Founded in 2004, B's Purses offers mid-range, custom handbags that have been spotlighted in many popular and influential media outlets, including People magazine and national talk shows like The View. Until spring of 2010, B's Purses were sold by independent, commissioned sales reps who hosted purse parties, à la Avon and Tupperware. Today, B's handbags are also sold through its online store.

Challenges:

Having thrived for more than six years as a small business, B’s Purses was ready to take its business to a new level by increasing its reach and distribution through an online store.

B’s Purses website, however, was a drag on the business. The site did not do justice to the purses, which were represented by line drawings, with photographed fabrics superimposed on them. The images did not depict the bags realistically, and B’s Purses wanted to make it comfortable for shoppers to purchase online by showing them exactly how their custom purses would look. The website was also a drain on cash flow: Lacking the flexibility to display the new handbag fabrics and style, a costly site rebuild was required every six months when new fabrics and products were introduced for the new season. 

Best Practices:

B's Purses tapped web developer and consultancy 13PRIME, which recommended Adobe Scene7 for hosting B's Purses product images and driving the online visualization of user-configured custom bags.

Scene7 provided B's Purses with newfound flexibility, allowing the company to display its seasonal offerings as they're available. This is possible because the code for each handbag "vignette," or image, stands up season after season, so every time new products are launched, there's no need to rewrite the code–fabric swatches are simply applied to new or existing purse styles.

Moreover, shoppers can now see images of the purses as they are configured in real-time; as they select their fabric swatches, hardware and strap choices, shoppers can see their creations come to life before them. Also, pricing is instantly updated so shoppers can see the costs for each selected option. By being able to see the product and understand the costs of what they're purchasing, shoppers feel greater confidence, a prerequisite for purchase. Additionally, with potentially hundreds of thousands of possible combinations through the myriad choices in hardware, fabrics, purse styles, and monograms, the visual configurator makes unnecessary any actual photographs to fully represent every conceivable bag combination.

Using Scene7, B's Purses is able to build a streamlined process from order to fulfillment: SKUs flow directly into custom-built shopping carts as items placed in the cart triggers the generation of the Scene7 image URL that accurately shows customers what their custom-designed handbags look like. As the purse is ordered, the same information used to build the detailed product image also becomes the order SKUs containing all key construction parameters for the manufacturer. These custom specs are then flowed to the manufacturer in the form of a back-office order management that utilizes the same set of images along with the detailed SKU information, shortening the construction time and minimizing the likelihood of error. In addition, order reports, order history and customer emails all contain the actual purse images.

Results:

Since implementing Scene7 in the spring of 2010, B’s Purses online sales in the third quarter of 2010 jumped from being less than 1% of total sales to averaging over 12%. These sales represent purchases made by new customers, over and above the revenue generated by the sales reps, who also input their orders online.

Scene7 has also shaved significant dollars off B’s Purses annual web maintenance costs. Whereas before, a site rebuild was necessary every six months when new fabrics and styles were introduced, Scene7 has made the rebuild unnecessary. 

Because of the Scene7 platform’s flexibility and scalability, B’s Purses has cut by more than half its annual web development, maintenance and consulting expenses. “Adobe Scene7 gives us the flexibility to provide B’s Purses with both cost control and superior quality,” said Keith Hall, co-principal of PRIME13. “It has been the key to creating a bspurses.com site that has the look and functionality to compete with some of the largest brands in the world."

“Before Scene7, it was hard to show our custom-made handbags online and customers had to wonder what their bags would look like,” said Lisa Henderson, founder and CEO of B’s Purses.  “Scene7 has eliminated that uncertainty and helped us create a thriving online business.”

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