Case Study

imart chosen to develop and execute online multi-channel sales strategy

Given the growth initiatives of the company and the prestige status of its brand, Vera Bradley has developed new corporate sales channel strategies, guidelines, and controls that govern Internet retailing. Vera Bradley turned to imart’s national and international brand experience as well as industry leading direct marketing expertise to implement a robust and scalable e-Commerce operations environment for their changing e-Business marketing and sales initiatives.

The Company

Vera Bradley was founded in 1982 by friends Barbara Baekgaard and Patricia Miller. Today, nationally and internationally recognized Vera Bradley offers a large selection of cotton quilted handbags, travel bags, accessories and innovative limited edition lines including micro fiber, silk and tweed collections. Vera Bradley licensed products include fine tableware, furniture, rugs and linens, as well as rolling luggage, stationery and eyewear.

The Challenges

Vera Bradley had achieved a significant level of growth in recent years, with the majority of sales through independent gift retailers. The Internet has also brought additional opportunity as well as challenge. While the brick and mortar distribution channel is well prepared to present, support, and retail Vera Bradley products, disparate independent retailing models had resulted in the inconsistent presentation of the brand online.

As a result, Vera Bradley faced the following issues:

  1. Brand presentation to consumers was done in an inconsistent and confusing manner
  2. Vera Bradley products were promoted inappropriately with other products sometimes appearing to be Vera Bradley
  3. Unnecessary promotion offers were potentially devaluing the Vera Bradley product line
  4. Existing guidelines and rules setup by Vera Bradley were not being followed in the marketplace
  5. Independent online retailers were not promoting other local retail stores where consumers could find the complete brand experience

While it is important to note that some retailers had done a good job of promoting and retailing products online, it was imperative Vera Bradley better manage these challenges going forward and present a consistent and clear set of guidelines to protect their brand identity via all distribution channels. Serious sales growth is planned.

The imart Solution

Collaborating directly with Vera Bradley’s e-Business executive team, imart helped to establish the framework and implementation strategy for the company’s web marketing initiatives. Vera Bradley now had the game plan for a comprehensive multi-channel online strategy that embodies, protects, and promotes the Vera Bradley brand, corporate culture, retail sales network and licensee product suppliers. The next step was to quickly bring this vision to reality.

Using the imart Direct Marketing Architecture™ (iDMA™) the entire Verabradly.com online environment was completely re-built by imart with open technology standards. The corporate website was custom-engineered to support a whole new online sales and marketing venture operation that needed to scale.

imart went beyond just adding basic shopping cart functionality and order management support for the existing online catalog to creating a powerful intelligent marketing and direct selling e-business platform. The iDMA™ component-based design provides the brand inspiring corporate front site and back-end functionality capable of content managing nearly a thousand product pages, registering and tracking a growing list of Club Vera user accounts, promoting thousands of brick and mortar retail stores across the nation, and incorporating multiple licensee product lines.

Bringing it all together

The imart solution revolves around specific Vera Bradley brand marketing, point of sale, and product purchasing business models. The solution platform provides the following:

  • Multiple benefits to Vera Bradley by properly positioning and protecting the company brand consistently throughout the consumer online marketplace.
  • Empowerment to independent retailers and licensee partners with the ability to utilize and leverage corporate e-Marketing and e-Commerce business tools.
  • Ability to source information from both a customer and corporate level to support key operational functions and decision making.
  • Back office customer service functionality support to quickly and effectively manage an appealing, creative, and effective buyer, retailer, and licensee online channel sales experience.

Enabling Valuable Results

imart delivered the entire solution on time and on budget with the features and functionality that drives brand protected value across all channels. Today imart supports Vera Bradley with tracking, maintaining, and direct marketing to over 150,000+ Club Vera members, and newly developing sales channels. In addition, the entire operation environment supports over 3500 retailers through the Vera Bradley Rewards™ system, a robust merchandising support program that offers valuable points to the storefront for online sales and in-store sales achievements. Furthermore, authorized retail stores are now identified and promoted as Favorite Stores to online shoppers buying over a 1000 Vera Bradley branded product SKUs. Vera Bradley channel sales are growing…seriously.