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IBM Retail - WebSphere® Drives 1-800-Flowers' E-Commerce Forward
IBM Retail - WebSphere® Drives 1-800-Flowers' E-Commerce Forward
1-800-FLOWERS.COM: Creating an
e-commerce platform for the future
Overview
■ Business Challenge
To better enable synergies
between its 14 gifting brands,
create greater business agility,
and reach its goal of becoming
one of the Top 10 among
Internet Retailer Top 500 com-
panies, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM,
INC. needed to replace multi-
ple, diverse, siloed e-commerce
systems with a unified technol-
ogy platform. 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, INC. is the “ The platform will
■ Solution world’s largest florist and gift shop, with
1-800-FLOWERS.COM teamed
enable the individual
revenues approaching US$1 billion. The
with IBM to implement company is marked by its large-scale
brands to do things
IBM WebSphere® Commerce vision and forward thinking, positioning they would never
for two of its gift food brands as itself at the leading edge of trends with have been able to
an initial proof of concept innovative marketing such as “green” cost-justify before. It’s
for the platform. The site, initiatives that reward responsible con-
thepopcornfactory.com has
going to give us
sumer behavior. For example, its
seen a consistent rise in conver- BloomNet® brand will, in exchange for
unprecedented agility.”
sion since its November launch. a customer forgoing a BloomNet Florist — Steve Bozzo, CIO,
Using knowledge gained from paper directory, plant trees as part of a 1-800-FLOWERS.COM
this first rollout, the company reforestation campaign. It is also intro-
will take a greater role in transi- ducing environmental responsibility as a
tioning most of its other brands theme across all of its businesses, with
to the new platform over the awareness campaigns on social net-
coming year. working Web sites.
■ Key Benefits
— Enables more rapid creation The company has a thorough under-
and deployment of retail standing of the “gifting” market space in
Web sites which it operates, and sees great
— Facilitates cross-selling potential for synergy by offering multiple
between brands
Making the most of brand synergy through shared technology
and smarter model,” Bozzo says. IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Power Systems
and WebSphere are trademarks or registered
trademarks of International Business
The implementation of WebSphere Commerce is a critical first step—the benefits of Machines Corporation in the United States,
other countries, or both. If these and other
shared services that it offers will trickle down throughout the organization over time IBM trademarked terms are marked on their first
and enable new ways of going to market. “Tearing the walls down will enable us to occurrence in this information with a trademark
symbol (® or ™), these symbols indicate U.S.
go to market more effectively. We’ll have a lot more shared information about buy- registered or common law trademarks owned
ing patterns and customer profiles and that will allow us to cross-sell much better,” by IBM at the time this information was
published. Such trademarks may also be
says Bozzo. “Also, we’ll be able to try new ideas with little risk. With the new registered or common law trademarks in other
platform, we can launch an entirely new brand fairly easily, because all of the countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is
available on the Web at “Copyright and
e-commerce technology is already there.” trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/
copytrade.shtml
Other company, product or service names may
The most significant impact of the platform, however, will be in the competitiveness
be trademarks or service marks of others.
it brings to 1-800-FLOWERS.COM by allowing the company to leverage best prac- This case study illustrates how one
tices across the entire business. “The platform will enable the individual brands to IBM customer uses IBM products. There
is no guarantee of comparable results.
do things they would never have been able to cost-justify before,” Bozzo says. “It’s
References in this publication to IBM products
going to give us unprecedented agility. We’ll be able to re-merchandise our Web or services do not imply that IBM intends to
make them available in all countries in which
stores on the fly in response to competitive offers. That will make us much more
IBM operates.
relevant to the customer, which is critical. Customer expectations continue to
ratchet up, and this new platform is positioning us to meet them going forward.
We’ll have an immediacy and responsiveness that will give us a real competitive
advantage.”
ODC03103-USEN-00