by amending the CSS. The product description field has been changed to highlight that sizes are represented by “UK size”, although US sizing chart information for translating UK sizes is available within the product description. As all products are shipped to the US by Royal Mail from the UK, Regatta were keen to make it as simple as possible for customers that weren’t satisfied with their goods to return them, therefore they are dealt with by being returned to a central location in the US.

Benefits

By using SAFE™, Regatta lowered development time and costs. In addition, each brand is ideally placed to develop additional websites to embrace new geographies, propositions, market segments or customer types quickly and easily. Bulmer continued, “We have been really pleased with the results to date.  Not only has Salmon proved to be a highly skilled systems integrator, with a unique fixed price approach that met our budgeting requirements perfectly, but they also exceeded our expectations when the Hawkshead site was implemented and launched in just 35 days. With increased control and better flexibility and greater control over our online business, we can start focussing on the more innovative components of our business, including plans to optimise the customer experience, service our wholesale networks and expansion into other countries.”

"The UK websites have been a contributing factor to our success during 2008 and 2009, we are seeing significant cost savings as a result of the new platform, as well as an increase in sales, and we were keen to replicate this in the US.  We have been very impressed with how quickly and easily Salmon were able to bring our additional brands online. 
We are confident we made the right decision selecting Salmon’s eCommerce solution SAFE™ and the IBM WebSphere Commerce platform.  To date, it has met all our eCommerce needs and we are certain it will continue to do so as our requirements develop online with our customers’ demands."
IT Director, Regatta Group