Whitecap Canada Inc. Helps Miele Limited Develop Personalized Retailer Websites
Background
Miele Limited (www.miele.ca) is the world's largest family-owned and operated appliance company, and is immovably committed to the highest quality, performance and environmental standards. Miele offers a wide range of domestic products from built-in ovens, steam ovens, coffee systems, cooktops (gas, electric and induction), ventilation hoods, dishwashers and washers and dryers. In 2008, Miele introduced the Miele Chartered Agent system and now sells appliances directly to the end consumer through their national network of Miele Chartered Agents. Miele is also known for producing vacuum cleaners which are available major retailers and independent vacuum stores.
Challenge
In order to ensure that a consistent brand message could be controlled across the web, Miele’s Canadian division sought to set up all of their affiliate retailers across Canada with their own unique websites, allowing the retailers to showcase Miele products while leaving Miele with a high degree of control over the environment, branding and product details. This would ensure that all products and promotions were presented accurately and within corporate branding constraints.
The challenge faced was to design a solution that would provide Miele with the flexibility to present their brand within an environment that could be customized to each affiliate retailer, which are spread across the country and ranged in size from single stores to large chains, in a cost effective manner.
Solution
Whitecap worked with Miele to develop a reusable template that allows for customization for each affiliate retail site across Canada. The template is rapidly customizable through the definition of a basic list of parameters within a document, which is then loaded to the database template.
A method was devised to integrate to each affiliate’s website through the use of Virtual URLs; the only customization required on the part of the affiliate is to make a unique entry into their existing website. With the development of the customizable template, costs were minimized across the various affiliates and the solution is highly scalable as new affiliates are added.
Results
To date, the solution has been rolled out across 36 different affiliate retailers and a total of 120 individual store locations; a further roll-out to a total of 75 retailers and 200 stores is planned.
The customized retailer sites have been highly effective in raising and unifying the branding standard for Miele across its Canadian web presence and has provided a great benefit to the retail affiliates as well, by improving the quality of their web presence significantly. The program has been so successful that it is being showcased to Miele divisions around the world, to great positive response.