May 20, 2010
The Procter & Gamble Company and PFSweb Inc. have announced that a new online shopping site is now available for U.S. consumers. Named the eStore, the online shopping site is owned and operated by PFSweb and will feature the breadth of P&G brands including Tide, Pampers, Olay, CoverGirl, Swiffer and Febreze. According to a company release, the eStore has been created with shopper insights to provide a premier online retail site with the goal of offering new and better ways to shop online for household, beauty and grooming products.
According to the companies, the eStore's main function is to act as a "living learning lab" for developing e-commerce innovation to win with shoppers. Shopper insights will continue to be a strong influence in the eStore's ongoing development to help deliver tools, features and expertise that are great for consumers and also create value and sales for PFSweb, P&G and P&G's retail partners. P&G's collaboration with PFSweb on its eStore launch boosts P&G's commitment to drive innovation in online retailing efforts and to touch and improve the lives of more consumers in more parts of the world more completely. eStore shoppers will continue to see new services, features and tools that come directly from their input and suggestions. P&G will also share these learnings with other retailers, maximizing consumer experiences for P&G products across a variety of retailer platforms.
"The U.S. eStore is an exciting initiative that we feel will help us listen, learn and collaborate with online shoppers to find new opportunities to serve consumers' household, beauty and grooming needs," said Kirk Perry, P&G's vice president, North America. "Through our partnership with PFSweb and on-going testing with consumers, we envision the eStore will help deliver new tools, services and features that can ultimately be shared with retailers to provide a real convenience and value for shoppers, while also delivering innovation for the industry and specifically for our product categories."
"The goal of the eStore is to be an innovation catalyst for online consumer engagement and e-commerce sales for household and beauty categories," said Mark Layton, PFSweb's CEO. "We are excited to bring an online store to life that places the consumer alongside us in the eStore's ongoing development."
Prior to the national launch, the eStore enlisted 5,000 shoppers to help guide the design and development of the "ideal" on-line shopping site. Their input affected site changes and enhancements found on the eStore launch site, including intuitive navigation to find products easily, as well as the ability to navigate by promotions and coupons. These online consumers also helped identify preferred products to feature on the site and to date, more than 300 new P&G products have been added to the eStore from shopper requests.
