How Dorel Increased Retailer Revenue by 20% With ChannelAdvisor

Company Overview

As a manufacturer of youth, sports and furniture products, Dorel is the company behind 22 major brands that are loved around the world. The company has been providing families with everything from toys and baby items to outdoor sports equipment and indoor furnishings since 1988, with a specialised focus on different brands depending on each individual market. With the company reporting overall annual sales in the range of $2.6 billion, and approximately 8,900 staff in 25 countries, Dorel says it has maintained some tremendous growth over the years.

Yet even in the midst of its strong global presence and extensive worldwide staff, Dorel says complexities remain. According to the brand’s e-commerce team, this was especially true for one division in particular.

The Situation

As Dorel’s director of sales and marketing for the company’s Tiny Love brand in France, Etienne Colliard notes Dorel has a lot of interaction with retail partners. The company reports that because  95% of the country’s sales come from hybrid retailers and pure players that Colliard manages directly, maintaining strong relationships is essential to success within the market.

Which, the e-commerce team at Dorel says, can require an awful lot of time and effort. Each individual distribution channel is filled with factors that require tremendous levels of attention, from pricing dynamics to out-of-stock items to customer reviews.

The Dorel team reports that this is too much for a one-person team to tackle manually. So instead, Colliard says the company set out to find the right tools and technology for the job.

The Solution

With ChannelAdvisor Brand Analytics, Colliard says he’s able to keep a close eye on mission-critical metrics.

“I receive pricing and stock notifications daily to watch for distribution mishaps,” he explains. “And every Monday morning, I spend 15 to 30 minutes analysing the customised Brand Analytics Report to review action points for the week.”

In addition, Colliard says he relies on ChannelAdvisor’s e-commerce intelligence platform to regularly investigate the source of price changes and better understand the pricing dynamics in his market. Should a recurring inventory issue surface, Colliard says all he has to do is check the availability history report to review patterns for the product in question — and then advise the retailer when it’s time to increase stock levels.

“Compared to other data and consulting solutions, it’s noticeable how readily accessible the data is,” Colliard adds. 

In one particularly memorable moment, he notes he was able to “flip open his laptop screen” to instantly share a Brand Analytics report during a meeting with a retailer. After seeing that their Tiny Love bestseller had been out-of-stock 23% of the time, Colliard reports that he was able to immediately increase the customer’s order size and improve availability for consumers.

“Brand Analytics allows me to react fast when the unexpected happens, and to keep a week-over-week eye on progress,” he says.

The Results

After three years, Colliard says it’s difficult to imagine where Tiny Love would be without ChannelAdvisor Brand Analytics.

“We’d never systematically check all prices every morning,” he says. “Without Brand Analytics, I’d be in for bad surprises. Some products would stay out of stock for long periods of time.”

In one particularly notable achievement, Colliard says he was able to increase one retailer’s revenue by 20% — without making any significant changes to assortment, prices or even promotions. 

“We simply reacted to out-of-stocks within 24 hours,” he says.

And that’s just one example of the many instances where Brand Analytics has had a significant role in the company’s growth throughout France, according to Colliard.

“The data history for availability gives me arguments to challenge retailers and push them to perform better,” he says.