The 2010 holiday shopping season gave way to “signs of life” in the retail industry, as industry insiders noted a shift in holiday shopping. The online shopping season started earlier and last longer than it ever has, while online shoppers bought more than they have in recent years. Online retail saw 83% more online sales transactions and a 60% lift in total online sales revenue, according to the Kenshoo 2010 Online Holiday Shopping Report. As shoppers continually gravitate toward online channels, retailers are challenged to meet the demands of real-time retail.
Expecting an uptick in online holiday traffic, Hallmark.com tapped Infosys to implement a digital commerce solution designed to enable shoppers to create, manage and send personalized greetings. Given the rush of peak holiday traffic, the online retailer needed to meet the demands of web site visitors at a high volume.
The Infosys solution delivered for the card and gift retailer. Hallmark reported that online customers experienced a 370% improvement in the web site’s response times, raising Hallmark.com’s customer conversion rate 30% over the previous year.
Through Christmas, New Year’s and Valentine’s Day holidays, the Infosys digital e-commerce solution handled five times the normal customer visits as previous holidays with virtually 100% up-time, according to a company press release.
“More than five years ago, Infosys embraced Hallmark’s mission to make thoughtfulness easy for our online customers worldwide,” said Paul Barker, VP of Hallmark Digital. “This past holiday season Infosys delivered again on Hallmark’s mission. Our marketing programs generated tremendous traffic to Hallmark.com, an unprecedented volume of opportunity. Infosys ensured not only that our online business remained open 24/7, but that our newest customer offerings were available, working, responding and ultimately helping to make this one of the best holiday seasons in Hallmark’s history.”
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Built on a commitment to engage online customers with a rewarding online experience, Hallmark.com emphasized the need to improving the site’s performance as key to fulfilling the brand’s promise. The Infosys solution was complete prior to the holiday shopping season to offer several key features, including a Quick-Finder, which is designed to enable Hallmark.com’s consumers to navigate and search the site quicker so that consumers could get to the products they want faster. The Web-to-Print functionality offers online shoppers the ability to personalize greeting cards and use local vendors to print and distribute for overnight delivery, while the Reminders feature integrates automatic reminders with addressing, stamping and mailing custom cards for every occasion.
