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I still recall the days when shopping at Gap was only possible in the mall. Banana Republic was across the way and Old Navy was in the outdoor shopping plaza across the street with other discount retailers, like Marshall’s. Since the creation of shopping online, shopping for my favorite family of brands gets easier and easier to the point where I prefer to shop online rather than go through the trouble of driving to the mall.

A couple years back, Gap.com merged their family of brands by creating a multi-store website. Each of their clothing brands along with two online-only stores (Piperlime and Athleta) are all available with a click of a tab.

Just like shopping in the store, the look and feel of each brand remains independent of each other. Banana Republic remains subdued and sophisticated; click on Old Navy and it’s young and colorful. Customers have the option of signing up for store-specific emails, so as a customer, you don’t need to be bombarded by the brands you’re not interested in. Of course, Gap does take advantage of cross selling their brands. The email sign-up includes the option of receiving updates for their other brands.

While shopping the Maternity – New Arrivals category on the Old Navy store, the footer banners display Gap Maternity and Gap Kids – categories relevant to where I was currently shopping. At other times, the banners display ads for Piperlime and Athleta. Also, Quick Links float off to the side, ready to take the shopper to a corresponding category on another store.

Jumping between stores really is as easy as the click of the tab. The site is also smart enough to remember what department you were browsing in Gap when you left to check out Old Navy. Clicking on Gap takes you back to that department or that item. To top off the shopping experience, there’s only one shopping cart and one checkout. No waiting in lines at each store; no reentering of address and credit card information. Once you’ve created an account, the checkout process is so fast that you have to slow down to check any impulse shopping at the door.

With the multiple stores, Gap offers flat shipping rate across the stores. Piperlime products ship for free, keeping in step with the trends in other ecommerce shoe stores, like Zappos and Shoebuy. Just like shoes need to be tried on before purchasing, I believe clothes do, too. I’d like to see Gap offer more free shipping incentives since online purchases do still bring me back into the stores to make returns. Their store credit card holders can get free shipping with $100 purchase; a lower minimum purchase would definitely make me more checkout-happy!

Gap also ships four of the brands from the same warehouse so that items from those stores come in the same box – a win-win-win for customers, Gap, and the environment.

When I found out that Ignify eCommerce began supporting the ability to run multiple store fronts, I immediately thought of Gap, the first place I’d seen it. It’s worked well for Gap and perhaps your business fits a similar model and can stand to benefit from running multiple stores from a single instance of Ignify eCommerce.

However, I also realized that multi-store can mean different things. In Gaps case, there is one shared shopping cart, one shared login and even the web address domain name is shared – all the stores are actually sub-domains of gap.com e.g. oldnavy.gap.com. One would almost argue that this is not ‘true multi-store’ because as a customer the other ‘stores’ work more like departments. Ignify eCommerce supports the Gap multi-store model where each store is like a department as well as a more delineated model where each store is completely different. In the latter model you can’t tell that all the stores run on the same multi-store framework – the look and feel is totally different, the domain names are completely different and the shopping cart experience for each store is unique and does not have to be shared across other stores running on the Ignify eCommerce multi-store framework. While the Gap.com model may work for some merchants, other merchants may need a more unique experience for each store. Ignify eCommerce is one of very few eCommerce products in the market that supports a true multi-store experience through a single store manager panel.

What's Good about Gap.com:

• Easy, shared checkout
• Remembers where you were in each store
• Look and feel of each store is independent

What’s Not So Good about Gap.com:

• Could offer more free shipping incentives
• Signing up for multiple stores’ emails means more spam in your inbox. An option for a single email digest could be helpful.

Katie Lee is a Team Lead in the eCommerce group at Ignify. Ignify eCommerce is the only PCI certified eCommerce solution in the market that integrates with the Microsoft Dynamics ERP and Sage ERP solutions. Ignify has been included as the fastest growing business in North America for 3 years in a row by Deloitte, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine. Ignify was ranked in the Red Herring 100 finalists for 2010 – this list represents the top businesses in North America with disruptive and innovative technology.

As a consumer, I can usually sniff out marketing gimmicks which are encouraging me to spend more than I wanted. In today’s economy, I try to avoid these consumer traps, like not biting on a promotion that requires me to buy an extra item I didn’t need or really want in the first place. But every now and again, I come across a so-called gimmick that is actually quite helpful for me in trying to be a smart shopper.

One such feature is similar product suggestions. Amazon.com does this so well that there’s many an item I’ve purchased by clicking on these links. Being a foodie, the other day I found myself looking for cookbooks on Asian noodles. Now I don’t know much about Asian cookbook authors, but it wasn’t hard for a search on the topic to take me to a relevant result. A quick glance at the description and reviews gives me a feel for whether or not this is what I’m looking for. And the best part? If it’s not what I’m looking for, Amazon has already suggested alternate products. No need to click on the back button and return to the search results. Nope, I can go straight to what Amazon suggested and so often, going down this trail will eventually help me land on just what I was looking for.

Of course not all consumers are as savvy. For other consumers, suggesting similar, alternative, or corresponding products is just the trick to get them put a little bit more in their shopping cart. This is not unlike going to the grocery store and while you’re looking for graham crackers in the cracker and cookie aisle, a standalone display is in the middle of the aisle selling marshmallows and chocolate bars. Perhaps s’ mores were not on the menu, but all of a sudden this doesn’t seem like a bad idea. The same can be said for ecommerce stores selling clothing, shoes, and accessories. A shopper just looking for a blouse may add some matching pants and shoes when they’re displayed alongside the blouse.

Since cross selling is not a new marketing strategy, I’m so glad that Ignify eCommerce platform offers this feature out of the box. What a simple way to enhance the customer’s shopping experience while bringing in more sales to your store. Details of how to setup cross selling can be found in the Ignify eCommerce user manual.

Let me just point out a few helpful features in the latest version of Ignify eCommerce v4.0.8.

• Quick View – This allows customers to view details about the product and add the item to their cart – all without leaving the product they were on.
  
• A scrollable module so that you can include more products than can fit on the screen. These products can also be custom sorted.
• Customizable templates. Your Ignify eCommerce team can work with you on the best template to fit your needs. Perhaps displaying the price or more product details is necessary, or maybe you want to show smaller images in order to fit more products in the display.

Since the Ignify eCommerce platform is always being enhanced and improved upon, let me just mention a couple places where there is room for improvement.

• The ability to import values en masse from a spreadsheet through the Import Manager. This would be a great help to store managers in ensuring that all products have related products assigned. It takes time to consider what the most appropriate products to suggest are, but at the very least, having something set up is better than nothing. It can only introduce the possibility of increased sales.
• The ability to track how many sales were generated as a result of cross sell clicks and eventual purchases. A store manager is always looking to see what generates sales, and seeing the value of this feature helps to know how much time to devote towards maintaining the cross selling items.

If you’re not taking advantage of this feature, talk with your implementation team about getting this setup. It’s a simple tool that adds easy value for both the consumer and the seller.

This post is written by Katie Lee. Katie is the eCommerce Support Team Lead in the eCommerce Practice at Ignify. Ignify is a Global Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle Partner specializing in ecommerce for Retail, Distribution, and Manufacturing businesses. Ignify has been included as the fastest growing business in North America for 3 years in a row by Deloitte, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine.