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Creative Omnichannel Retail

Case Study: Conran Shop

By Emma Mulcahy, Writer

November 9, 2020 | 6 min read

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As the retail landscape continues to evolve and move towards digital channels, we are seeing a rapid uptake of a PIM solution by those more traditional brick-and-mortar businesses, in pursuit of digital excellence.

Conran case study

This article will explore how Akeneo supported The Conran Shop in replicating their retail success during digital transformation

When establishing their digital presence, it is essential that these businesses lay the foundations for success by developing an omnichannel strategy. In ensuring that they have a contextually relevant and engaging presence across essential digital channels, businesses increase the touchpoints available for consumers to engage with their brand their products. This leads to a greater number of conversions, higher customer satisfaction and a significant boost for your organisation’s bottom line.

Nonetheless, the management and maintenance of this vast catalogue of product information is no easy task, placing enormous pressure on marketing teams and employees. As such, many organisations are choosing to implement a PIM solution in order to efficiently and smoothly handle these changes. With various in-built features including the automation of processes, identification of inaccurate data and rapid localisation, businesses are saving unnecessary time, labour and stress with the support of a PIM solution.

This article will explore how Akeneo, a global leader in Product Experience Management, supported well-known design brand The Conran Shop in replicating their retail success during their digital transformation.

The Context

As a well-known brand with a devoted customer base, The Conran Shop really wanted to ensure that their strong brand reputation and distinct style, was not lost in their migration from physical stores into a more prominent online presence. In particular, The Conran Shop was keen not to lose the unique layout and diverse range of products that made the brand famous.

For The Conran Shop, it was essential that their valued customers be completely immersed in the brand identity across all digital channels, in the same way they are instore. Discrepancies between the representation of a brand online versus its store presence can lead to disappointed customers, who will instead seek out competitors; this had to be avoided for the client.

Additionally, the team were dealing with outdated PIM tools and processes which were slowing down product time-to-market and hampering the ongoing effort to expand the company’s digital catalogue. This opened opportunities for competitors to catch the attention of The Conran Shop’s loyal customers.

These challenges were met by the team at Akeneo when successfully migrating the business from Magento 1 to Magento 2, through their implementation of a PIM solution to help in this migration process.

How were these challenges overcome?

The Conran Shop was primarily struggling to expand their digital catalogue, experiencing great difficulty in using outdated tools. It was of the upmost importance that the brand saw a seamless and smooth online migration, maintaining their strong links with their customer base during this digital transformation.

Although The Conran Shop reviewed several PIM solutions before choosing the Akeneo PIM, according to Rachel Morris, Head of eCommerce at the brand, it was the accessible user interface and the similarities between the structure of Akeneo and Magento that sealed the deal. “Having something that both looks and feels accessible and modern really helps us get buy-in from the people we expect to use the PIM,” she said. Moreover, Akeneo’s track record of exceptional work with other online retailers including Boohoo, Dunelm and Staples helped to really seal the deal for The Conran Shop. When embarking on a mass website migration, trust in the support provided by the PIM implementation team is crucial.

This easy-to-use interface resulted in a quick buy-in from The Conran Shop employee base, with more than 2 dozen members of the team becoming fully trained in successfully using the interface within a matter of weeks. Similarly, the company integrated Akeneo with its Magento web store, accelerating the site’s migration to Magento 2 and improving product data quality for users.

Magento migration made easy

Throughout the migration process, Rachel Morris was entirely satisfied by the support and proper handling of Akeneo with The Conran Shop brand and product. The transition from Magento 1 to Magento 2 was made easily and efficiently by the experts at Akeneo, where significantly they were able to save time and resources on the import/export process due to Akeneo’s “plug-and-play” interface.

Efficient catalogue expansion

Due to Akeneo’s wide range of specialised tools including automation features, bulk editing, business rules engine and workflow capabilities, The Conran Shop were able to easily and quickly add more of its unique and diverse products online. In the end, The Conran Shop saw the digital expansion of its catalogue to include roughly 10,000 diverse and unique products.

A better product experience

Modernising The Conran Shop’s PIM technologies and processes was an immediate priority for the team at Akeneo, in improving the brand’s online offering. In doing so, the company were able to replace incorrect, inconsistent and outdated product information with more dynamic and flexible descriptions as well as compelling digital assets.

To learn more about how a PIM solution could benefit your business’ online presence and omnichannel strategy, access Akeneo’s extensive whitepaper here.

Creative Omnichannel Retail

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Akeneo

Akeneo PIM is an intuitive platform that radically simplifies product information management. This software helps thousands of merchants to centralize and harmonize...

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