Spring 2007

Virgin Retail, the music, video and games retailer, is to revamp its online offering completely, launching a new web site around late summer of this year.

Several main suppliers are involved in the project. Underwired will build the new web site, hybris will provide the underlying e-commerce platform, and Mercado will provide best-of-breed search and navigation engine capability.

Virgin Retail says the re-development of the site will bring all its web site management and development in-house for the first time, giving the company greater control and flexibility to build new features and functionality into the platform. An improved customer order solution for all stores forms part of the project.

Virgin has had a transactional web site since 2002. The current Virgin Megastores site is managed by Venda, a specialist that provides an all-in hosting package at a fixed monthly rate. Virgin uses carriers to handle deliveries, and last year extended an experimental free delivery service indefinitely.

Virgin has recently seen rapid expansion in online sales, which nearly doubled this Christmas compared with the last one. According to marketing and e-commerce director Steve Kincaid: 'The vastly improved site, geared to the needs of today's online customer, will form a major pillar of Virgin's multi-channel strategy.'