To reach a new market of younger consumers, tableware manufacturer/marketer Pfaltzgraff developed the PFZ line of customizable dinnerware. “It was a need that we felt wasn’t being catered to in our industry,” says Howard Blumenthal, Pfaltzgraff’s director of database management and e-commerce, “and one that really could only be done well online. These customers are Internet-savvy, and they’re less interested in creating memories or keepsakes than in expressing their own style.”
Economic changes in recent years—particularly global competition in the dinnerware industry and the merger of many former wholesale accounts– impelled the company to change from a manufacturer that did some marketing into a marketing entity that also manufactured. One strong market was Pfaltzgraff owners who were looking to expand or replace items in their existing collections. It was to service those customers that the company first dipped a toe in online retailing four or five years ago
But tastes are changing, as are lifestyles. While Pfaltzgraff was confident of its hold on what it calls the “collector” market, it was having trouble reaching young singles and newlyweds. The traditional styles weren’t drawing those attractive lifetime-customers-in-the-making, and Pfaltzgraff’s conventional marketing channels—including catalog sales and 60 standalone stores—weren’t reaching them.
So Pfaltzgraff has taken the leap with what amounts to an entire new product line: a group of plates, cups, bowls and serving ware that customers can personalize over the Web. The line, and the Website to serve it, debuted in March at www.pfz.com.
The new site lets buyers customize about 15 different items: five plates, two mugs, three bowls and five serving pieces. For each item—say, a plate– users can choose from eight colors and have that plate they’re designing appear in the color they’ve chosen immediately in the screen work area. They can then go on to choose a band for the edge of the plate; that appears on the picture, too, in color. For patterns, customers can select one of seven or eight geometric designs, choose the color for that design, and then locate it anywhere they want on the plate– in the center or along one of the edges, and then add another design in another color on the opposite edge, if they wish. Finally, buyers can elect to add a monogram or one of twelve miniature art designs, all also in color.
The effect is to give purchasers a choice of thousands of possible combinations for customizing their own products. At the same time, Blumenthal says, the company wanted to make sure that the site loaded quickly and offered plenty of navigational help. Pfaltzgraff chose a media platform from RichFX in part because it offered a strong compression technology that would take the wait out of interactivity. Another reason for choosing RichFX was their ability to integrate the e-commerce front end with the myriad back-end operations involved, from order-taking and customer service to manufacturing and shipping. Since Pfaltzgraff makes many of its own pieces, most involving some sort of hand work, that hook into the factory floor is particularly complex.
Each Web design action proceeds through clear steps and offers both help and an “erase” button to start from scratch. When the customer is satisfied with the item, the “My design is ready” button will take them through review to order placement.
Blumenthal points out several other important functions on the PFZ site. Would-be designer/ buyers can save their designs in a free “My Gallery” storage area, to return to them later, or they can see a gallery of suggested design ideas. They can also e-mail a picture of the item they’ve designed to a friend, who can open it directly and begin a design of their own. Finally, they can put their designed items into a bridal or gift registry area that friends and family can reach either through the PFZ Web site or through the traditional Pfaltzgraff home page. Coming soon, says Blumenthal, is the chance for bridal gift givers to add a commemorative message to the back of their gifts—something he says is unique among bridal registries.
The company decided to operate two separate Web sites, Pfaltzgraff.com and PFZ.com, to create very different online buying experiences for its two constituencies, the traditionalists and the moderns. The main site also offers some opportunities for customizing items such as baby comforters, quilts and gift items that are more attuned to the company’s traditional customer base. In fact, it was early customer requests for customized items on the primary Web site that got Pfaltzgraff thinking about a personalized product line in the first place.
They may be separate, but the two Web sites share many links and features. PFZ doesn’t sell glassware; users often wind up going to the main company site to find glass items to go with their dinnerware. And Blumenthal says his team wants to create the same community feeling on the new site that now draws repeat visits to Pfaltzgraff.com. There dedicated customers and collectors use features like message boards, a recipe site and bi-weekly live chat sessions with Blumenthal, the designers and even the president of the company. The PFZ site hopes to become that same kind of destination site but with more targeted offerings such as drink recipes, entertaining advice and online party music downloads, perhaps as soon as this month.
“We want to provide that same value to our PFZ consumers, but their needs are different,” he says. “The may not know how to set a table, or they may want ideas for throwing a Cinco de Mayo party or entertaining their in-laws for the first time. The idea is to help make this more than just a place to buy that one piece of dinnerware. We’re driving lifetime value of these customers.”
Asked for the most important considerations for any merchant looking to add some level of personalization to online selling, Blumenthal ticks off three things to keep in mind:
* Don’t forget the back end and the customer service. A tricky or flashy interface will draw first visits, but to keep those customers you have to make sure that your operations can fulfill and your service reps can help with problems. Cancelled custom orders that are already in production can pose problems, and users may need more hand-holding. In practice, because Pfaltzgraff revamped its main site at the same time that it launched PFZ, the company’s combined help desk has actually seen a drop in trouble calls, allowing reps to spend more effort on selling additional items.
* Personalization has to make sense for the customer. The amount of research and testing that Pfaltzgraff put into this customization effort before even talking to media enablers was a necessary step. “This was based on putting the customer first, and seeing how this capability fit into his or her needs,” Blumenthal says. “It won’t work with every product or every merchant. You can have the greatest technology in the world, but if it is worthwhile for the customer, they’re not going to spend that investment of their time.”
* Finally, realize that this is a different type of shopping experience for the customer, and it may take place over a longer period of time than many online merchants are used to. While the new PFZ site has produced sales in the range the company anticipated, Blumenthal says the most important measure of success is the number of galleries and registries that users have created. “This is not a quick sales conversion,” he points out. “There’s a long ramp-up to a purchase. That’s a strategy that may not work for everybody. But it works for us.”
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