The Snow Patrol

20 Jan 12

Kiddicare wins Golden Chariot 2012

Kiddicare was last night named the winner of the 2012 Golden Chariot award for retail delivery excellence.

The Golden Chariot awards, which took place at London’s Somerset House, marked the publication of the annual Online Retail Delivery Report, which will be published on Monday 23 January.

Kiddicare were worthy winners of the grand prix, the Golden Chariot for overall delivery excellence, having provided an exemplary service in every area when tested by the researchers in autumn 2011. Kiddicare provided free delivery as standard, with the goods arriving the very next day, thus providing very good value for money to the customer. Communication, with e-mail and text messaging pre-delivery and excellent handling of a customer service e-mail and phone call, was also top notch. The award was presented by Jon Tobbell from Hermes.

Whistles was named the Silver Chariot winner for Best Customer Service. Queries about the order were handled quickly and with great personality by the customer care team, and proactive communication throughout the process kept the customer informed, including an e-mail giving a 1 hour time slot for delivery. Schuh, Clarks, and Kiddicare were all commended. The award was presented by Peter Hughes from Amethyst Group.

Best Brand Experience in Delivery was won by Lush who had gone to great lengths to use their packaging to communicate their brand values. Boxes and packing slips come with a clever little sticker showing a cartoon image of the person that packed the order and the box itself was covered in instructions for recycling their products. The Lush Times is a great catalogue that gives extra information about the company and their products. Jo Malone and Cath Kidston were also mentioned in this category. Tom Allason from Shutl presented the award.

John Lewis were the winners of Best Cross-channel Delivery for their fast and well organised click and collect service. Aline Uren from PayPal presented the award.

The award for Best International Delivery was presented to Wiggle by Paul Stephens from Datacash. Wiggle has rapidly scaled up their international service in recent times and now supports 12 currencies, 9 languages, and has country specific sites for their main markets. They also offer free delivery to many countries and provided a fast and informed service when tested.

Around 200 people gathered at Somerset House for the event, which began with an industry briefing led by Carlo Rimini, Business Unit Director of E-commerce at MICROS.

Posted by Katie in delivery, Snow Valley news & events No comments

05 Jan 12

MICROS Invites Retailers to 2012 Golden Chariot Event

MICROS Systems, Inc., a leading provider of information technology solutions for the hospitality and retail industries, is pleased to announce that the third annual Golden Chariot event, celebrating excellence in online retail delivery, will take place on Thursday 19 January at Somerset House in London.

MICROS, who acquired e-commerce services provider Snow Valley in 2011, will host the event alongside sponsors Hermes, Datacash, PayPal, Amethyst Group, Worldnet Direct, and Shutl.

The Golden Chariot event marks the publication of the 2012 Online Retail Delivery Report. Now in its seventh year, the report benchmarks UK retailers, looking at all elements of the online customer proposition. Live orders were placed on 253 online stores and each retailer was evaluated on every aspect of their service, from the delivery charges right through to the quality of the order tracking.

At the event, awards will be presented to the five retailers that offered a truly outstanding delivery experience when tested during the research for the report, which is sponsored by the delivery management specialists MetaPack.

The retailer with the best overall delivery service will be presented with the Golden Chariot award for Service Excellence. Silver Chariot awards will also be presented to retailers that achieved Best Cross-Channel Service, Best International Delivery, Best Brand Experience, and Best Customer Service. See last year’s winners.

Retailers are also invited to attend an industry briefing, which will take place directly before the Golden Chariot event. The findings of the 2012 Online Retail Delivery Report will be discussed, along with trends for multi-channel retailing in 2012.

Carlo Rimini, Business Unit Director for E-commerce at MICROS said; “We’ve been producing the Online Retail Delivery Report for seven years and I’m very pleased to see it continuing now that Snow Valley is part of MICROS. It has become a very influential report – this year we’ve seen some very interesting trends emerging and I’m looking forward to sharing those with the industry on 19 January.

“The Golden Chariot awards give us an additional opportunity to highlight those retailers providing exceptional service and to share ideas with the rest of the industry. We’re also very pleased to have such wonderful support from our sponsors – all of us share a commitment to helping retailers to improve their businesses and it’s fantastic to be able to host this event together.”

Jon Tobbell at Hermes said; “Hermes is very pleased to be supporting Golden Chariot for the third year. As the UK’s largest courier based home delivery network, we’re constantly looking for ways in which we can help our clients to enhance their service propositions. Both the awards and the Online Retail Delivery Report give retailers and carriers excellent insight into the progress we’re making and how we can improve even further.”

Ajay Bhalla, President at DataCash, said: “At DataCash, we pride ourselves on helping retailers to run a reliable, global, multi-channel shopping operation. Our payment and fraud services ensure that both local and international customers can benefit from a fast, convenient, and highly secure online shopping experience. We’re very pleased to be sponsoring this year’s Golden Chariot event.”

Peter Hughes at Amethyst Group said: “As a leading fulfilment provider, Amethyst’s focus is on helping retailers to develop the right multi channel shopping proposition for their customers. The Online Retail Delivery Report and Golden Chariot awards are always extremely useful when it comes to sharing best practice and ideas for innovation and we’re pleased to be involved in this year’s event.”

Tom Allason, Founder & CEO of Shutl said; “The vital role of delivery has been well documented in the Online Retail Delivery Report over the past couple of years. Shutl is a pioneer in this space, offering delivery within as little as 90 minutes or 1-hour windows of the shopper’s choice, available same day or any day. Retailers can now provide an experience that goes well beyond customer expectations, and we’re delighted to be involved in Golden Chariot 2012.”

Stuart Hill at WorldNet Direct said; “WorldNet Direct are committed to working closely with retailers to provide an integrated delivery solution that best supports retailers’ international e-commerce growth; each solution unique to the retailer’s challenges. WorldNet Direct are very pleased to be involved in Golden Chariot 2012.”

Posted by Katie in Snow Valley news & events No comments

28 Dec 11

Snow Valley clients nominated for Econsultancy awards

We are very proud that two of our clients have been shortlisted for 2012 Econsultancy Innovation Awards:

Majestic Wine has been shortlisted for Innovation in Multichannel Marketing. This is in recognition of a hugely innovative multi-channel project that we helped them with earlier this year, which has allowed individual stores to manage their own Twitter feeds and control their profile pages on the website.

Punch Taverns has also been shortlisted, this time for Innovation in B2B Marketing. Thanks to an online ordering portal, the managers of 5000 Punch pubs around the country can now order beer, wine, and other supplies online. Punch has managed to move 21% of their sales online in just 18 months.

Posted by Sarah C in Snow Valley news & events No comments

15 Dec 11

T.G.I. FRiDAY’S Launches Online Reservation Solution

MICROS Systems, Inc., a leading provider of information technology solutions for the hospitality and retail industries, is pleased to announce that T.G.I. FRiDAY’S UK Ltd, the global restaurant chain that prides itself on putting a smile on its guests’ faces, has launched an integrated online reservation solution for guests. The solution allows T.G.I. FRiDAY’S UK Ltd guests to visit its website and check table availability at any of its 50 plus stores in the UK.

The online reservation solution, which was developed in large part by MICROS subsidiary Snow Valley, is fully integrated with MICROS Table Management, enabling guests to see accurate, up-to-date availability in the restaurant of their choice at their specified time. If there are no suitable tables at the guest’s chosen time, then availability within a two hour window either side of that time is shown to the guest. Guests can then reserve their tables online; all details are automatically saved in the table management system without further manual intervention, and the guest receives an automated email confirmation.

Key features of the new system include individual restaurant control over the type of online bookings that are accepted, with the ability to accept larger group bookings manually before the confirmation e-mails are sent, the ability to request an online deposit for large group bookings or bookings that occur on certain dates, and a reporting system that allows T.G.I. FRiDAY’S UK Ltd to monitor the number and type of bookings across the entire estate. The system is also optimised for use on smartphones, ensuring that the user experience is tailored to the device. The Snow Valley user experience team was responsible for designing the interfaces to ensure they are as intuitive as possible for the guest.

“To enable our team to concentrate on providing a great guest experience, reduce the noise from ringing phones, and provide future guests with more flexible booking options including smartphones we required a seamless online reservations system,” stated Jeremy Dunderdale, Head of I.T. at T.G.I. FRiDAY’S UK Ltd. “The solution delivers a flexible, dynamic and easy to use solution that lets each of our 50 plus restaurants control how they handle online bookings. We are pleased with the initial release and have commissioned extra functionality. The initial results look great.”

“We are pleased to have been selected by T.G.I. FRiDAY’S UK for this critical solution,” stated Carlo Rimini, Business Unit Director of E-commerce at MICROS-Fidelio UK. “We were able to the meet the aggressive schedule set by T.G.I. FRiDAY’S to ensure the new solution was live for the Christmas party season. It is a great example of how restaurants can use e-commerce to improve the consumer experience while also making life a whole lot easier for the business and its employees.”

Posted by Lucy in Snow Valley news & events No comments

14 Dec 11

Burberry – lovely online Christmas card for 2012

I’ve seen lots of interesting Christmas marketing ideas this year. I always think that the best way to judge the success of something is to look at whether the retailer repeats it the following year. Last year we wrote a post about Burberry’s very lovely Christmas card e-mail and so I was interested to receive a 2012 version last night.

Again the e-mail has the same simple format of last year:

After clicking play you are taken to a Burberry Christmas card landing page and the video starts. Burberry first wish you a ‘Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays’:

Dan Gillespie Sells, lead singer of The Feeling, then starts singing you a festive song. The best part is that you can change the mood of the song depending on how festive you’re feeling:

You can change this as many times as you like throughout the song. At the end you are given the option to play again or send to a friend. Like last year, Burberry also donate money to the Burberry Foundation for every card sent.

What I really liked about it is that it gives you the option to ‘send to a friend’ and write a personal message. The message then appears in the opening frame of the video to the person you’ve sent it to:

A lovely card and a lovely idea. It definitely got me in the festive spirit in the office today. Well done Burberry – second year running!

Posted by Lucy in general, marketing, multi-channel, technology, user experience & design No comments

09 Dec 11

07 Dec 11

eBay pop up Christmas Boutique reviewed!

Last Thursday eBay launched their first ever Christmas Boutique in the heart of London’s West End. I thought I’d go and check it out and see what exactly the boutique was all about.

After hopping off the bus by China Town I headed towards Soho, which I must admit I thought was a rather strange location for eBay’s pop up boutique. As I walked past an array of adult shops and bars I wondered when on earth I would find the place, but it definitely couldn’t be missed:

The illuminated sign lit up the street very brightly and the eBay branding stood out clearly. Walking into the shop I was greeted by a security guard and an assistant wearing an eBay t shirt. The assistant was very helpful and asked if I knew how the shop worked and then showed me to the first room.

The boutique was set out like a house and had an eBay assistant on hand in each room to help. The first room was the ‘boudoir’:

In the room there were coats, bags, perfumes and furniture all available to buy. Each item had a label attached with a QR code on it and buying the item is easy. All you need to do is go onto the eBay app and press the button that looks like a bar code:

This then launches the eBay QR code reader and you simply hold the camera in front of the QR code you wish to scan:

It reads the codes exceptionally quickly (around a second or less) and then prompts you to view the item in Safari. There are two different types of labels that are on display in the eBay Christmas Boutique. A label will either have an eBay stamp or a retailer stamp. If the label has a retailers stamp on it the QR code reader takes you directly to the retailer’s eBay shop and the item listed by them which you can ‘buy now’. If the item has an eBay label on it the app shows you similar items that are listed on eBay rather than the actual item you are looking at in the boutique. You can buy the item on your eBay app and it will be delivered to you as normal. If however you don’t have a smartphone or the eBay app there are HTC Tablets on hand in every room to use instead.

There are two other rooms in the boutique, one is themed like a man’s room with items such as jumpers, hats, t shirts:

The other is the Christmas Grotto (which looks like a living room with children’s toys in it).

In the main entrance after visiting all the rooms I noticed more items for sale on a plastic shelf shaped like a Christmas tree:

And close by a wall with several designer handbags that are listed on the Bag to Save a Life Auction by Save the Children, which again have QR codes that can be scanned and take you directly to the charity auction site on eBay.

I didn’t actually buy anything whilst I visited the eBay store, but it was quite nice to be able to touch and feel the items that I could buy online and in most cases for much less than I would pay in the retailers high street store.

I use eBay quite regularly and I was completely unaware that retailers had eBay stores where you can buy directly from them on the site for discounted prices. According to one of the eBay representatives it’s also this seasons stock and she even mentioned a pair of shoes that are currently £60 in Office but £30 from the Office eBay store.

I don’t think that for now an eBay shop will be a permanent feature on our high streets, however it was certainly a good way to for eBay to build some PR around Christmas time and remind people that eBay is somewhere you can buy Christmas presents too.

Posted by Lucy in marketing, mobile, multi-channel, payment, strategy, technology, user experience & design No comments

01 Dec 11

Retail advent calendars – a round-up!

Last year we wrote a very popular blog post: What makes a good retail advent calendar? As it’s December 1st, we thought we would check out this year’s examples and pick out the best of the bunch.

Whistles is just lovely. It shows a photograph of a snowy Whistles building and every window represents a different day on the countdown to Christmas Eve. There is a ribbon on the front door (which I hope is for Christmas Day). On the side of the calendar there is a Twitter feed which shows people’s tweets about the calendar, which I think really adds a nice touch.

When you click on the first window you are taken to a separate landing page which asks you to scroll down. Once you’ve done this you are then shown a model in the ‘Whistles Wardrobe’. Each time you scroll down the model gets closer to the camera and her outfit changes six times. The last scroll of the page reveals that today’s lucky prize is to win a year’s supply of Whistles ‘looks’.

All you need to do to enter is ‘like’ the prize on Facebook (a great way to get more people to know about it!) and then enter your email address onto the advent calendar prize page. Such a lovely calendar and such a great prize. Hopefully the remaining days in December will bring more fantastic opportunities from Whistles.

Oasis have this festive calendar with great offers. Today’s deal is a whopping 25% off any coat of your choice, which is sure to see customers coming back each day to see what other discounts they can get.

Debenhams have this colourful, cheery calendar, which is in keeping with the same design theme as their Christmas gift finder (I recently wrote about that here). Today’s offer is money off a product, rather than a discount, which is a bit disappointing (unless you want to buy a Crayola Art Desk of course).

Beautybay.com have this chirpy robin calendar which is nicely displayed. It was easy to find as there was a large banner on the home page and easy to use (just simply click on the label corresponding to today’s date). Today they are offering 15% off all orders, which again is a great incentive for customers to spend their money.

Marks and Spencer have also opted for deals on products rather than discounts: the 1st December window is offering £100 off a specific TV. There isn’t any element of surprise with this one – the deal is already revealed when you reach the calendar page, which is a bit of shame as the excitement of unveiling what you’ve ‘won’ is always nice. This is a simple way of doing an advent calendar though.

I think online retail advent calendars are a great way for retailers to ensure that customers keep coming back day after day to check the latest offers and spend money on their sites. I was actually looking for a new winter coat and the Oasis deal is looking very appealing (today is pay day too, lucky me!). Definitely a great way to make customers feel festive and perhaps treat themselves, as well as relatives and friends, throughout the festive season.

Let us know if you see any others.

Posted by Lucy in events, features, general, strategy, user experience & design 1 comment

25 Nov 11

Dorothy Perkins: good use of social media for delivery

Free delivery is always an interesting area of our Online Retail Delivery Report. Last year 13% of retailers delivered for free as standard and many more used free delivery in their promotions.

Dorothy Perkins have stood out this year for using free delivery to get customers to ‘Like’ them on Facebook. This is unusual but I think it’s a good idea as it’s a really good way for them to increase their Facebook likes, increase brand awareness and also get more orders. So far this year I haven’t seen any other retailers use social media in this way. Well done Dorothy Perkins!

You can read last year’s Online Retail Delivery Report here.

Posted by Lucy in delivery, general, marketing, social media, strategy, technology No comments

Snow Valley

The Snow Patrol

Kiddicare wins Golden Chariot 2012

MICROS Invites Retailers to 2012 Golden Chariot Event

Top 10 ecommerce blog posts for 2011

Snow Valley clients nominated for Econsultancy awards

T.G.I. FRiDAY’S Launches Online Reservation Solution

Burberry – lovely online Christmas card for 2012

eBay pop up Christmas Boutique reviewed!

Retail advent calendars – a round-up!

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