Canadian Retailer - Store 2013 - 101

Charm Junction—one of only two Canadian retailers with the Pandora brand.

a proper site that was easy to use and made shopping simple, the
potential could be 10 times what you could sell in a store.”
While it was an easy decision, she had to fight for the deal.
Now she says, her team is continually working to enhance the
site to maintain its position in its category. Recent additions
include upgraded features such as a customer login, wish list,
special events calendar and video content.
The site has been logging 30 per cent sales growth annually,
and has managed to take on the number one spot in Canada
by a wide margin, she reports. Among other kudos, Charm
Junction was a winner in Canada’s Post’s e-commerce innovation awards for the small business category.
“I think what appealed to them was the online
community we’ve created. e-commerce isn’t
about the bells and whistles. The key for us has
been listening to customer feedback. What’s
more powerful than listening to your customers telling you what you need to improve?”

been a ship-from-store feature, a move that
has reduced delivery times to two to three
days, and now accounts for 51 per cent of online purchase shipments.
Right now the focus is on mobile. “If you’re
developing for the Web, you have to make
sure whatever you do is optimized for mobile,” he says.
True to his designated title, Baggs is a huge
proponent of the omnicahnnel approach. “Omnichannel is having all customer information
in one place for all interactions. All corporatewide programs should mean one experience
when being rolled out. If a customer has posted
something on Facebook or tweeted something
about us, we should know that. If 100 people living in London are searching a certain product,
we need to ensure it’s stocked in that store. It all
needs to be in one place and tied together.”
e-commerce in Canada seems to be reaching a tipping point today, as consumers by and
large are ready to shop and order online and a
plethora of U.S. and international retailers are
making their brands and product available on
the Web. Though there remain huge improvements to be made to the overall general performance of Canadian e-commerce players,
the retailers mentioned in this article stand as
proof that innovation is happening and abundant, and that they seem poised to finally tip
the e-commerce scales in Canada.

Knowing what you do know

Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) has one
tremendous advantage when it comes to ecommerce, says Kevin Baggs, omnichannel
sales and service manager in Vancouver. “We
know the people who purchase our products
as soon as they come on the site and login to
purchase, because they have to be members.”
Where MEC is concentrating its efforts
these days is integrating channels. The biggest change has been on merchandising features. “We wanted to take that store experience where you can get all the information
from the person standing there and bring it to
the website so the online experience is just as
detailed and informative,” Baggs explains.
Another e-commerce enhancement has

Integrating channels key to MEC e-commerce success.

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