Ministry develops in-house ecommerce platform in six weeks

Ministry of Sound has relaunched its direct-to-consumer website ministryofsound.com, after the site was closed down on 13 February when Trinity Street, the company originally providing its ecommerce platform, collapsed and went into administration.

The company “has been forced to re-evaluate the viability of outsourcing such services and has taken bold steps to risk-proof its ecommerce operations by in-sourcing the development and management of its direct-to-consumer service,” says parent company MSHK.

“Bolstering its in-house ecommerce division MSHK has appointed a four strong .net/ASP development team and in just six weeks has built a completely bespoke backend system to power ministryofsound.com,” it explains.

The new site “features a tighter, more refined design whilst an overhaul of the navigation has created a more intuitive user experience. Blogs and features have also been integrated, containing the very latest news and happenings from across MSHK’s artist portfolio and dance floors.”

“A backend data warehousing and eCRM system, also developed in house, tracks and profiles customers preferences and cross sell relevant music, events, merchandise and licensed products from across its brand portfolio which includes HedKandi, Global Underground, Euphoria and HARD2BEAT.”

The digital fulfillment for music downloads is being provided by Dx3.

Rudy Tambala, head of internet at MoS, explains the thinking: “Disruptive technologies have reduced time, cost and technology barriers to DIY systems and services. Just six months ago the outsourcing model made sense, but with so many small- to medium-sized platform providers at risk of collapse, and the major players still charging absurdly high licensing, build and management fees, it make perfect sense to ride this new wave and bring it all in-house. Lohan Presencer, our CEO, has encouraged us to take responsibility for our own fate and reduce dependency on those suppliers that cannot adapt their models to the changing technological and economic landscape.”

“There’s going to be huge fallout over next 12 months with many casualties, but we’ve taken the right steps to ensure that MSHK Group and ministryofsound.com won’t be one of them. With our direct-to-consumer service now managed in-house plus complete freedom over pricing and fulfilment, customer support, marketing and engagement, we have delivered a D2C blueprint for the future. These are really exciting times for MSHK.”