Adds videos to its new website to help bring its online experience closer to that of shoppers in-store

Fashion retailer River Island has appointed Adobe Scene7 to implement its rich media publishing platform.

The implementation will allow consumers to zoom in to see fine detail of products, view them from a 360-degree angle and watch videos of selected items of clothing.

River Island has also improved product pages to enable cross and up-selling, making it simple for customers to put outfits together.

“The new site has been a huge undertaking but is intended to be much more immersive - we needed it to be scalable and incorporate e-commerce best practice. Our old site served us well, but wasn’t functionally rich,” said David Jenne, head of business and e-commerce systems at River Island.

“We’ve changed the entire infrastructure; everything is new. The addition of Adobe Scene7 allows us to incorporate high quality imagery for customers to zoom in on as well as video to further engage customers. It’s still early days, but initial signs are good.”

E-commerce growth engine

River Island has nearly 300 High Street stores in the UK and abroad, but the retailer’s online operation, which originally launched in 2002, is its biggest shop in terms of turnover and customer numbers. River Island’s goals for the new website are to improve conversion rates and increase average basket value.

“When shoppers click on a product to view deeper detail using full screen viewers, everything else disappears from the page, leaving the desired item the centre of attention,” said Sheila Dahlgren, senior director of product marketing for Adobe Systems. 

“Using video in conjunction with zoom dramatically minimises the ‘touch and feel’ barriers of shopping online, and can increase conversion by up to 40%. With its new site and scalability the Adobe Scene7 hosted platform offers, River Island is all set to cater for huge numbers of customers over the festive period.”