Geolocation Proving to Be a Difference Maker for Carter's, Sleepy's

Geolocation, the ability to target offers — e.g., personalized homepages, customized landing pages, unique category banners — based on a visitor's location is the type of personalized online shopping experience that consumers have come to expect from retailers. Consumers are aware that retailers are collecting vast amounts of information about them — location being just one data point — and in exchange for that they expect relevant messaging, no matter the channel.

At the Demandware XChange conference in Las Vegas this week, Kyle Phillips, director of e-commerce technology at Carter's; and Michael Valeiko, director e-commerce development, and Lukas Agrapidis, director of e-commerce technology, both of Sleepy's, talked about how their brands are using geolocation to drive customer engagement and conversions.

Carter's, an omnichannel retailer of baby clothes and accessories, is using geolocation in two ways: targeting based on a ship-to address, which drives homepage content, the types of promotions the visitor receives, the banner ads they see; and targeting based on the visitor's proximity to one of the brand's more than 800 brick-and-mortar stores.

For example, Carter's makes its buy online, pick up in-store service available only to site visitors within a certain mile radius of one of its stores. This messaging appears on the checkout page, and it allows for customers to override the nearest store location if there's a more convenient location for them to pick up their order — e.g., near their job or if they know they're going to be traveling in a certain area, etc. In addition, Carter's is leveraging metro code data to power its store locator functionality. This service is integrated with Google Maps.

Exemplifying the value that Carter's puts in geolocation, Phillips noted that the retailer went live with the technology within three weeks of its release from Demandware.

For Sleepy's, the challenge is showing site visitors the inventory that's available in their market. Due to the size and cost of shipping its product — mattresses — Sleepy's entire inventory isn't available across the country. Geolocation technology is helping to solve this problem.

Sleepy's is targeting product offerings according to the market in which the visitor lives. For example, a shopper in Alaska who searches for "firm mattresses" will only receive a small percentage of the results that a shopper in New York who uses the same search terms would.

We're identifying a visitor's ZIP code via their IP address, and we've mapped every ZIP code in the country to the distribution center it's closest to, said Valeiko. (Sleepy's has seven distribution centers across the country.) This information then enables Sleepy's to only display inventory that's available in that area.

In addition, Sleepy's is using geolocation for targeted regional marketing campaigns. It's doing this without having to ask for or requiring a visitor's ZIP code, which provides a better shopping experience.

We can let the customer know up front what we're able to deliver, the promotions available in their market, said Agrapidis. This makes for a better shopping experience, happier customers and increased revenues for Sleepy's.