Founded in 1994, PEACH JOHN CO. is a Japanese brand popular among women in their 20s and 30s for its affordably priced imported lingerie and other unique products sourced domestically. Its mail-order lingerie catalog "PJ", along with its sister cosmetics catalog "GJ", accounts for a significant part of PEACH JOHN's business. PJ and GJ catalogs are released four times a year, and each release claims a circulation of 1.6 million and 750,000 respectively, giving PEACH JOHN enviable reach among the young female demographic. Besides lingerie and beauty products, PEACH JOHN also sells apparel, shoes, bags, and other fashion accessories; its products are sold online and through catalogs and retail stores.

Challenges:

• Improve the online shopping experience as PEACH JOHN's site grows in popularity;
• Streamline a time-consuming image production and management process capable of supporting growing product offerings;
• Identify a cost-effective solution to convert PEACH JOHN's popular print catalogs into an interactive catalog. 

PEACH JOHN’s website went live in 2002 and proved to be as popular as its catalogs. In response, the company sought to enhance the site and improve the user experience. One particular problem it sought to overcome is that a break in the page transition occurred whenever customers tried to access a large image to view product details, disrupting a key moment when users are immersed and engaged with the product.

PEACH JOHN also needed a more efficient mechanism to manage the growing number of product images resulting from its expanded offerings. It has some 3,000 unique products on offer, with up to 500 new items being added to its online assortment every quarter.  The company’s image production processes, however, were time-consuming, as each image required at least four different resolutions for their various uses, including a thumbnail image for browsing or category page lists, large and small images for zoom and product pages and more images for PEACH JOHN's website optimized for smartphones. Additionally, most of the merchandise is offered in multiple colors, adding up to about 2,000 to 3,000 products that have to be photographed across many color selections and resolutions.

PEACH JOHN also wanted to replicate its catalog experience online so customers can derive the same enjoyment as when they shop and browse through its offline catalogs. However, creating an interactive electronic catalog from a print catalog is a labor- and time-intensive procedure, requiring operations such as link-creation for every photograph.

Best Practices:

• Post large images on all product pages;
• Raise shopper engagement by deploying interactive tools like zoom, colorization and alternative images;
• Streamline image production and management processes, eliminating the need to shoot close-up product detail photos;
• Easily convert print catalogs into virtual, interactive versions, increasing the reach of PEACH JOHN's popular catalogs while similar workflows are being leveraged for other print collateral.

Adobe Scene7’s ease of use enabled PEACH JOHN to post large product images on every product page, which in turn helped to draw in shoppers. To further improve the online user experience, the web team used Scene7 to deliver zoom and alternative views on demand, creating a seamless shopping and browsing experience and eliminating the page transition issues. Shoppers can easily zoom in and out on a product by dragging their mouse along a sliding bar that controls the degree of magnification.  They can also drag their mouse directly over the large product image to view a specific detail. To apply different colors to a product, users simply hover their mouse over the color selections, with no jarring page transitions to interrupt their experience.

Using Adobe Scene7 to automate the publishing and management of thousands of images has also translated to significant cost savings for PEACH JOHN. With a single high-resolution image, Scene7 dynamically delivers images in the appropriate sizes and formats based on simple URL commands. As a result, PEACH JOHN’s web-production team no longer has to manually adjust image quality or trim the images to accommodate the various sizing requirements. Additionally, no close-up photography is necessary as Scene7 generates enlarged, detailed views using the same high-resolution image.  Moreover, as PEACH JOHN is held by contract to using photographs showing models for only a limited time, it uses Scene7’s image management features to sort the photography based on their expiration dates.

PEACH JOHN also used Scene7 to effortlessly convert its print catalogs into online versions, reaching new customers who would otherwise not access its print catalogs. Now, online audiences can enjoy flipping through PJ and GJ catalogs at their leisure, while those familiar with catalog shopping can use the interactive features of the online catalog to elevate their shopping experience. Customers can purchase right from the catalog and click on any product to get more information. PEACH JOHN has further leveraged the eCatalog workflow to upload its in-store brochures and make them available online.

"It takes only about an hour to receive the PDF data of a single 230-page print catalog from the printers and convert the data to an electronic catalog," says Motoko Abe, manager of Web/Mobile Sales Team, PEACH JOHN CO., Ltd. "It's so easy; we've started to increase variations."

Results

• Vastly improved user experience utilizing on-demand viewing features like zoom, colorization and alternative images
• Streamlined image production and management process, cutting image production time by more than 90%.
• Achieved near-zero cost to create interactive catalogs from print content, eliminating the need to outsource this function

"In our experience, Adobe has the technology to bring out the best in an image … If we had started out with technologies from anyone but Adobe Systems, we may have never given image automation a shot,” says Abe. "Another reason for choosing Scene7 was its product color-swatching function, a feature that will help us strengthen our website in the future."

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