Playmobil relaunches 10 international sites Jul 1, 2007 12:00 PM
, By Heather Retzlaff
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Playmobil isn't playing games with its international Websites anymore: The $2 billion toy manufacturer last fall relaunched 10 international sites in five languages to better focus on expanding into new markets and maintaining a consistent brand image.
After six months of planning, Zirndorf, Germany-based Geobra Brandstätter, maker of the Playmobil brand, in November relaunched the sites with on-demand e-commerce software provider Demandware and its German implementation partner T-Systems. Countries with revamped sites include the U.S., Canada, France, Switzerland, England, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and Greece. Playmobil, which specializes in small plastic people figures with themes such as space, pirates, and trains, plans to relaunch sites in additional countries this year.
Playmobil wanted to gain multisite and multi-language capabilities and better serve its customers, according to a statement from its director of e-commerce Michael Konzmann. “We can now continually update our site with new innovations around the seasonal holidays and easily handle spikes in traffic.”
In addition to aggregating two different platforms — North American and European — to one worldwide platform, the sites also include greater merchandise functionality that supports seasonal business and promotions, improved search capabilities for quick access to replacement parts, wish lists, and e-mail postcards. Hendrik Hoppe, leader of the e-business excellence team at T-Systems, says the sites were redesigned to better address the audience of young children. “This target group is not able to read, so instead they see pictured buttons and intuitive guidance,” Hoppe says.
Launching 10 sites is never simple; it's even more complex “when you're talking about 10 country specific sites,” says Jamus Driscoll, vice president, marketing, at Demandware. It's not economical to manage 10 separate e-commerce infrastructures including hardware, software, and maintenance. Playmobil wanted to maintain a consistent brand image across all geographies, “yet enable in-country merchant teams to have the flexibility to specify language, currency, and merchandising tactics, such as specific colors and text for each country's police cars,” he says.
Other regional flexibilities required were different zip code handling, payments, search, and taxes, as well as migrating customer data to the new platform. Demandware's on-demand platform enabled local merchant teams have control over country-specific sites, while leveraging an underlying architecture that's consistent for merchandising practices, technical architecture, and brand guidelines. As a result, Playmobil could roll out multiple sites quickly and focus on growing its businesses, says Driscoll.
