Last month Crabtree & Evelyn featured rosewater-inspired goodies like hand wash, scented padded hangers and soap leaves on its home page. The items did well, but not as well as they may do on Amazon.com’s new beauty section when it gets out of test mode in the near future.
A trial member of the section, Crabtree & Evelyn had been selling through the home and garden area of Amazon’s site since 1999. But management felt the beauty category would give it better exposure.
Another plus is that orders will be processed by the Mercent Commerce System, data-exchange software created by several former Amazon employees. Mercent coordinates the flow of marketers’ customer data into Amazon’s order-taking mechanisms.
For Crabtree & Evelyn, Mercent also will transfer orders into the retailer’s databases and fulfillment systems. This information can be linked to several other online marketers that use Mercent, including BizRate.com, PriceGrabber.com, Shopping.com and AOL inStore. However, Crabtree & Evelyn initially will limit its use to Amazon.
According to director of business development Tom Angelo, the Woodstock, CT company should be able to automate nearly 90% of its order processing with Mercent
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