Williams-Sonoma Goes Global with NetSuite

Amberly Dressler — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:20:00 GMT

Williams-Sonoma brought a tight timeline and lofty expectations to its shopping criteria for an agile platform that enabled it to handle the complexity of global multi-channel commerce. The high-end, multi-channel retailer was impressed by the capabilities of NetSuite SuiteCommerce, which it ultimately selected for its global expansion into Australia.

NetSuite CEO, Zach Nelson, made this announcement during his keynoe at SuiteWorld on Tuesday, but the brand went live on the platform May 2. NetSuite SuiteCommerce powers four newly launched and individually branded e-commerce storefronts in Australia, combined with NetSuite Retail Anywhere POS as the point-of-sale solution for four new retail stores in the Bondi Junction suburb of Sydney, Australia.

From planning to retail store opening, NetSuite and Williams-Sonoma report the entire rollout of all these capabilities was delivered efficiently. The NetSuite solution has given Williams-Sonoma, Inc. critical speed, cost reduction and agility advantages to accelerate time to value from its multi-channel Australian initiative with flexibility to readily expand the solution to enter new global markets, according to a NetSuite statement.

Australia seems to be ripe for the multichannel picking, as not only have 71 percent of Australian consumers made an online purchase, but they actively research products on social media and search engines before making purchases. In fact, 30 percent of Australian buyers search for the location of the nearest store/supplier for specific products and services (eBay/PayPal, Dec. 2012). For more Australian e-commerce statistics, visit visual.ly's infographic on the subject.

Retailer Provided Best Online Experience During Holidays

Linc Wonham — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 04:51:00 GMT

Record sales were not the only thing online retailers achieved during the past holiday season, at least not according to a study conducted by Web performance solutions provider AlertSite.

E-commerce merchants continue to improve their sites’ performance capabilities during periods of high volume, as exhibited in AlertSite’s 2010 holidays report. The retailer earning the highest marks for providing customers with the best online experience was Williams-Sonoma with a 99.98-percent availability and an average response time of 11.58 seconds.

Sam’s Club and QVC shared second-place honors with the same 99.98-percent availability and identical response times of 13.46 seconds. The trend for improved availability percentages is witnessed by the 97.52-percent average achieved by the major Web retailers included in the study, and the average response time of 20.83 seconds was also an improvement year-to-year.

Forever 21 had the fastest response time of a mere 7.48 seconds, followed by Fashion Bug with 8.23 seconds and Avon with 8.71.

“What this tells us is retailers are learning from past experiences, and putting time and resources into testing the performance of their sites before the holidays arrive,” said Ken Gross, AlertSite President and CEO. “Year-over-year, the occurrence of major website outages or slowdowns during the holidays decreases - evidence of retailers' increased understanding and grasp on their Web performance metrics.”

Merchants take note: the relevance of these trends are not to be underestimated. Studies show that consumer demands are more than keeping up with improved website performance. One recent survey from Forrester Research found that online shoppers expect to wait no longer than two seconds for a page to load, and that nearly half of them would abandon the site altogether after three seconds of waiting.

'Net Features : williams-sonoma

Williams-Sonoma Goes Global with NetSuite

Retailer Provided Best Online Experience During Holidays