Press Release - Feb 08 - lookfantastic eCommerce

Reds’ new ecommerce site looks fantastic

Lookfantastic.com launch new site based on Red Technologys’ ecommerce platform, tradeIT.

Lookfantastic.com, one of the UK’s largest online professional hair and beauty retailers, recently re-launched their website, based on Red Technologys’ tradeIT ecommerce platform. Their old ecommerce platform had become outdated and was unable to support many of the latest publication, reporting and merchandising techniques. Now significantly faster and incorporating a host of useful customer and retailer functionality, the new site can sell effectively and keep pace with the rapid growth of the business.

“Not only does the new ecommerce platform enhance the customer experience and improve site manageability, but the technology allows us to expand functionality and easily integrate with 3rd party software as required; helping to ensure good return on investment”.
Daniel Crown, Group CEO, lookfantastic

The old lookfantastic web site wasn’t compatible with search engine spiders, which meant that a lot of time and resource had to be put into paid search campaigns. The new ecommerce platform however is extremely search engine friendly, is already starting to achieve improved natural search engine rankings and lookfantastic will undoubtedly reap the benefits in terms of visibility, lead generation and cost savings. Site traffic is increasing, and customers can effectively research, locate and shop for products more quickly, leading to improved customer satisfaction and increased basket conversion rates.

Some of the most important functions of the new tradeIT powered site are the improved content, merchandising, marketing and promotions tools, which can be managed in-house by multiple, non-technical, personnel. Content is generated in-house by lookfantastic, while merchandising and search functionality will shortly be enhanced through integration with Mercado. In addition to automated up-sell and cross-sell features, tradeIT allows offers and discounts to be rapidly generated for individual customers or customer groups. They can be based on spend, purchase history, basket size and basket contents; offering either £-off, %-off, free gifts, shipping discounts and email vouchers. Importantly, reporting systems allow lookfantastic to analyse abandoned shopping baskets and generate vouchers to tempt lost customers back to the store to complete their purchase.

“Basket functionality is incredible. Designed to drive sales and improve basket conversion, its flexibility means that promotional offers and vouchers are limited only by the retailers’ imagination”.
Calvin Litchfield, Managing Director, Red Technology

Red Technology seamlessly migrated all data from the old web site, ensuring continuity of customer account and trading information. They host the site on dedicated servers from their state-of-the-art, high performance data centre, providing 24/7 operational support.

The Red Technology tradeIT ecommerce platform incorporates the following functionality:

• Fast page load speeds.
• Content, merchandising and promotions managed in-house.
• Multi-site, multi-currency, multi-language capable.
• Extremely search engine friendly.
• Sophisticated up-sell and cross-sell features throughout the site and shopping basket.
• Unlimited product variations, categories and sub-categories allowed.
• Community manager allows management and publication of customer product reviews and blogs.
• Multiple billing and shipping address functionality.
• 'Wish list’ and ‘tell a friend’ with full HTML email functionality.
• Full integration with 3rd party software including fulfilment, Mercado, PSP and RSS feeds.
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Contact:
Andrew Deacon, Press Officer, Red Technology
Tel: +44 (0) 1865 880 800
Email: press@redtechnology.com
Web: www.redtechnology.com

Red Technology
Oakfield Industrial Estate
Eynsham
Oxfordshire
OX29 4AG

A case study examining the migration to the tradeIT ecommerce platform for Lookfantastic is available at: http://www.redtechnology.com

About Red Technology
Red Technology has been a leading UK e-commerce solution provider since 1996. Their development specialists have built more than 400 e-commerce solutions selling products and services online, to both businesses and consumers. Customers include high street retailers, specialist online retailers and large corporations across the private, public and not for profit market sectors.

Their flagship product, tradeIT, is a feature rich e-commerce platform that can be quickly customised to leverage brands online, attract new customers, and keep them coming back. Not just any e-commerce solution though, tradeIT seamlessly combines full multi-site web content management, merchandising and e-marketing tools; allowing customers to manage portals, intranets, extranets, B2B and B2C online shops in-house to drive sales forwards while seamlessly integrating with fulfilment and Enterprise Resource Planning systems.

About lookfantastic
Lookfantastic.com is part of the lookfantastic group of companies; incorporating 17 salons, a well respected training division and one of the UK’s largest professional hair and beauty retailers – lookfantastic.com. The company was established 29 years ago and the online element has been growing rapidly since its launch in 1998, priding itself on providing professional, high-end hair and beauty products, along with exceptional customer service, from its HQ based in Hove, East Sussex.