Integrating all technological facilities under Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Shopping TV is riding high in the live sales industry thanks to its dynamic television.
In addition live television sales, web sites, call centers, automatic voice answering system and short messaging services are also sales channels of Shopping TV. Managing all processes from sales and procurement of products sold to auction planning, shipment to invoicing, collection to return through Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Shopping TV rapidly making its way to become one of the valuable companies in Turkey, by growing by almost 1.5 times every year.
Situation
Shopping TV, began its broadcasting life with the slogan “Shopping Television of Turkey in November, 2005. Aiming at offering customers products at prices, lower than any other shops and with easier shopping processes, Shopping TV is embraced in a short period of time. At the beginning of 2010, the number of members exceeds 1.5 million and every months around 40.000 new members are registering in the system. Shopping TV is open 24/7 with the efforts of around 200 employees from television broadcasting team to purchasing department, from call center to logistics warehouse.
Shopping TV puts into sales its products via auction, Dutch auction, fluctuating price, direct sales. “Dutch auction is the popular one among these formats. In this format, products are put into auction in limited quantities and prices goes on declining until the last quantity is sold. Also starting the use the e-commerce model as of second half of 2010, www.shoppingtv.com offers members both TV products and web products for their likes.
A product undergoes quite different business processes until it is sold on TV or website. The products found by purchasing department are compared with other resellers in respect of sales prices and alternatives. Sales managers evaluate their sales potentials. Supplier and product support are investigated. All these processes go up to top managers through a work flow and the products approved are displayed for sales.
In the shopping system of ShoppingTV, customers can follow up an auction they see on TV also on the website. They can also deliver their requests to buy via Call Center, they can also start a purchasing via sending a message to the short messaging service. If they are following it on the website, they can complete the purchase directly on the web.
So far 15.000 products have been sold and this number is skyrocketing every passing day. Every year, it is growing by 1.5 times. A monthly average of 75.000 orders are placed in 2010, compared to a monthly average of 50.000 in 2009. Customers start placing trust in the system after their first purchases. Such feeling of trust encourages them to recommend it to their friends and they recruit new members in the system. Rising number of new members is the most important indicator for future sales potential of the channel.
Solution
Having great ambitions since the very first day, Shopping TV is quite well aware of the fact that millions of customers, thousands of products and thousands of billing every each day can only be supported with a solid ERP infrastructure. Before deciding on which ERP, requirements of the company are determined. In consideration of such requirements, criteria regarding the product are established. The most important one among them is a fast and strong development platform. For ShoppingTV which will create its own unique channel, a ready-made solution was out of the question. Also, as a matter of course, they expect fast changes in the business processes. Therefore, their priority was a platform which is solid and reliable as well as very easy to implement modifications. Next criteria is the reporting facilities which will address all the users and managers at different levels. Scalability was also important so much so that capable of not only executing the initial operations with a narrower scope but also supporting a larger structure following the planned growth. In addition, lower ownership cost, a user-friendly user interface, higher performance and multi-language support are among the criteria behind decision on Microsoft Dynamics NAV as a solution.
Project is kicked off upon devising a master plan. With this plan, current business processes are compared with ideal processes and new processes are defined, which will be implemented after ERP system set in. This plan was based on the English type auction business models but without ignoring the habits of local users. Thus, it is targeted at creating solid processes which can also be executed by all users conveniently.
While implementing the ERP project, website, call center and interactive voice response system are deployed. Microsoft Dynamics NAV is developed to be capable of collecting and reporting the master data outgoing to such different channels and the transaction data incoming from such channels.
Alongside the Shopping TV, Paragon, the broadcaster, Kent Media, TV license holder, TVP in charge of web sales; Sanal, provider of call center services, and TV Pazarlama, the business entity, also decided on using Microsoft Dynamics NAV. As a result, a group companies starts to be followed up under Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
Benefits
Profitability Per Minute Follow-Up
The most important criteria in telesales is to earn revenues over the broadcasting costs. For this purpose, Shopping TV follows up broadcasting costs per minute and revenue per minute at the end of auctions are followed up very closely. It enables not only to collect sales data from different sales channels and any kind of costs in Microsoft Dynamics NAV but also to make such comparison instantly and reliably. Since the first day of broadcasting, all records of auctions are followed up on one single screen in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Time slots, product lines, hosts, directors, customer and customer based sales performance and profitability follow-up is enabled. Such data are used in determining the sales quantities and profit-boosting strategies.
Correlation Analyses
Correlations analyses are continually being conducted on the time slots, products, hosts and directors. On which weekday, on which time slot, which members, which products are sold is very valuable for ShoppingTV. Data on the basis of such dimensions are being continually analyzed and auctions are planned so that maximum profit is ensured. In these plans, the most successful product lines, hosts and sales directors, the best time slots are matched with each other resulting in a broadcasting flow guaranteeing the most sales.
Top Management Decision Support System
Since all data related with auctions are analyzed in a precision up to minute slots, new formats and sales techniques are effectively designed and top management decision making process is supported to ensure right decisions.
Inter-Units Coordination
All work flows from product search, approval, purchasing and displaying for sales are implemented at the optimum safety and effectiveness levels. A rich communication among units and a versatile control system is currently active. Successful or failed products are instantly determined to take necessary logistical measurements. Decisions such as to increase the stocks of successful products and shifting such products into the 8:00 PM-00:00 PM, at the evening of the successful sale.
User Efficiency
Thanks to flexible interface of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, having developed different screens and functions for each user type, ShoppingTV designed special screens and menus for Auction, Purchasing, Logistics, Finance, Call Center, Solution Center (Cancelation and Return Process Follow-up), Shop Transaction, E-Commerce and Performance Evaluation ensuring users to use the system in the best efficient manner possible. Despite of a trade volume rising up by 2 times in the last 2 years, it did not see any increase in the number of personnel. While an average turnover of TRY 10.000 per month per employee in a regular shop, Shopping TV creates a turnover of TRY 100.000 per white-collar employee. Considering that efficiency limit is USD 10.000, we see that a considerably efficient system is established.
Improved Customer Satisfaction
One of the most important strengths of the system is the one-to-one familiarity with each customer. Having created multidimensional customer segments by analyzing the sales and behavior of each customer, ShoppingTV improves customer satisfaction by using campaigns and loyalty programs specific to customers and also per segments. Closely knowing its customers, ShoppingTV targets at selling products to such customers without holding an auction on TV in the middle term. Thus, it eliminates the television broadcasting cost and by offering more attractive prices it will improve further the satisfaction.
To seize on instantaneous opportunities
Thanks to being a flexible and fast infrastructure, ShoppingTV seize on the instant opportunities quite well. With Microsoft Dynamics NAV, desirable work process is fast modified or designed. For instance, autographed uniforms offered right before the derby games, are popular among fans. If the national team wins a game, national team uniform auctions can be held right away. Or an accessory of a popular artists can right away put into auction to boost the sales performance. General profile of the members of web or call center can instantly be evaluated by the director, enabling fast deployment of different campaigns. Thanks to flexible structure of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, campaigns for professionals, credit card campaign etc. any kind of campaign can be defined in the system and available to sales directors