The area of online sales offers immense opportunity for Philips. With ambitious targets having been set, it was necessary to design something special when developing the on-line shop concept for Philips Consumer Lifestyle. "One of the first tasks when this project kicked off was to define the key objectives and differentiators," says Han Toebast, Senior Design Manager at Philips Design. "These included increasing customer loyalty as well as offering the full Consumer Lifestyle catalogue and a premium gifting experience."
“We aim to develop the optimum online consumer experience,” says Han. "For example, if someone wants to buy a TV or a shaver, how many steps should they have to take? How can we make it as straightforward as possible? And what if they have a complaint after buying it - how can we help them in the most effective way? This really helped us design from the user perspective."
The online shop is already live in the UK, US, the Netherlands, France and other European countries. “Essentially it was like creating a new retailer, starting from scratch, in just 18 months,” says Han. “Its creation involved competences ranging from business management to design, IT, market intelligence, SAP and legal experts. It was a real team effort." But it was certainly worth it - Philips customer loyalty, measured as the Net Promoter Score, has increased in every country in which it has been introduced.
The focus for the near future is on rolling out the online shop in more countries and on identifying areas of improvement. "We will also take further steps to make the site a real flagship store," continues Han. "We are considering the possibilities of personalization. Imagine ordering a digital photo frame for a friend with a name engraved on it and photos already preloaded. The best is yet to come!"
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