It's All Geek To Me - March 28th 2007

As most of you know, Ross moved to Maine two years ago, settling comfortably into farming life on top of a mountain in the west. As most of you know, also, Maine is home to LL Bean. It seemed only appropriate, then, for Ross to tell the success story of LL Bean's Internet experience, and IAGTM welcomes his column for this month's issue.

2006 - LL Bean Goes Over the Halfway Mark
By Ross Lasley

So it has finally happened – the web has won. We've been waiting for this for many years – and yet it was announced with little fanfare. In 2006, LL Bean sold 1.54 billion dollars worth of its products and gave some nice bonuses to employees as a result – this was announced in the typical financial style press release.

The number one sales vehicle for LL Bean in 2006? The Website (http://www.llbean.com). Overall online sales grew 13% over 2005 but that isn't what is amazing – online sales overtook catalog sales.

One of the things that is so special about this is that LL Bean is a “pre-web” business. A traditional catalog retailer founded in 1912 – one of the “typical” examples used in the 90's when we were gleefully talking about the destruction of brick and mortar business by the web. They didn't start a website until 1995 and it was a site that just asked people to call. In 1996 they added secure online ordering for a small number of items – most Internet oriented folks thought it was “pathetic”. They never really jumped on the bandwagon, never made the “smart” moves that most geeks thought they should each year. Instead, each year has seen new features , functionality, and content added to the site in a slow and plodding manner – from interactive “guides” to viewing the clothes on models, it has been a simple, steady improvement over time. The customers are in charge of what LL Bean will do next, with every improvement made in response to a documented customer need.

LL Bean has done what many thought was impossible – they have adapted at a reasonable pace and made the Internet work for them. They didn't over-invest in unproven technology or jump on the latest thing – but they didn't take the attitude of so many others – the web stinks and we'll ignore it.

They started slow with email marketing, and when they saw results they used those profits to invest in upgrades. Today they have one of the most impressive email marketing programs in existence for current customers – shopping is tracked and messages are specifically tailored based upon the customers preferences.

At first, web orders were just placed into the existing system and handled as though they came in via snail mail or telephone. Slowly the main systems were integrated and they didn't try to do everything at once. Today phone or snail mail orders get placed into the web system – it has remained a single system at every step.

It was only three years ago that the monogramming & engraving stuff became connected to the web on the back end. Even today that system is kept simple and features are not added until the demand justifies them – if your last name is McCosh you are told: “ Please note that our online order system cannot accommodate words such as "McCosh" that require a capital letter somewhere other than the first letter. If you would like a monogram of this type, please order both the item and the monogramming by phone.”

Most of the time when we discuss big websites in It's all Geek to Me we spend time on a specific feature or a neat new idea – but for LL Bean their site features something invisible - one of the most impressive and critical things everyone needs to succeed on the web – Management discipline.

KISS often advises clients to have the “next” idea or feature planned and tied to a trigger – we'll do that “track your package online” system when sales hit a specific level or when tracking phone calls to customer service are more than 50 per day.

LL Bean is the master of this principle and they will continue to succeed on the web as a result. What we can learn from them is that this discipline can be applied to any web business and is something you should be thinking about.

KISS is pleased to introduce a new launch this week. Rental Solutions Cape Cod went “live” as the third iteration in our RSS family, after Rental Solutions Ireland and Rental Solutions UK. Karen Svenningsen, a member of the KISS staff for a few years, has agreed to assume Sales and Advertising responsibility for RSS-Cape Cod.

I'm pleased to announce, also, that KISS has been selected for what ultimately will be it's single largest client project to date, and the story will take about 15 months to unfold. Once told, though, that story will be quite compelling. I've always thought that a good story or movie needed one of three things to make it special - - aliens, mutants or pirates. I can now add two more elements of story telling to that list: Vikings, and the Irish. That's the hint for this project. My friend John McKenna supervised a dig in Dublin, Ireland, 16 years ago of a tenth century Viking settlement. His story, and those artifacts, are at the heart of this new project, and you'll not want to miss a single chapter.