Hobbycraft creates new ecommerce platform

Arts and craft retailer Hobbycraft has launched a new ecommerce platform to power business growth

Hobbycraft has worked with Astound Commerce on the implementation following exceptional ecommerce growth during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The retailer understood the need to digitally transform to meet the enhanced online expectations of customers post-pandemic, including frictionless access to leading product ranges and exceptional customer service.

However, its legacy ecommerce platform had reached its capacity and couldn’t meet the retailer’s desire to scale or provide the seamless omnichannel experiences its shoppers now expect, with 60% of all in-store visits currently beginning online.

Additionally, the Hobbycraft team were unable to dynamically make changes to the site or easily create merchandising and content needed to elevate the digital buying experience.

Personalisation

Overall, this meant customer experience was limited, with the ability to align inspiration and products and provide personalisation compromised while any changes that needed to be made to the website were often time-consuming to implement.

Following a competitive pitch, Astound Commerce was selected to deliver the new Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) platform, which it built and implemented using Astound's best-in-class SFCC accelerator, Velocity Reference Architecture (VRA).

Matt Louth, IT director, at Hobbycraft, said: “Our exceptional ecommerce growth during lockdown made clear the importance of placing digital transformation at the heart of our multichannel offering to ensure we have the right capabilities in place to support and grow the business.”