Stamps and collectibles specialist Stanley Gibbons has gone live
with a new website for its Fraser’s Autographs business as part
of a wider strategy to overhaul its ecommerce presence. The
flagship Stanley Gibbons site will relaunch in the spring.
The new Fraser’s Autographs website, built by Sceneric on the
Hybris platform, is simpler to navigate with an improved search
functionality. Launched on 10th February, it also allows for
bundling, discounts and special promotions, something the old
site couldn’t cope with.
“We’ll now have a proper ecommerce platform that will allow
us to maximise search-engine marketing and affiliates,”
says Keith Heddle, Stanley Gibbons’ director of sales and
marketing. These programmes were already in place, he adds, but
the company didn’t want to drive customers to sites that weren’t
“fit for purpose”. The new websites will also enable
Stanley Gibbons to have an email contact cycle in place.
Previously, says Heddle, emails were “broadcasts” and
not particularly engaging or on-brand. Heddle is wary of
segmenting too deeply at this stage and says the emails will not
be targeted to buyers of specific genres of autographs or stamps,
but rather will encourage customers to visit the websites and see
the whole range. Adding to this is the fact that Stanley Gibbons
has little online transactional history at this stage to make
truly intelligent segmentation choices, he says.
An eye on international
“We have a market-leading global brand, albeit in a niche
market,” says Heddle. However, “neither site
represented the brand’s premium position”. The relaunches
across the group will reinforce the brand’s values and heritage,
allowing the business to trade internationally more
effectively.
Approximately 10 percent of sales currently come from overseas,
with Heddle seeing significant room for growth-especially in
attracting new overseas customers interested in stamps as an
investment. To this end, Stanley Gibbons is also looking at
opening offices in “ultra high-end” locations such as
Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore, to attract and service
these customers.
The role of the catalogue
Stanley Gibbons produces a quarterly catalogue for Fraser’s,
which “ROI-wise”, says Heddle, “doesn’t wash
its face”. However, Heddle, who worked at Direct Wines
before joining Stanley Gibbons in 2009, appreciates the catalogue
has a “coffee-table-ness” and that it drives a
trickle of orders-usually more expensive purchases.
The company also produces a quarterly catalogue for Stanley
Gibbons and Heddle understands the value of the catalogue to the
business, explaining that there is a significant proportion of
the Stanley Gibbons customer base that doesn’t shop online or
even own a computer.
The company is currently undertaking a second IT project, which
sees its catalogue data digitised into one database from software
supplier Stibo. The content and digital asset management system
will hold all the images and data on all its products allowing
Stanley Gibbons to create a “virtual album” and
eventually create print-on-demand catalogues for customers.
The other aim is to create a philately marketplace-an ambitious
project designed to rival eBay and Amazon’s marketplaces. In a
bold move that enables other traders to sell through the site,
the marketplace will allow individuals and dealers to buy, trade,
swap, and auction their stamps. Stanley Gibbons will be on hand
to legitimise the merchandise and take a fee from each sale.
Heddle aims to have the marketplace up and running by the end of
2011.
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