Kingslin Q.

Lv (V00753004)
Hanqing Ge (V00766147)
Jill’s Table: Digitizing a Retail Legacy – Case solution on E-commerce

We will recommend Jill’s Table proceed with an e-commerce strategy. The below listed why Jill’s
Table needs to expand e-commerce and what recommendations we provided to develop
e-commerce.

Why e-commerce can increase business profits for Jill’s Table?

The founder and owner of Jill’s Table, a specialty food and housewares store, is thinking about
the challenges ahead of them. As a small company, in the same arena as the mass merchandising
chains, they must decide how to position their service offerings so as to survive and even thrive in
a competitive environment. E-commerce not only can increase their competition in current
customer segments, but also expand new segment to increase business profits. There is a
definitely a big necessary in developing an e-commerce. Jill’s Table already have a solid segment
of customers who loved to visit the store regularly; however, the store is located in a relatively
small city - London, Ontario, and targeted a group of customers in a limited local market if it is
not developing the online store. Since 1999 when the physical store opened, Jill’s Table already
attracted a large group of customers locally and moved to centralize-located and bigger-sized
store. There is a bottleneck to seek an increase in business profit. More importantly, Wilcox
always attended networking events in the States and connected with producers from all over the
world. Wilcox is succeeded in using different social media to promote her products in the store
globally. Therefore, it’s necessary to establish an e-commerce to increase business profits and
business demands, even though there is a business investment and implementation cost required
to develop e-commerce.

Recommendations on how to develop e-commerce for Jill’s Table.

• Seek for new customer segments and transfer in-person customer experience into
successful virtual experience.

In order to develop e-Commerce, it is necessary to develop a new segment of customer service. It

is hard to change current target customers to start using the online store, since they already set up
habits to visit the store weekly or semi-monthly. Therefore, we have to seek for a new group of
customers. Jill’s table is famous for its in-person customer experience and cutting-edge product
style. Although the in-person service is hard to translate into virtual store, the online store can
provide the personalized and customized service. The idea is consumers can select what category
of products they preferred to browse, and under each category, there is a description of each
product plus other customer reviews to help them make decisions on selection. Moreover, the
online store can set up a “cooking class” section: 1. Customers can discuss and publish their ideas

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 Kingslin Q. Lv (V00753004)
Hanqing Ge (V00766147)
about Wilcox’s cooking dishes or formulas. 2. There is a button that consumers can easily add all
raw materials to the shopping cart, which will save their time to take the shopping list seeking for
all materials in the large supermarket like Wal-Mart. The whole idea is following Wilcox’s
philosophy to build her store, “slow and steady” by getting to know her customers’ needs and
delivering products to enhance their experience in the kitchen.

• The new segment targeted the online service should be separated from current loyal
customers. E-commerce can somehow offer old loyal customers better service, but here
is a big difference between retailing in store and online.

The new group of target customers is young couples that are about turning into 30 years old. Jill’s
Table has the reputation by offering distinctive and cutting-edge products, and providing
customer-oriented service. Jill Wilcox is a famous food journalist who had established
relationships with chefs and growers, often sharing their expertise with her own customers.
Therefore, Jill’s e-commerce site will be a platform for young couples to start being educated by
cooking and kitchen culture. Young couples are about turning into 30 years old. This segment of
customers will have a need in grouping the family and preparing to know how to cook. After they
love all videos and webinars posted on the website, those young couples will eventually purchase
products through the online store. The customers visiting the store regularly not only continue
shopping in the physical store, but also easily purchasing and refilling products through the online
store. We will still keep the same product exhibition at store, but transfer 1/3 shop sales reps to
inventory staff, which will be responsible to ship products globally. At the online store, we will
focus on promoting cooking materials or kitchen equipment, those products are easily shipping
and people are demanding for. It is a balanced approach without alienating online customers or
bricks-and-mortar customers. When old customers end of using cooking materials or broken
kitchenware, we can ship all products.

• Video casting or webinars add-ons available on the online store and e-commerce can
help Jill’s Table to establish digital magazine, in order to separate Jill’s Table from
regular online wholesalers such as Amazon or Wal-Mart.

Cooking classes and seminars can be all posted on the website if we use video casing or webinars
technology. Those videos of how to cook and how to use kitchenware will target our new target
customers - late twenties’ year old young couples. They are always easier to accept the online
shipping; compared to changing current customer segments to online shoppers, expanding the
market to young couples will be more feasible. Additionally, Wilcox is a food journalist and she
even can publish her journal regularly on the website. Young couples will love surfing Internet,
and online journals can educate them in cooking culture. The e-commerce site can make it to
digital magazine and automatically send to membership customers. A web based service provider

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 Kingslin Q. Lv (V00753004)
Hanqing Ge (V00766147)
is a cost-effective solution that allows the online service to adhere to the strict anti-spam laws that
govern direct mailing. Jill can manage the database online, which gives her the opportunity to
enter in contacts, clean up accounts, and create separate streams based on target customers.

• The costs, risks and hurdles unique to developing a successful e-commerce

E-commerce definitely is having a big risk, but the profit share is relative competitive. There are
certain recommendations listed above to decrease risks. Jill is only having some experience in
specific social media like Facebook and Twitter, and she has a limited knowledge in e-commerce
and information systems. Although there is a cost increase in having professional MIS companies
to design the online store system, there is a large decrease in the inventory cost and an expansion
in developing new customer segments. Since Wilcox established a really solid relationship with
producers and purveyor, she even can persuade them to direct ship products to consumers, which
will largely save the inventory cost and shipping cost between the Jill’s physical store and
producers. Online store can provide some kitchenware and cooking equipment, eventually
offering the convenience to customers; instead of physically visiting the store, they can purchase
the staff online. However, there is a limitation in exhibiting online products, and an extra shipping
cost on fragile products. We may segment customers in shipping expenses, such as, shipping fees
added for new customers but relatively competitive shipping price for returned customers by
attracting returned customers. This still requires a large time in market researching and business
analyzing, in order to find the best way to develop e-commerce but limit cost increase
accordingly.