Department store John Lewis has made a push to consolidate its
e-commerce offering by acquiring the struggling UK operations of
buy.com, the California-based office supplies e-tailer.
Hazel WardThe deal, announced early last week, will see John Lewis taking
over the technology and management team behind buy.com to develop
its online department store offering.
Nigel Reeford-Brown, merchandise director at John Lewis, said
the retailer bought the UK operations of buy.com for its technology
and customer service offering.
"People shop with us because they trust the John Lewis name and
we wanted to be able to simulate that same level of service on the
Web site as in the high street. But the question was how. If we got
it wrong, not only would it undermine the confidence of our online
customers but it could also hurt our high-street presence,"
Reeford-Brown said.
John Lewis will gain the management expertise and technology it
would have had to develop on its own. It will also benefit from an
on-going technical support and advice agreement with the US parent
company.
Roger Willmott, vice-president for IS at buy.com UK, said the
buy.com's Internet systems would be linked with John Lewis'
existing back-end systems.
Additional functionality would be built in over the next few
months for the technology to form the basis for John Lewis' online
offering.
The team of 30 buy.com IT staff would work with John Lewis
in-house staff and the integration of the two systems was likely to
be completed by the end of August.
Willmott said, "One of the best things about this [on-going
relationship] is that with the US being two years ahead in terms of
market and technology, it will be like a crystal ball for us."
hazel.ward@rbi.co.uk