Gardener's Supply Company
Modern & Comprehensive eCommerce Platform
Simplifying an Evolving and Growing Digital Commerce Experience
Facing continued growth, Gardener's Supply (GSC) needed to re-platform its existing commerce solution to provide enhanced customer experience, simplify digital operation and be future ready to meet business vision and objectives. Thinkmax implemented Episerver digital experience platform integrated with Microsoft Dynamics ERP system to accomplish successfully client's expectations.
Founded in 1983, Gardener’s Supply Company (GSC) prides itself on being “in business to spread the joys and rewards of gardening, because gardening nourishes the body, elevates the spirit, builds community, and makes the world a better place.” We couldn’t agree more. So, when the company found itself challenged to grow and increase new product to market efficiency and needed a digital solution to help them modernize their business all while decreasing their overall martech stack costs, we were happy to help.
Gardener’s Supply Company had a previous install of Microsoft AX 2009 that they needed to integrate with a new implementation of Optimizely (formerly Episerver). The existing site was not providing the customer experience they aimed for, and they were dealing with some outdated applications and processes that were not fully integrating with the new site and were standing in the way of their growth. They came to us for our expertise in Dynamics AX and Episerver.
After a series of workshops with the GSC team and a thorough review process to look at their documentation and understand the issues they were facing, we came up with a plan to help them establish:
- Standard practices
- Solution architecture for AXrestructuring, future growth, and the extensibility of the platform
- Connector and related installation and configuration aligned with their existing Retail Online Store
- Scalability and Performance optimization
- Project Governance
The challenge was to get through the implementation with minimal disruption and before the seasonal catalogue came out. We brought them up to speed with current retail online best practices, helped them streamline their infrastructure for greater operational efficiency, and put strong in-depth solutions in place to unify their retail stack and make them more agile and ready to adapt to the modern marketplace.
Shortly after their new site went live on February 9th, 2021, GSC saw incredible results. After Thinkmax guided them through a stabilization period of a few weeks, site traffic went through the roof and they were able to maintain conversions and improve site performance. Due to the pandemic-driven increase in gardening, they had never seen so much activity before. All that traffic translated into an explosion in sales, earning them what was normally several months of revenue in the first few weeks after stabilization. Despite anticipated glitches in the first two weeks after launch, the site still delivered impressive results.
Gardener’s Supply Company was over the moon about the service we provided, and we’re looking forward to continuing the relationship as they continue to grow.