Halfords Double Online Sales After Salmon Build New eCommerce Solution
Fri,2 December 2005
Salmon today announced that Halfords Group plc (Halfords) has doubled
its online sales at www.halfords.com as a result of their successful
delivery of a new eCommerce solution.
The following results have been observed by Halfords when comparing performance since the new site went live with the same period last year:
>Visitors to site increased by over 60%.
>Sales increased by over 100%.
Built in just 90 days this implementation follows successful eCommerce projects by Salmon at Argos, Homebase and ICI Dulux.
Brian Scott, Head of Business Systems at Halfords Group plc said: "We have a strong and differentiated business with a proven strategy for growth. We now have a solid I.T. platform to allow us to increase online and offline sales."
Jon Asbury, Channel Development Manager said: "The new site is already delivering better results. Since the site went live we have experienced our busiest weekend and busiest single day ever, already surpassing orders received on the peak day before Christmas last year and we're looking forward to outstanding online sales this Christmas."
Simon Ball, Commercial Director at Salmon said: "By turning to Salmon, Halfords have not only tapped into our industry-leading knowledge in next generation, high functionality eCommerce sites, but also our understanding of scalability, resilience, and website performance. Our leading knowledge of IBM WebSphere Commerce has enabled Halfords to leverage many out-of-the-box functions."
The system provides a future proof online platform for Halfords Group plc to embrace multi-channel operations. The new site is based on IBM WebSphere Commerce and SuSe Linux Enterprise Server 9 from Novell and is more efficient to manage and maintain on a day to day basis.
Developed in line with industry standards such as cascading style sheets (CSS), extensible hypertext markup language (XHTML) and Java 2 enterprise edition (J2EE) the solution allows Halfords to pro-actively develop rather than re-actively fix issues. The solution is integrated with SAP and Snow Valley, with real time interfaces to Datacash and Multimap. The site is also supporting offline sales through better customer research.
Customers are benefiting from new features on the site including improved navigation making it easier and quicker to find products with fewer clicks to add to basket, alongside a simplified checkout process. Other new features include enhanced promotional functionality, advanced search and browse, and a voucher redemption capability.
The Halfords solution replaces a Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) infrastructure. Halfords are already experiencing an increase in sales through improved usability and functionality. The site is Level 1 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) compliant.
About Halfords Group
plc www.halfordscompany.com
Halfords is the UK's leading auto, leisure and cycling products retailer with 402 stores and nearly 10,000 employees.
The Group sells 11,000 different product lines ranging from car parts and cycles through to the latest in-car technology, alloy wheels, child seats, roof boxes and the latest outdoor leisure and camping equipment. Halfords' own brands include Ripspeed, for car enhancement, and Bikehut, for cycles and cycling accessories, including the Apollo and Carrera brands. Stores offer a "We'll Fit It" service for car parts, child seats, satellite navigation and in-car entertainment systems, together with newer concepts such as Kidszone and Active Leisure.
Halfords is a FTSE 250 company. It was established in 1892 and was successfully floated on the London Stock Exchange in June 2004.
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