WHAT DOES YOUR COMPANY DO AND WHAT IS YOUR USP?
Vaimo is a global ecommerce agency, supporting our B2B and B2C clients in exceeding their commerce goals on Magento. As the world’s leading Magento Global Elite Partner, we’ve delivered tailored ecommerce solutions to more than 400 brands over the past 9 years.
Vaimo has delivered more Magento 2 Enterprise solutions (including some of the very largest and most complex) than any other partner globally. We’re a team of over 350 people, in highly specialised departments: Commerce Strategy, Project Management, Development, Design, UX, Quality Assurance and Client Support, all 100% focussed on Magento. This expertise, combined with our commitment to Magento innovation through our ongoing projects, and dedicated R&D team, allows us to reduce time to market and total cost of ownership, whilst offering features not available outside Vaimo. With 9 years’ contribution to the Magento core code our role is intertwined with innovation, allowing us to drastically increase our clients’ online security, stability and growth potential.
WHAT TRENDS DO YOU SEE FOR THE RETAIL INDUSTRY OVER THE COMING YEAR?
We see our fastest growing customers focusing vigilantly on social channels and personalisation. While none of these are really new for 2018, we believe the retailers that will stand out amongst the large marketplaces are the ones that offer a personalised customer journey that starts through a social channel that has become second nature for the consumer.
“Vaimo’s approach and capabilities coupled with their Magento experience made them an easy choice for Jack Daniel’s UK and they have been a key factor in helping us successfully bringing the website to market”
WHAT IMPACT IS THIS HAVING ON IT SYSTEMS?
Innovation is king. The market is dominated by huge marketplaces growing by up to 40% year-on-year. This growth is driven by huge investments in innovation, which in turn, is drastically increasing consumer expectations. As an online retailer, it’s difficult to maintain market share without a long-term strategic partner who works with you to understand, optimise and seamlessly link each channel of your business, creating a true omnichannel customer experience, well after “go-live”. Many of our 400+ clients have partnered with us from the early Magento 1 days, and have benefitted from an ecosystem of innovation second to none in the Magento space.
HOW IS TECHNOLOGY HELPING RETAILERS TO MEET THOSE CHALLENGES?
An ecommerce platform for today’s retailers needs to be customisable, secure, scalable and reliable. A retailer’s online shop window needs to enhance their brand, and the platform must allow them to roll out continuous improvement whilst minimising time to market. As an open-source platform, Magento 2 has an advantage in that there’s a huge community driving innovation alongside what’s being done by Magento internally; it’s critical that the chosen partner has the capacity and know-how to capitalise on this wealth of opportunity.
HOW DO YOU SEE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPING?
For technology to continue to keep one step ahead of the retail industry it must be combined with commerce best practice and detailed end customer understanding. As one of the largest contributors to the Magento core code, we see our role as one of the principal drivers of innovation on Magento; the key is that this is based on extensive, highly specialised experience and genuine customer need. Within Vaimo, we’ve built specialised departments whose role is to marry their field of expertise (ranging from Strategy to Development) to client need. The technology created by our R&D department allows us to create solutions simply not possible outside Vaimo. Our focus on pushing the boundaries of Commerce technology, driven by our experience of data-driven Commerce best practice and detailed consumer understanding gained from embedding our teams in over 400 clients is what sets Vaimo apart.
CUSTOMER CASE STUDY
Brown-Forman is one of the largest American-owned spirits companies in the world, selling its products in over 160 countries. Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey is the company’s flagship brand and is the best-selling American whiskey in the world. The world-renowned whiskey is distilled, matured and bottled in Lynchburg, TN.
As digital became an increasingly important channel for Brown-Forman, the group wanted to create a new online and mobile channel and become the world’s leading platform for consumers seeking a premium “spirit” experience. The company decided to begin its digital journey by creating a new site for the Jack Daniel’s UK market, showcasing the premium product family by communicating brand stories while ensuring the visitor experience leads to conversions.
Vaimo created a content-rich, responsive site for Jack Daniel’s that not only promotes the brand, but also celebrates the authenticity of Jack Daniel’s through story-telling. The solution is fully integrated with Magento Commerce Order Management suite, including OMS (Order Management System), payment solutions and boasts features like the possibility to inscribe a personalised engraving on the bottles. The Vaimo Content Management System allows the Jack Daniel’s in-house team and various agencies to easily support, control and maintain campaigns.
Between August 2016 and August 2017, the site saw an increase in users of 113% with sessions increasing by 112%. Ultimately, this has resulted in a 55% increase in online turnover. “The launch of the Jack Daniel’s store gives us a new route to the consumer and a new platform to tell our authentic brand stories on. This is a great opportunity for us to make our products more accessible to our consumers, and a new and a unique way for our consumers to engage more deeply with the Jack Daniel’s brand,” says Ffion Jones, Senior Brand Manager at Jack Daniel’s UK.
The solution provided by Vaimo is a stepping stone in Brown-Forman’s expansion into ecommerce, and the framework and platform will be used to expand into other countries. Work is already on the way to launch B2C and B2B sites on the platform in two other countries.
“The launch of the Jack Store in the UK is a stepping stone for us and we are looking to expand our ecommerce capabilities into other markets and brands. Vaimo’s approach and capabilities coupled with their Magento experience made them an easy choice for us, and they have been a key factor in helping us successfully bringing the website to market,” says Karen Taylor, Ecommerce Manager, Jack Daniel’s UK.
She continues: “The maturity and capabilities of the Magento platform gives us the foundation to scale in a cost efficient way, and the ability to add features and functionality as we get better at ecommerce”.
Vaimo IN BRIEF
Date launched: 2008
Global reach: 15 offices in 12 markets
Date launched in the UK: 2013
Turnover: Globally around £20m
Customers: Dyson, Jack Daniel’s, Absolut, Helly Hansen, Royal Academy of Arts and many more.
Number of employees: 350
Number of partners: 15
For more information about Vaimo UK, please visit www.vaimo.co.uk or reach us by Twitter: @VaimoUK or telephone: +44 845 5280 640.
