Markies Mondays: Convert transactional customers into brand loyalists with ecommerce excellence

Welcome back to Markies Mondays, a blog series where we celebrate the finalists and recipients of Oracle's 15th annual Markie Awards. Check back each week to learn how Oracle Advertising and CX customers are building their brand and creating lasting customer relationships with our connected suite of applications.

Today, it’s all about creating commerce experiences that give buyers more—powerhouse content, personalized recommendations, and websites tailored to their right-now needs. This week, we’re recognizing the finalists of the Convert Award for Best Commerce Experience, our longest running and most competitive Markie award.

The Convert Award honors ecommerce teams that are focused on converting transactional customers into loyal brand enthusiasts through inspirational customer experiences.

Let’s take a closer look at how these five organizations are taking personalization and content to the next level.

Implementing scalable solutions for future success

Zebra Technologies wanted a unified, scalable commerce platform to provide end-to-end, integrated purchase flows. To achieve this, they needed a single platform for both B2B and B2C commerce that would seamlessly enable more than 17,000 B2B organizations in over 100 countries with 65,000+ SKUs. At the same time, they also wanted to provide a guided and optimized selling experience for their partners and sales teams.

Working with partner Tata Consultancy Services, the team at Zebra designed and implemented a solution that includes Oracle Commerce, Oracle Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ), and Oracle Configuration and Compliance. This combination allowed them to modernize the online product selection and configuration experience for customers by offering self-service capabilities, product recommendations, and region-specific catalogs.

As a result, Zebra’s sales velocity increased by 30%, and they project a 30% reduction in IT cost while optimizing their total cost of ownership.

When your ecommerce experience isn’t meeting the needs of your end users, it’s time for a change. That’s what prompted one salon manufacturer to explore other options. At the same time, the company wanted to expand into the European market and eliminate their manual order entry process.

With the help of Oracle Commerce Consulting and partner IBizSoft, the organization created a more stable, better-performing, full-service site for their customers in record time. Thanks to Oracle Commerce’s multi-site feature, the company was able to launch 12 sites in just 7 months. The new sites offer an improved end-user experience for the salon with added benefits for their customer service team and account managers.

Oracle Commerce provides them with the overall interface between customers and orders and is integrated with Oracle E-Business Suite via Oracle Integration and Migration for order submission, history, accounts, profile, and registration. They now transfer data, like product, pricing, and inventory, from the back office to the front office with ease.

As a result, the organization saw almost no loss in standard metrics, like site visits, daily sales, and cart size as they transitioned to the new platform. They anticipate an increase in conversions as they begin recruiting new salons to the site.

Attracting new customers while maintaining the status quo

When the pandemic dramatically changed consumer purchasing behavior, one Brazilian electronics company faced a turning point. They needed to shift to an online shopping environment, but many of their customers weren’t accustomed to buying electronics online. The company also wanted to expand and target new customers with established digital purchasing habits. How could they create a new, innovative online purchasing experience that catered to both groups?

With the help of partner Enext, they chose Oracle Commerce as their solution and are now able to host assets like cashback systems and marketplaces. Since their customers pick up 40% of all online purchases in store, they integrated their online system with their physical stores. They also implemented the Oracle Cloud CX Platform for personalization purposes. They initially planned to roll out the solution over three years; however, they were able to do so in just four months.

As a result, the company reached $1 billion in revenue during 2020 and drove $9 million in ecommerce revenue—up more than 900% year-over-year. They also increased account registrations on the site by 82% and achieved an NPS of 52 for the year.

The Vermont Country Store knew they could offer attractive benefits to a wide range of customers if only they could get them to register on their website, so they began to focus on rolling out new functionality to encourage more registrations.

Oracle Consulting helped the company introduce several new features over the course of a year, including enhanced wish list functionality, access to address books, securely stored payment options, and the ability to begin a cart on one device and complete checkout later on another.

As a result of these changes, The Vermont Country Store saw a 45% increase in the number of site visitors, which led to increased registrations. Additionally, they achieved a 14% higher average order value for registered customers compared to unregistered customers. Overall, their site revenue grew by 58% in 2020 over the previous year.

Making life easier for existing customers

Mutual Materials Company, a manufacturer and distributor of products for the building industry, wanted to offer customers a personalized web experience for placing orders both online and via mobile. Since most of their customers work from job sites, they needed a quick and easy way for customers to check product availability and reserve inventory.

Working with partner Apex IT, Mutual Materials chose Oracle Commerce and Oracle Content Management to establish their solution. They targeted residential and commercial contractors with their Oracle Commerce storefront and completed their rollout in just six months. Customers can now check product availability in an online, self-service environment before taking a trip to one of their 17 branch offices to pick up in store.

As a result, dollar volume of online ordering nearly doubled, and their self-service ordering has improved efficiency with a nearly 20% year-over-year rise in sales.

There’s so much more to share about the finalists and winners of the 15th annual Markie Awards in the upcoming posts in this series. Bookmark the Customer Success Stories category of the Customer Experience blog and check back regularly for updates.

In the meantime, learn more about the Convert Award for Best Commerce Experience and the other 13 award categories at the Markie Awards website.