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FINE+RARE Extends Sales Model for Wine with Sceneric and hybris; European fine wine trader migrates to hybris' commerce platform to support market expansion and provide a superior online buying experience(M2 PressWIRE Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) London -- Sceneric, a leading web and e-commerce consultancy, today announced it has launched a new commerce platform for FINE+RARE, one of Europe's largest fine wine merchants. With the launch of its new multi-device optimised website built and enabled by Sceneric and running on the hybris commerce platform, FINE+RARE celebrates its 20th anniversary of trading by providing its customers with a state-of-the-art commerce and digital buying experience designed to take customer service and satisfaction to a new level. The new FINE+RARE commerce platform, developed by Sceneric using the highly scalable hybris Commerce Accelerator, features powerful omni-channel and internationalisation capabilities that enable FINE+RARE to quickly respond to the changing expectations of its rapidly growing customer base. "Around 30 per cent of visitors to our website use a mobile or tablet device - a number that is set to grow in the future," confirms Michael Barker, CTO at FINE+RARE. "With hybris we've been able to deploy a fully responsive commerce site, delivering a consistent and highly engaging experience for customers, regardless of how they choose to interact with us." FINE+RARE have a live catalogue of over 50,000 products from over 5,000 producers. Availability and price updates are fed into the system in near-real-time. hybris' powerful Product Content Management (PCM) solution centralises this data, enabling a 'single view of product' across all channels. This data is then used to provide customers with a richer, more engaging experience. For example, the faceted search facility allows customers to more efficiently browse and search the wide range of wines, allowing customers to fine-tune their selections. "We've been able to create a highly effective search experience for customers, making it possible for them to explore the breadth and range of our offering, personalising and refining their navigation along the way," stated Barker. "This was important to us because one of FINE+RARE's key competitive differentiators is the ability to give buyers immediate access to the widest choice of wines available, anywhere." In addition, the intuitive interface of hybris' Web Content Management System (WCMS) has allowed business owners to take full ownership of all online content, images and attributes. This has dramatically speeded up and simplified the processes to update the site content. The complex workflows, business rules and processes underpinning FINE+RARE's distinctive B2B/B2C marketplace model represented a major integration challenge for Sceneric. The new commerce platform seamlessly manages payment gateways, order delivery and shipping, market price graphs and bonded warehouse storage options. In addition, with offices in the UK and Hong Kong, and customers located in over 50 countries, FINE+RARE serves an extensive range of international markets and the new commerce solution provides the multi-currency facility the company needs, together with the ability to calculate local duty and tax charges. "hybris was the only commerce platform that offered the ability to efficiently implement our highly unusual hybrid B2B/B2C model," said Barker. "The Sceneric team applied their deep knowledge of hybris to deliver the commerce platform we wanted, complete with the capabilities we needed." The site was deployed onto hybris' OnDemand infrastructure, a fully managed service that gives FINE+RARE the instant scalability it needs to cope with anticipated growth as the company pursues aggressive expansion plans, which include extending its market reach both at home and overseas. "Making the move to the cloud represents a major positive for us," said Barker. "The hybris OnDemand model future-proofs our digital commerce strategy and enables us to instantly leverage the enterprise-class processing power, networking, security and storage we need. All of which leaves us free to concentrate on the business in hand." The flexibility of hybris has also enabled FINE+RARE to quickly deliver changes. During the user testing phase, customers were encouraged to provide feedback on their experience with the site. "We have been able, in just a few weeks, to deliver many of these customer-requested features. This is a clear testament to hybris' flexibility and the excellent foundation provided by Sceneric." Jim Herbert, Founding Director of Sceneric, commented: "It's been a privilege to work with FINE+RARE, developing a commerce platform that positions the company for future growth as it enters new markets and extends its reach to new customer categories." "With a site optimised to cope with the growing number of mobile customers, FINE+RARE is able to embark on a new era of sophisticated digital marketing and merchandising that's set to transform customers' online experience," he continued. "As the company enters new geographies, the ability enabled by Sceneric and hybris to create localised commerce sites featuring language and pricing customisations will enable FINE+RARE to speak with clarity to its highly discerning customers." About Sceneric Sceneric is an ecommerce solutions provider that works closely with its customers to help them achieve leadership positions in their markets. It achieves this by bringing a combination of in-depth industry knowledge, technical excellence and delivery expertise to support the operational objectives of its customers. A hybris Platinum Partner, Sceneric has offices in the UK, Europe, Asia Pacific and the USA. Founded in 2006, the company works with industry leaders such as ASOS, Legal & General, Nisbets, Barbour, LK Bennett, Rapha, Superdrug, Dr Martens and MoneySupermarket.com. Sceneric is also a member of the DigitasLBi group of companies. For more information please visit: www.sceneric.com About hybris software hybris software, an SAP Company, helps businesses around the globe sell more goods, services and digital content through every touchpoint, channel and device. hybris delivers OmniCommerce(TM): state-of-the-art master data management for commerce and unified commerce processes that give a business a single view of its customers, products and orders, and its customers a single view of the business. hybris' omni-channel software is built on a single platform, based on open standards, that is agile to support limitless innovation, efficient to drive the best TCO, and scalable and extensible to be the last commerce platform companies will ever need. Both principal industry analyst firms rank hybris as a "leader" and list its commerce platform among the top two or three in the market. The same software is available on-premise, on-demand and managed hosted, giving merchants of all sizes maximum flexibility. Over 500 companies have chosen hybris, including global B2B sites W.W.Grainger, Rexel, General Electric, Thomson Reuters and 3M as well as consumer brands Toys"R"Us, Metro, Bridgestone, Levi's, Nikon, Galeries Lafayette, Migros, Nespresso and Lufthansa. hybris is the future of commerce(TM). For more information, visit www.hybris.com. About FINE+RARE FINE+RARE is the leading international fine wine broker, with offices in London, Hong Kong and Singapore. Founded in 1994, its model, combined with cutting-edge technology, allows it to offer an unrivalled selection of wines at prices set by the market. Free of the constraints of a traditional stockholding, FINE+RARE is agile, dynamic and impartial. FINE+RARE offers everything from Bordeaux at market-leading prices, the most elusive rare Burgundy, the finest from Italy and the newest from the New World, with its sourcing team constantly on the hunt for ex-cellar allocations from the most exciting producers throughout the world. An account manager is always on hand to guide you on what to buy and what to sell and all wines can be stored in their temperature-controlled storage facilities. FINE+RARE's unique market-making system ensures that prices are correct and valuations can be offered that are uninfluenced by any stockholdings of their own. Whether buying, storing, selling or valuing FINE+RARE is more than a merchant, it is a marketplace. For press information: Julie Kirby Ascendant Communications [email protected] 07956 955625 . (c) 2014 M2 COMMUNICATIONS |