Nambe Puts E-Commerce in the Cloud

Nambe (www.nambe.com) offers a stunning portfolio of high-end housewares that Jeff Creecy, vice president of IT, describes as “functional art, luxury you can afford.” Nambe products — sleek metal alloy, crystal and wood tabletop, table- and flatware and other gift items — are all distinguished by their unique artistic design. 

Creecy found that the design of the Santa Fe-based company’s in-house developed e-commerce portal — as well as its functionality — did not embody the same quality. The e-commerce portal was failing at its key mission: to expand brand identity and awareness beyond its loyal customer base. Macy’s, Bloomingdales and Saks Fifth Avenue showcase Nambe’s products, but the company also sells through Amazon, other channel partners and its own retail chain.

“Visually, the old site was okay,” Creecy concedes. “It wasn’t awful. But it wasn’t great either. It was very difficult to search and navigate. It tended to crash when traffic was heavy. And the integration and maintenance required to support it was really difficult.”

Creecy’s openness to finding a better solution was influenced by his unique career path. He started out in marketing, but subsequently went back to school to pursue a career in technology. Today, in addition to heading IT, he is also responsible for direct sales. This dual role provided a unique view to evaluating replacement options. 
 

“An e-commerce system should really be in the hands of marketers and merchants, not IT. It’s a marketing and merchandising system at its core, and should be managed by merchants,” he says.
 

This attitude extended to technical issues, as well. Creecy had no bias regarding computing platform. “I’m a believer that business needs should drive system selection. I focus first on solving the business problem — then see where the technology takes me.”
 

It led to cloud computing and the CDC Software eCommerce solution. Cloud computing enables users to access business applications via web browser. With cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, users pay only for what they use on-demand — like electricity.
 

“I never believed we could develop an in-house e-commerce product with better value than one I could find. I see little company benefit in hiring software designers and building a large IT staff internally,” he says. Whatever authority and control you trade in having a lean IT staff, “with SaaS you get a product that is constantly being improved.”
 

Nambe selected CDC Software’s SaaS eCommerce product because it “provided the broadest feature set at the best price compared to everything else we looked at,” he says. “But we also felt the platform was flexible enough to allow us to do things we hadn’t even though of yet.”  

The product has been successful with staff and customers. The staff person responsible for managing the new e-commerce site is not in IT. “She’s a marketer. It’s the way it should be,” Creecy says. The system is very user friendly. “She can go in and update what’s on the site, add new products, keep everything current without needing anybody from IT.”

Nambe’s customer service department now has access to transactional data that was difficult to retrieve on the old system. Channel partners can use the site as a resource. Zoom features have been a great boon for them. Nambe has recently added a more rustic product line, called Copper Canyon. “It’s very different from our sleek alloy line. Customers can really zoom in and see the greens in the rustic copper finish.”

Using its new e-commerce portal to build stronger, broader brand awareness takes precedence over promotional activity within the site. “We have a very brand-focused mindset and take care to present our product properly”, Creecy says. 

Current end-customers and channel partners are heavily concentrated in North America. “We are fortunate, and have a very loyal consumer. In addition we’re beginning to market and sell in Europe and the Asia-Pacific.” 

The e-commerce site is viewed as key to the company’s strategy to increase the reach of its brand identity into new global markets. For this reason, it’s hard to put quantifiable benefits to having a new cloud-based eCommerce solution, Creecy says. But site traffic is increasing, even in advance of implementing Internet search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. 
 

One of the great benefits the new cloud-based portal brings is greater peace of mind. “CDC Software’s eCommerce solution certainly enables me to sleep better,” Creecy says. “I never worry about it crashing. And navigation and search are immensely better.”   

Creecy will soon begin planning for transitioning the company to a comprehensive, next-generation enterprise solution. Fully embracing a cloud approach is certainly an option. 

“Small- and medium-sized companies can obtain big-company features by embracing a SaaS computing model. Nambe will go with the technology that best meets our business goals.”
 

In addition to its website, customers can follow Nambe on Facebook.