A David Jones store
Interviewed by phone in Melbourne this morning, IBM Global Business Services retail industry manager, Ian Wong, told eCommerce Report that the company was understandably pleased to win the David Jones e-commerce tender.
“We’ve had a long-standing relationship with David Jones” he said
But he insisted that the Smarter Commerce Solution IBM is supplying will not involve the migration of existing applications.
He said the solution will be, at least as far as the online store is concerned, entirely novel. “This will be brand new” he said.
Overall Wong said the solution David Jones is buying is a complete package.
“It includes technology hosting and a brand new set of software assets along with technology and business consulting.”
Wong said that the mobile component of the solution would be delivered in two forms, a mobile web application, and a native mobile application (i.e. Android and iTunes).
IBM’s Websphere server would support both these mobile implementations, said Wong.
He also commented on the social media component of the David Jones solution, confirming that it would integrate DJ’s Facebook presence with the rest of its e-commerce and online business processes.
The Kickapps service would provide DJ’s with “social media widgets” he said, which would give DJs the ability to “punch out” users wish-lists into the DJ’s online store.
Wong also expanded on the Experian QAS part of the solution DJ’s is getting.
He said that the service would deal with customers typing in their email address incorrectly or, even worse, typing in the wrong delivery address.
“These sorts of errors cause obvious problems” said Wong.
He explained that Experian QAS would help minimize the extent of the problem by providing DJ’s with an address validation service.