After a disappointing first attempt at a B2C website with a different vendor, Molson relaunched www.shopmolson.com on the iCongo platform this month. “The original site couldn’t do a lot of the things we wanted so we shut it down,” notes Ross Buchanan, director of digital and relationship marketing at Molson Canada.
The new site meets Molson Canada’s needs in three ways:
1. Marketing multiple brands from one location. Molson Canada sells eight different brands of beer and is able to promote each one separately through the new site.
2. Driving the loyalty program. More than one million Molson “insiders” (loyalty program members) will be rolling out online beginning with the Molson Dry brand in 2008. Users will be able to redeem their loyalty points for merchandise on the website.
3. Facilitating user-friendly site changes. “We really wanted to build something that would allow us to work on it ourselves,” says Buchanan. “With the iCongo platform we can easily make changes, such as uploading pictures and adding promotion codes, without calling in any IT people.”
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Simple user experience
One key objective for the new site was to make it easy for customers and Molson employees to use, says Buchanan. The site offers simple checkout and a wish list for customers, he explains. In addition, customers can purchase items from different brands via a single checkout.
The site also provides reporting capabilities so, for example, Buchanan can find out which items are hot and easily change banner ads on the site to promote those products.
Shipping also has become streamlined with the new site launch. Items can be shipped from more than one location, diminishing the chance for out-of-stocks. “When the availability of inventory grows, sales grow,” notes Joshua Ostrega, vice president of operations at iCongo.
Molson’s solution from iCongo includes complete order management and cross channel fulfillment capabilities, as well as customer service management, advanced pricing and promotions management, interactive selling and web marketing functionality.
Calculating ROI
Molson is calculating the return on investment for the implementation of the new site by sales per customer. “It’s simple math,” says Buchanan. “If we can get x number of people to buy x amount of merchandise then we’ll be ok.”
So far the site performance is meeting or exceeding expectations, according to Buchanan. “Even though we are just gearing up, we are doubling sales every month.”
