Drumming up bespoke e-commerce with Episerver

Drumming up bespoke e-commerce with Episerver
Firm helped musical retailer D’Addario to leverage data to understand its customers

Elly Yates-Roberts |


By 2025, 72 per cent of global business-to-business (B2B) decision makers believe most of their company’s revenue will come from B2B e-commerce websites that they own and operate, according to data from Episerver. The report also shows that B2Bs are already planning to open up direct online selling paths to uncover new ­revenue sources.

Musical accessories retailer D’Addario was early to the idea that B2B buyers want the same level of ordering convenience as their consumer counterparts. As such, it launched a homegrown B2B commerce platform, while still serving the ordering needs of its business-to-customer (B2C) audience. D’Addario strongly believes that convenience and speed are pillars of customer service. However, its solution siloed the B2B and B2C experiences and left a lot to be desired in terms of knowing their customers, what drives their loyalty, and how they expect to browse and buy instrument accessories. 

After going live with Episerver Content Cloud and Episerver Commerce Cloud, D’Addario had a single source of truth for both the B2B and B2C experiences. Unifying this data enabled the marketing team to make more informed decisions based on information from both sides of the business.  They could now see that the B2B and B2C audiences behaved quite differently. B2B buyers, for example, showed low mobile use as they typically used their desktop computers to re-order supplies. They only used their mobiles for convenience-led searches, such as for tracking numbers. 

On the consumer side, D’Addario’s older processes for signing consumers up to loyalty reward schemes were replaced with core loyalty functions as part of the e-commerce website. With over 6,000 barcodes, understanding customer preferences and directing them to the right product was critical to drive a consistent experience. 

“Closing the gap between what your customers want and the experience you can deliver is crucial to stay ahead,” says Nate Barad, head of product marketing at Episerver. “This is only possible by combining the preferences of your customers with your product information, and in that order.  

“We need to alter the lifecycle from a product­focused approach to a customer-centric strategy.  Understanding the customer context in the moment and matching it with the products and services you offer is the first tactic. Presenting that product with the best content and related media establishes a connection with shoppers and your brand, which will be far more valuable than one purchase. Using data sources, like in Microsoft Azure, with real-time context from each consumer is the starting point for each personalised digital experience and delivering them at scale regardless of whether the customer is shopping for themselves or shopping for their business.” 

This article was originally published in the Spring 2020 issue of The Record. Subscribe for FREE here to get the next issues delivered directly to your inbox.

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