At Thermos, a Colombian brand specializing in clothing and products for protection from the cold, they are clear that technology and the mentality of the team are key to offering an omnichannel experience.
To guarantee a good user experience for customers and visitors who enter their site www.thm.com.co , Thermos monitors, manages, and permanently improves through technological tools, for example, they have a robot that records every session, builds heat maps and centralizes all requests, complaints and claims (PQR) in a cloud software that allows them to understand everything that happens on the site from the moment a person enters, browses, chooses their product, until they receives.
According to Juan Camilo Viana, General Manager, the company began its technological transformation two years ago and decided to bet on an omnichannel strategy. In this task, he assures, two aspects are fundamental:
- Technology.
- The company’s mentality to constantly manage the user experience , not only in the navigability of the page, but, above all, in relation to the service they provide in it, that is, speed, security and compliance.
Integration of the physical and the virtual
One of the great lessons learned by Thermos with its e-commerce channel is that it cannot be seen as an isolated channel, no, for it to be successful it must be very well integrated with the physical world , in other words, it is essential to connect the ERP with the e-commerce.
When they are integrated, the inventory of products, in this case garments and accessories for handling cold, works like an infinite aisle, that is, it does not matter in which of the brand’s stores the product is, it is also available in the website and once someone buys it through this means, what integration allows is to block it at the physical point so that it is not sold there. In addition, it integrates with the last-mile provider so that when there is a virtual purchase, it receives the order to pick it up at the store on its platform.
All of this has been key to having an online sales channel that meets user expectations. In fact, during the pandemic, sales through this medium represent 65% (in December 2019 they were 8%). In order to meet this demand, they made some adjustments, for example, including plugins to the site to improve key conversion indicators, residence time, units per ticket (invoice), among others.
However, he says, the most significant change was transforming the company’s logistics area: the distribution center, located in Medellín, was transformed into a logistics center with the capacity to carry out more than 1,500 order dispatches in a single day.
“E-commerce is a very logistical business, the logistical dimension is as important as the commercial one, it includes everything from timely replenishment to handling a large number of references at the same time and dispatching to many different destinations on the same day. Having poor logistics can impact reputation, loyalty and repurchase, in addition, the pattern on social networks because if users have service problems and rate you poorly, the algorithms punish you”, explains Juan Camilo.
For this reason, he recommends working hand in hand with allies, both in logistics issues and in the development of codes to improve the efficiency of the online sales channel, since this way it is possible to focus on what they know how to do best.
experiment all the time
At Thermos they understand that e-commerce goes at a different pace than traditional channels, which is why they are constantly working on new strategies to generate traffic and conversion . One way to do it is through hypotheses and brand experiments, which do work. , optimize them. These experiments are unlimited and can be for traffic issues, user experience, permanence on the site, conversion.
Once again, permanent monitoring and knowing what is happening in the online channel is essential to provide a good user experience and meet their expectations.
Three recommendations to have an e-commerce
Based on his experience, Juan Camilo recommends the following to brands or entrepreneurs who want to have their sales channel online:
Be clear about the focus and value proposition of the brand.
Study and understand very well which are the e-commerce platforms and which is the best according to the type of project. If possible, talk to others who have already done it, listen to their experiences.
The e-commerce business is much more than having a digital sales channel, it is developing traffic generation and conversion formulas that are sustainable over time.
And once you have your e-commerce ready, go through experimenting, measuring experiments and optimizing all the time to achieve the results you want.
