E-commerce

How digital gifting led Dover Saddlery to an e-commerce victory

Dana Springfield, VP of marketing at Dover Saddlery, shares how the retailer's pivot in the arrival of the pandemic led to a robust and winning sales formula that focused on digital gifting.

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October 29, 2020 by Dana Springfield — Vice President of Marketing, Dover Saddlery

One of the biggest lessons Dover Saddlery has learned throughout its 45 years in business is that there is no 'one size fits all approach' when it comes to delighting and servicing our customers.

As the largest equestrian omnichannel retailer in the United States, it is imperative that it provides the best retail experience by offering the right products, at the right time, through the right channels partnered with world-class customer service from knowledgeable equestrian product advisors.

This philosophy, which has guided its marketing strategy throughout the years, has been critical to success throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the challenges of 2020, Dover Saddlery implemented a strategy for personal and gift shopping that has enabled us to grow our e-commerce business while maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction.

A quick pivot

Like many other retailers, Dover Saddlery was significantly impacted by the pandemic. The brand had to quickly pivot when faced with the disruption and challenge in order to ensure customers had what they needed to care for their horses.

Since March, all 33 of its stores nationwide have offered curbside pick-up in addition to our website, which has always enabled e-commerce.

Recognizing that curbside pick-up wasn't ideal for customers who don't have access to one of our retail stores and that many riders depend on our products for horse health and to provide quality equipment, the brand rapidly changed its strategy to focus prominently on its e-commerce platform. As a result, it has been able to meet customers' needs and continue to ensure their satisfaction.

Dover Saddlery customers, English Equestrian aficionados, are a devoted group who commit their lives to the sport of riding and to their horses. Since caring for their horses and participating in equestrian sport is what binds their lifestyle and families together, they take pride in gifting among a broad selection of riding apparel, tack, and horse care items.

Often the gifting occurs during major holidays, which represent vital sales opportunities for Dover Saddlery. While there are gifting opportunities every day, Mother's Day is among the holidays that drive a significant portion of company revenue. Not having an opportunity to go inside a store to select the right gift or purchase a gift card could have led many customers to assume they could not have a personalized gift experience. This is why the shift to focus on the brand's online store and digital gifting was so important.

A retailer's e-commerce business operation offers tremendous opportunity to reshape how it engages and sells products to customers but does not come without its fair share of challenges. Historically, it would have had to cease marketing and taking online orders four days before Mother's Day to handle the processing of digital gift cards and product shipments. This gap created lost sales opportunities and pointed our focus to a bigger need to create a digital gifting capability.

We, as retailers, must enable a positive gifting experience no matter the circumstances. Gift shopping entails offering a unique and specialized customer journey (distinct from self-shopping), one that considers the needs and desires of both gifters and recipients. The ability to execute this vision successfully ensures future revenue opportunities are not jeopardized and confirms retailers have happy returning customers and patrons for many holidays and gifting occasions to come.

Retailers can find it challenging to "do it all" when it comes to digital and customized gift enablement. Oftentimes they are forced to choose meeting one objective, for example, on-time delivery, instead of ideally meeting several key benefits, such as on-time delivery, customized digital gift cards and matching recipient merchandise preferences. Limited internal resources and technology capabilities can prevent retailers from creating a gift experience management platform themselves that would enable them to meet these objectives simultaneously.

Last Mother's Day the Dover Saddlery team was prepared. It had previously conducted a thorough market assessment of gifting technology providers who could help manage gifting solution and enable it to achieve a stronger digital gifting outcome than it tends to anticipate each Mother's Day.

Dover Saddlery worked with Loop Commerce's Gift Experience Management Solution, GiftNow, to accelerate digital gifting efforts, approach and strategy, heading into the big holiday.

Engaging an outside provider that specializes in gifting allowed the retailer to focus on other critical business activities stemming from the pandemic. As a result, the days leading up to Mother's Day looked quite different. Throughout the Mother's Day's eight-day marketing window, the retailer accentuated its ability to deliver real-time digital gift cards. Just as important was Dover Saddlery's easy and stress-free way for customers to give a thoughtful, personalized gift.

Dover Saddlery is excited about enabling customers to digitally gift products and gift cards. This concept takes the anxiety, disappointment, and roadblock out of giving and receiving. Digital gift-giving allows the gifter to gift until the last minute and enables the recipient to customize their gift by choosing their preferred color, size, and delivery address before the gift is shipped. All of these benefits make gifting easy, satisfying, and spontaneous. Digital gifting means more customers, increased revenue, and fewer returns.

Enabling customers to gift in a new way was a winning formula during Mother's Day at Dover Saddlery. Sales were up 10% compared to last year, and it experienced a 74% jump in gifting. It is a blueprint it will continue to follow for the foreseeable future.

There is no 'one size fits all' approach to gifting. Most of Dover Saddlery's retail locations are open again, and customers can still create a personalized gift in a store or purchase a plastic gift card at the register. However, knowing they also have a responsive, seamless digital gifting option when faced with time or travel constraints ensures customers can still meet their ultimate objective, and the retailer can meet its as well.

Dana Springfield is VP of marketing at Dover Saddlery.