eBags Company Overview
Number 92 on the 2007 Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, eBags is the world’s leading
online provider of fashion and functional luggage, handbags, business cases, backpacks
and accessories for all lifestyles. eBags features over 400 brands and 25,000 products
from well-known names including Samsonite, kate spade, Victorinox, JanSport, and Nike.

ChannelAdvisor Complete Solutions:
Products: ShoppingAdvisor^TM

ChannelAdvisor Complete^® combines on-demand software, integrated technology and best practices to help retailers manage the complexities of selling across multiple e-commerce channels – more efficiently and more profitably – all through a single interface.

A powerful part of the ChannelAdvisor Complete solution, ShoppingAdvisor puts control back in retailers’ hands, giving them the freedom to market every product – easily and effectively – across the comparison shopping landscape. By enabling them to achieve unsurpassed relevancy and generate maximum returns, ShoppingAdvisor helps retailers isolate the most compelling campaign strategies.

Situation

eBags made a decision in 2004 to launch a comparison shopping engine program; viewing the channel as an opportunity to acquire new customers and expand their multi-channel presence. In 2005 eBags realized that the ever growing comparison shopping landscape was quickly becoming too difficult to manage manually. The need to customize their data feed for each engine and their IT team could not dedicate their resources as other e-commerce projects took precedence, proved to be challenging for
the marketing team who prefers to operate with a turn-on-a-dime mentality. Add the executives request to launch a CSE program internationally; eBags quickly realized they needed to find a solution to help.

“Managing product data and its associated relevancy on comparison shopping engines is a requirement in any successful online retail marketing campaign.” said Jon Mellen, Marketing Manager, eBags Inc. “Trying to manage the data without the proper tools all but guarantees a difficult campaign and lower than expected profits.”

Data management was the key issue. “Having the time to manage the many data feeds was one thing, but getting top results out of each and every feed was a different story,” said Mellen. “Our goal is to get the greatest return possible out of every shopping site we utilize, but simple tasks like manage the editing of product titles and descriptions to increase relevancy proved to be too cumbersome.”

Solution

In 2005 eBags chose to take advantage of ChannelAdvisor’s ShoppingAdvisor technology coupled with ChannelAdvisor’s full service management program. This solution quickly freed eBags’ IT resources as the ChannelAdvisor team took over day-to-day merchandising of their products on the comparison shopping engines. eBags shifted from managing multiple product feeds to sending
only one to ChannelAdvisor.

eBags also gained more than time savings through the flexibility of ShoppingAdvisor’s Merchandising Engine. Like many retailers, eBags experienced difficulty in the past providing shopping engines with data that wasn’t available in their product feed. Prior to launch, ChannelAdvisor’s account strategists analyzed areas for improvement and utilized the flexible architecture of the ShoppingAdvisor system to customize business rules to improve performance on the individual shopping sites.

“ShoppingAdvisor provided ChannelAdvisor an easy way to add promotional data to my feed for sites that accept it; even though I didn’t have it in the feed being sent to ChannelAdvisor.” said Mellen. In addition, eBags was able to provide a schedule of promotional campaigns to ChannelAdvisor in advance which was then entered into ShoppingAdvisor for integration into the eBags feed at the
appropriate time.

When ChannelAdvisor announced they would be offering ShoppingAdvisor as a self-managed solution, eBags was one of the first to inquire. eBags joined ChannelAdvisor’s beta program for ShoppingAdvisor and soon learned the ease of bringing their comparison shopping efforts in house.

Now with ShoppingAdvisor being utilized in house, eBags is able to experience the same results, the same flexibility and the same dynamic updates, all managed by their own marketing staff. Additionally, eBags benefits from one centralized locale to gather pertinent program information. Leveraging ShoppingAdvisor’s dashboard, eBags now has a shopping engine checks and balances and can
immediately obtain information on dips in traffic or revenue, Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) at the product level as well as a snapshot of current feed status.

“If I were to design a product to manage our comparison shopping program it would have worked just like ShoppingAdvisor,” Mellen said of the new self managed platform. “The control I have with this application is unparallel to anything I have discovered in the market today. It’s beyond simply analyzing performance reports and provides me with complete control over my shopping campaigns.”

Results

By utilizing the ShoppingAdvisor platform eBags was able to recognize improvements to several key metrics almost instantly. “Seeing such positive results so quickly has exceeded our expectations. Our partnership with ChannelAdvisor has had a great impact on our business.” Mellen said.