David Jones chooses IBM

Mark Freidin

13th Feb 2012

The IBM Smarter Commerce portfolio helps retailers achieve brand intimacy by more effectively automating their purchasing, marketing, sales and fulfillment processes to better serve their customers.   David Jones will become the first major Australian retailer to provide customers with a true cross-channel shopping experience.  Customers will not only have the ability to browse and buy, but also pick-up and return items through the channel of their choice, including their mobile phones, online or at a physical store.

“David Jones believes that its future lies in its ability to offer a fully integrated multi-channel retail experience to customers,” said CEO Paul Zahra.  “IBM has a proven track record of enabling increased brand advocacy and profitable growth for major department stores so it was logical for us to appoint them to enable us to leverage their experience. We want our customers to be able to shop around the clock utilising whichever channel they choose be that in-store, on their PCs, tablets smartphones or a combination of two or more.”

IBM will integrate social media, promotions and rich analytics features to give the customer the ability to view items online, post items to wish lists, and share their purchases with friends and family.    IBM also will integrate the solution into David Jones’ core corporate systems to provide order and inventory management and fulfilment capabilities that support both the online and store channels.  This will enable the retailer to provide faster and more efficient delivery of products and services to customers.

“David Jones’ reputation as one of Australia’s iconic retailers makes this a momentous partnership for IBM’s Smarter Commerce business,” said Andrew Stevens, Managing Director, IBM Australia and New Zealand. “With online shopping changing the face of retail at an ever-increasing rate, we’re looking forward to developing a solution that is truly cross-channel and will transform the shopping experience for David Jones’ customers.”

IBM will draw from similar large-scale implementations overseas, where it is achieving significant transformation and profitable growth for major department stores globally. The first phase of the solution will be rolled out in the second half of calendar 2012 as part of a stepped approach, with the following phase going live in 2013.