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Do It Center

eCommerce & Brick-and-Mortar Experiences Drive Revenue

Do It Center app on desktop and mobile versions

Technologies

Category

eCommerce

Devices

Desktop

Expertise

UX Design / Code

Meet Do It Center

Screen with desktop version of Do It Center app

With 28 years in the Panamanian market and almost 2,000 employees, Do it Center now has 25 locations thanks to the loyalty of its customers — and more are on the way.

As part of their 2018 planning, Do it Center decided that it was time to optimize their online store’s user experience (UX). Up until this point the business had been using an out-of-the-box eCommerce solution but its rigidness was seriously hindering online sales.

Since their eCommerce platform at the time lacked an intuitive experience, Do it Center had their work cut out for them. Their goal was to update their website so that every aspect of the site would support a holistic customer experience while nurturing customers through the sales funnel.

The team at Do it Center knew that brick-and-mortar and online retail could no longer be viewed separately, as the modern customer now views retail from a singular perspective. In order to remain relevant, Do it Center needed to develop a powerful, holistic, and convenient omnichannel experience for its customers.

Do it Center needed an improved UX for its sales funnel

Just one year ago, Do it Center’s web application was considered a “Frankenstein” by the company’s newly appointed Chief Innovation Officer (CIO), Elias Manopla. The platform was held together by a concoction of integrations that together resulted in a clunky, nonsensical user experience.

Though Do it Center’s CIO was able to understand how an enhanced eCommerce experience would help the business, he was also aware that effectively selling goods online requires a level of digital maturity that his team’s solution lacked. Due to the rudimentary nature of their existing solution, the business was operating with a platform that had:

  • Few features with little functionality
  • A confusing user interface (UI)
  • A multi-step checkout process
  • Limited imagery
  • No product descriptions
  • No technical specs for products
  • An unwelcoming, cold typography and overall aesthetic

Managing the platform was technically impossible, as Do it Center’s team had to depend entirely on their external development vendor for all tweaks, fixes, and updates. This included basic tasks like changing prices, modifying product descriptions, and replacing images. The dependence on a third party made it impossible for Do it Center to make quick changes that would enable them to provide better experiences for their customers.

For example, Do it Center was unable to capitalize on last year’s Black Friday event with online marketing and promotions, as they had no way of creating deals for the holiday. This meant that Do it Center missed out on a huge amount of online sales during one of the most popular shopping days of the year.

In addition to a less-than-optimized UX, Do it Center’s previous eCommerce platform was incapable of capturing the metrics that mattered most to the business.

While the leadership team at Do it Center had analytics, the only thing being measured was website traffic. Additional coding issues prevented their team from measuring other important marketing KPIs such as time on site and bounce rates. All data had to be pulled manually, which left room for human error.

Since their website was considered to be ineffective at the time, Do it Center’s marketing team invested very little in digital marketing. While the company’s brick and mortar business was booming, the CIO knew that he couldn’t drive customers to a platform that so poorly reflected the brand.

Do it Center needed to move beyond the technological limitations that reflected a poor customer and user experience. With the right solution in place the business would be able to provide the customer-facing front end experience that its clients had grown to expect, allowing the company to secure a much larger wallet share.

Do it Center required a solution that would enable them to have a centralized order and inventory management system, so that they could efficiently fulfill orders from all of their sales channels — including brick-and-mortar stores — and utilize historical customer data to provide personalized offers online.

The Shopify eCommerce platform revolutionized the retail experience

Do It Center app showing suggested items to buy

For the retailer to enhance the experiences that customers were having both on and offline, every part of their previous eCommerce solution had to be scrapped.

After partnering with Koombea, Do it Center now has a complete eCommerce platform powered by Shopify that permits business optimization and improved efficiencies as well as deepened customer engagement and satisfaction.

Shopify enables Do it Center to remain at the foreground of their competitive market by allowing them to remain flexible and agile.

A prime example of a quick time-to-market moving the needle forward was when Do it Center found itself in a head-to-head race with a competitor to bring two powerful eCommerce features to their platforms — Product Subscriptions that would allow customers to have products routinely delivered to their door, and a Gift Table feature that engaged couples could use to create lists of gifts that guests could then buy for wedding presents.

Home page of Do It Center app

For example, Do it Center was unable to capitalize on last year’s Black Friday event with online marketing and promotions, as they had no way of creating deals for the holiday. This meant that Do it Center missed out on a huge amount of online sales during one of the most popular shopping days of the year.

Message of Do It Center CIO about Koombea

Elias Manopla, CIO of Do It Center

“Coming from a tech background, I really value the detachment of selling a solution that will enable the client to avoid remaining dependent on the development agency. With Shopify, I’m able to maintain speed while bringing new products or promotions to market, which allows me to stay innovative and at the cutting edge of my industry”

Elias Manopla

CIO, Do It Center

Shopify helps optimize Do it Center’s online customer experience.

Ken Monyal, writer for RetailerWire.com claims, “In brick and mortar retail, ‘clicks’ can be seen as the number of steps a shopper must go through to move from product desire to ownership.”

Today, thanks to the flexibility and power of Shopify, Do it Center is able to provide an intuitive and efficient experience for its customers, limiting the number of ‘steps’ necessary for them to purchase.

With a Shopify eCommerce solution in place, Do It Center is now able to:

  • Run all operations on a single, unified platform. Integrations between separate incomplete systems were eliminated, and now the platform has natively unified eCommerce, accounting, POS, inventory and order management, marketing, and merchandising capabilities.
  • Intelligently manage orders. Profits have been maximized by the centralization of order management, and having a single view of inventory across all channels and supply chain units.
  • Deliver innovative, holistic customer experiences. Personalized, compelling experiences can be rapidly created for both mobile and in-store engagements.
Three phones with Do It Center's app

Message of Do It Center CIO about Koombea

Elias Manopla, CIO of Do It Center

“One of the things that I have valued most about Koombea since the beginning of our partnership is that unlike other development companies that try to somehow sell you something that is more convenient for them to produce, and that will force you to remain dependent on them, Koombea always offers and provides the solution that works best for my specific needs”

Elias Manopla

CIO, Do It Center

A truly comprehensive, integrated online & offline retail experience

Do it Center has been able to marry the experiences being had by customers both on and offline. Doing so has allowed them to bring their eCommerce business to the standards of their customers, who have grown to only tolerate a slick UI with new and enhanced features.

The retailer’s current eCommerce platform now includes core business functions integrated into one single solution. The platform enables better collaboration across departments, optimizes operational processes, and provides real-time data visibility across the entire organization.

Today, one solution cohesively drives the following business functions:

  • Analytics and reporting
  • Customer support
  • Order and inventory management
  • Procurement
  • Content management
  • Marketing
  • Pricing and promotions

Plus, Do it Center is able to develop game-changing features and bring them to market with unprecedented speed:

Customers can purchase a product online and pick it up in a store (this was impossible in the past since Do it Center had no visibility into their inventory).

Insight: 75% of their online transactions are from people that would rather pick up the product at a physical store instead of having it delivered to them.

They can now leverage insights like this to optimize experiences.

Icons with eCommerce features

Message of Do It Center CIO about Koombea

Elias Manopla, CIO of Do It Center

“Our expectations of Koombea were definitely fulfilled. We had a tremendous time-to-market based on what we had initially planned, and Koombea brought our vision to reality”

Elias Manopla

CIO, Do It Center

The enhanced eCommerce experience boomed Do it Center’s business

Stats regarding to Do It Center's app

Upon launching their new eCommerce platform six months ago, Do it Center simply relied on organic website traffic. Despite recently starting to test paid advertising, they are already seeing significant growth thanks to their improved, multi-channel UX.

  • Bounce rate has decreased by 90%
  • Net Promoter Score (NPS) has seen double-digit growth every month, and now isat 70 (In the hardware industry, an NPS of 50 or more is considered ‘Excellent’)
  • Average purchase is 5X higher than in physical stores

Message of Do It Center CIO about Koombea

Elias Manopla, CIO of Do It Center

“This commitment to our initiative really impressed us because we were able to witness the capacity and available resources that Koombea has, and the product that was delivered at the end of the process was exactly what we had all planned on”

Elias Manopla

CIO, Do It Center

Need help building a web or mobile solution that enhances experiences for your customers?

You’re in luck! Koombea is here to help.

Our team of experts leverage their profound HiTech Development expertise to create custom online stores, integrations and applications.

Whether you’re a startup or Fortune 500 company, Koombea has the team and knowledge needed to deliver web solutions to boost your online business.