ARGO came to Ukraine in 1991 — it was the first retailer to bring global brands such as Lee and Wrangler to the country. Today it is a chain of 52 stores, 18 world-famous labels and a catalogue of 25,000 items. Only three years ago you could see that range offline and nowhere else: the company's website was a simple business card. Here is how it grew into a full-scale online store, and what turned out to be the hardest part.
A chain with 18 brands and 25,000 items
ARGO were the first to bring global brands to Ukraine back in 1991. Over the years the chain has grown to 52 stores carrying 18 world-famous brands — among them Benetton, Parfois, Orsay, Piazza Italia, Desigual, OVS, Penti and Mango. The chain's catalogue holds 25,000 items.
Three years ago the entire range could only be seen in ARGO's brick-and-mortar stores. The company did have a website, but it worked more like a business card: it published news, contact details and information about promotions. There were no products on it.
In time the company decided it was ready for a full online store built on a corporate CMS. ANIART took on the development. How the launch went, what difficulties had to be overcome, the part the internal accounting system plays in all this, and what else ARGO has planned for online — Olena Shkarubska, project manager, tells the story.
Not every brand agreed to an online store
Before ARGO had a full online store, our website was nothing more than a business card. Visitors could read about the company, look up store addresses or contacts, and find out about promotions. There were no products on the site.Olena Shkarubska, project manager at ARGO
E-commerce kept growing and more and more companies were moving into online sales — so ARGO decided the moment for an online store had come. But it could not be done quickly: the launch was postponed for about two years.
- ARGO sells many different brands, and not all of them were willing to have their products sold on the same platform as the others.
- Some were not ready to go online at all.
- The lockdown settled the question: as soon as the offline stores had to close, most partners agreed to be listed in the online store.
- A few took a great deal of persuading. What convinced them was a finished product that already looked reasonably good — only after that did Mango, for one, agree to appear on the site alongside the others.
The hardest part — syncing with the accounting system
ARGO has been on the Ukrainian market since 1991. At one point the company set up an internal accounting system to manage stock balances and the product range. The entire range — the number of items, their names, availability — is maintained there and passed to the website through dedicated data exchange protocols. The website, that is the online store, is the tool that shows the internal catalogue to shoppers.
Since it was first launched, that internal system at ARGO has never been replaced — new functions were only ever added to it. That made its data the weak point ahead of the online store launch.
The other side of integration — reporting
All the data brought together into a single system for ARGO has to be returned to the partners in a form that suits them. And the brands' needs vary.
- Some want to see sales in real time.
- Others need figures for the week or the month.
- And some do not need them at all.
So the team had to adapt and build additional modules that effectively "translate" the data into the form each brand's system will accept. All of that was reworked inside the CMS itself.
This double processing of information — on the way out and on the way in — is where the main difficulty lies. The team has lost count of how many times the integration procedure with the accounting system has been reworked. And the process seems endless: ARGO now wants to review every process again, work out what can be dropped, and drop it. But the ANIART specialists had other tasks on their plate as well — solutions for promotions and the loyalty scheme among them.
A virtual loyalty scheme instead of plastic
The next stage was rolling out marketing modules that make it possible to run all kinds of promotions and discounts. Here again the sheer number of brands made itself felt: ARGO carries many labels, and each of them may run its own promotion. From time to time the chain also launches discounts across every product at once. So once more a bespoke solution had to be found — and it was.
Next the team turned to the loyalty programme. ARGO's is rather distinctive too, and it called for a bespoke solution. The scheme is points-based: customers used to carry plastic cards that points were credited to, while the internal records were kept in the accounting system. With the launch of the online store the loyalty scheme went virtual. From the customer's point of view it is straightforward, but it made it possible to drop plastic altogether. It is popular, too — almost 95% of shoppers use it.
SEO, Click & Collect and a mobile app
- SEO module. The team is currently refining the tool for promoting the site in search engines and investing resources into SEO. They want to wrap this project up soon.
- Click & Collect. The next step: a customer will be able to reserve the item they want online, in the store, and pick it up offline at whichever location in the chain suits them. The project is at the specification stage right now: the internal operational processes have to be put in order first, and that is fairly complex, substantial work, so about six months are set aside for the rollout. ARGO's customers like to try items on before buying, so the feature is eagerly awaited, and the company is convinced it will be a major step forward for the chain.
- Mobile app. Later on ARGO plans an app that will include the loyalty scheme.
How online and offline were reconciled
When the ARGO online store was first launched, the team ran into a degree of misunderstanding from the staff at the offline locations. The thing is that the chain has no separate warehouses: goods for online orders are taken from the physical stores. So now and then there was grumbling along the lines of "Why should we give away our stock?". To resolve this, the incentive scheme for the employees who process orders was changed.
After the online store launched, the offline chain lost nothing. On the contrary — once online arrived, footfall in the physical stores went up. Even now, one call in four to the contact centre is a question about whether an item is in stock at a particular location.
Interestingly, no growth in online sales was seen during the first week of enforced isolation, even though extra discounts were offered. Only once people had adjusted and began to realise the situation might last did they start buying from the online store.
On the whole I am convinced the future belongs to online. And not just because people cannot do proper shopping during lockdown. It is simply that most of us have less and less time each day that we can, or want to, invest in walking around shops rather than in work or something else. Thanks to a well-developed network of logistics companies, these processes are now almost effortless and very convenient for the customer.Olena Shkarubska, project manager at ARGO
The ANIART view
ARGO is one of the first brands to enter Ukraine. Nobody else was here yet, and they already were. Over many years on the Ukrainian market the company accumulated an enormous store of data, much of which was neither structured nor organised. And certainly not all of it needed to appear in the new online store.
Our main task was synchronisation with a modern online store.Valentyn Kertychak, director of ANIART
The studio's specialists wrote the entire data exchange between ARGO's internal system, the brands' accounting systems and the website themselves. And the work of improving the online store continues.
Data exchange
Transferring the range, names, item counts and availability from ARGO's internal accounting system to the website — every protocol written by the team.
Unifying the reference data
A separate module for each brand's accounting system: season markers, article numbers, colour and size coding are reduced to common values.
Reporting for the brands
Translating the data back into the form each partner's system accepts — from real time to monthly summaries.
Promotions and loyalty points
Marketing modules for individual brand promotions and chain-wide discounts, plus a virtual points-based loyalty scheme in place of plastic cards.
ARGO is going through a major internal transformation right now — from a classic company with a large chain of offline stores into a company that wants to be online as well. We hope our collaboration helps them get there, and that the online store plays an ever greater part in the company's success.
