ChoicesUK accelerates e-commerce business with Snow Valley
31 Oct 06
ChoicesUK, one of the UK’s largest providers of pre-recorded entertainment products, has transformed its e-commerce systems and order fulfilment supply chain with the support of Snow Valley and Charteris.
The two companies were commissioned to address a number of areas of the ChoicesUK business in a project embracing not just e-commerce, but the contact centre, business intelligence and back end integration.
Snow Valley was chosen to implement the Commerce Server-based e-commerce application, on the basis of their Microsoft product skills and in-depth retail experience.
ChoicesUK had recognised that it needed to re-engineer its entire e-commerce application architecture in readiness for its next strategic move up the home entertainment value chain. The company had grown dramatically in the last five years and its existing web systems were no longer adequate to manage the business.
According to Graham Lyden, its IS director, "Our existing systems were not scalable for future demands. They were based on a proprietary ASP rather than open .NET architecture. We needed a solution that could grow with us and enable us to expand into new areas, including promotions, linked products and white label."
The company now has a single product file which can be sold across multiple channels – website, mail order and telephone sales – and one service policy so that returns are managed more efficiently. In addition, ChoicesUK can now easily add white label partners – retailers that want to sell or rent entertainment products to outsource order management, fulfilment and after-sales service.
Richard Whalley, commercial director for ChoicesUK, said, "The new systems give us great leaps forward in the speed of product through the business and increase sales potential for both us and third parties."