Toy retailer entertains web upgrade

Independent toy retailer The Entertainer has completed a website refresh and contracted ecommerce specialist Escalate Retail to provide a software suite for the back-end.

The implementation cost just over £400,000, including overall hosting, development and license costs, in the first year but since the system went live in October 2007, one of the retailer's sites, thetoyshop.com, has increased sales by 147 per cent, according to The Entertainer's online marketing and ecommerce manager Richard Bewley.

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The system replaces a bespoke implementation made before thetoyshop.com and The Entertainer's other brand Gadgetshop were acquired, which was deemed too inflexible to be able to cope with the peaks and troughs of traffic.

Bewley explained: "Up to 60 per cent of our sales for the year come in the six weeks running up to Christmas, so we needed something that could scale to that sort of demand."

The Escalate contract includes support and application development. Called Blue Martini E-Commerce suite, the software will manage the retailer's stock levels, provide analytics and support the customer service department in terms of taking orders and issuing refunds, as it sells direct and through sites such as Amazon.