As retail businesses look to build an omnichannel presence that fits the demands of the modern consumer, they need to start at the core of the e-Commerce experience. Retailers that still haven’t fully updated their e-Commerce sites would help themselves tremendously by bolstering this experience for the consumer.
Tourneau, a retailer of luxury watch brands since 1900, officially launched its newly updated e-Commerce site in August. The retailer partnered with e-Commerce digital agency LYONSCG to design and launch the new web site, using the Demandware Commerce platform. In working with LYONSCG, Tourneau embraced the web as a selling tool for its sales associates, who can now access the retailer’s entire certified pre-owned inventory and offer products in other Tourneau locations with iPads. In fact, associates are now compensated for sales made through the company-provided device.
“The old site experience wasn’t really a strong reflection of being a luxury retailer and the storytelling that goes into buying a considered purchase such as a timepiece,” said Katherine Bahamonde Monasebian, Chief Marketing Officer at Tourneau. “The new site has called for that, with the design being simpler and cleaner. The user experience and the ability to browse products is more straightforward, and Demandware has optimized the site across all devices. We’re getting half of our traffic from mobile and tablets, so that was a key driver in making the change.”
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With the revamp, Tourneau can tell its own brand story and further promote its position as a certified pre-owned watch seller. Additionally, Tourneau’s brands benefit from having individual pages that include brand stories of their own, a description of the watches sold and videos showcasing the timepieces themselves. The site also features educational resources, ranging from the basics of watch anatomy, to proper care, to things to consider when purchasing a timepiece. The omnichannel approach allows for a seamless consumer experience, with design elements and imagery carried through both online and in-stores nationwide.
“As far as the shopping experience goes, you can now search by certified pre-owned and new, and you can shop by the different attributes such as price, case size and material,” Monasebian said in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “Our photography is larger. End-to-end, we approached the entire site as a new project; we didn’t just port over content from the old site.”
While helping to boost the company’s online retail presence, the new Tourneau.com helps influence the in-store experience, according to Monasebian. With the site, the shopper can set up in-store appointments to view, submit service and repair forms, as well as pick up items in-store after an online purchase.
“We saw more pick up in-store orders in one month, post site launch, than we had the entire last year,” Monasebian said. “It’s interesting behavior that even though people are consummating the transaction on the web, they’re choosing to go into the store and have it sized. The process is seamless in ways that we didn’t anticipate.”
