Think of Sotheby’s, and certain things immediately come to mind: auctions, art, antiques, jewelry, real estate, and fine wine, just to name a few. This multibillion-dollar organization has a long and distinguished history that stretches all the way back to 1744 – hundreds of years before the existence of the Internet. Moving this venerable company into the digital age is a serious undertaking and late in 2016, Sotheby’s Wine knew that it had some much-needed room for improvement with its eCommerce business.
Specifically, the wine business – both auction and retail – was sitting on an antiquated system. Although some eCommerce capabilities existed, the site was not responsive for mobile devices. But that wasn’t the only issue. Much of the behind-the-scenes work was still being done on paper. For instance, Sotheby’s Wine employees were still working with hard copies of invoices and printing out emails. And customers were required to mail in checks as payments for their purchases.
There was also the problem of storing customer IDs. Because the legacy system didn’t have the capability to house that kind of information online, clients had to fax copies of their driver’s licenses to Sotheby’s Wine. It wasn’t an optimal situation by any stretch of the imagination. The only real answer? Move everything into the digital space. With that realization, the search for a better solution began.
While a number of internal personnel had worked with Slatwall previously, Sotheby’s Wine needed to perform due diligence in its search for an eCommerce solution. The company met with several potential eCommerce partners, sat through many demos, conducted interviews, and had in-depth conversations with different candidates. In the end, ten24 was selected because Sotheby’s Wine felt the Slatwall platform did the best job of addressing Sotheby’s needs. It also helped that ten24 had a keen understanding of the wine world, as evidenced by the successful eCommerce work that ten24 had already done at Total Wine & More and the Adams Wine Group.
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