For the summer 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games, The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) turned to eCommera’s extensive expertise to fully manage their online store selling promotional merchandise.  LOCOG needed everything --from merchandising, to marketing to fulfilment.

And within six months, eCommera brought them to market, having built the transactional platform, hand-selected merchandise, completed product photography and copy, set up a dedicated warehouse operation and an integrated order management system to the webstore and call centre. 

Trading Director, for the London 2012 Shop, Debbie Bond, said: “One of the key challenges around running an events-based commerce site is that it is impossible to learn from your mistakes.  You only have one chance to get things right, and then it’s over. For eCommera, that meant we had to optimise everything around a very short sales window."  To overcome this challenge, eCommera employed a data focused approach using DynamicAction, its decision intelligence tool which processes site, customer, product, marketing and operational data to recommend specific trading actions.  Trading actions are prioritised according to their ability to impact profit.

“DynamicAction allowed us to look at the prioritised lists and ensured that we focused on those first and foremost and essentially we just worked our way down that list knowing that the profit impact and decision had already been made for us” said Bond.

 LOCOG’s commerce solution included:

• DynamicCommerce^TM— a multi-channel commerce platform that supports international sites, with integrated payment gateways and optimised storefront
• Managed merchandising including product selection, photography, copywriting, price management, sales and stock forecasting and inventory management
• Marketing services including PPC, SEO, retargeting, email marketing, affiliate and promotions management
• Outsourced fulfilment including warehouse set-up, courier services and returns management
• Managed customer services, covering multi-touch point communications and issue resolution tracking
• DynamicAction, eCommera’s patent-pending decision intelligence tool, which analyses cross-departmental trading data and recommends specific actions to improve trading
• Dedicated commerce team staffed by industry veterans and 24/7 availability and performance monitoring.

The London 2012 online store supported over nine hundred products across 25 categories and served an international audience of collectors and enthusiasts. Sales grew steadily month on month as the games approached-- and peaked two weeks before the games began remaining high until the closing ceremonies.

eCommera ran the site in consultation with LOCOG continuously-- adding new functionality and promotions in the run up to the games.

LOCOG was an eCommera client from 2009 through to the close of the games.

About LOCOG