Molton Brown: Creating an online experience that’s a beautiful fit for a luxury brand
Delighting loyal consumers in store and online
Looking for ways to grow Molton Brown Limited, one of the leading brands in its global luxury cosmetics portfolio, Japan’s Kao Corporation knew customer experience was key. To create a distinctive and consistent experience both in store and online, the company selected SAP solutions.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Consumer products | London, England | 600 employees |
seconds an online order is placed.
increase in sales in three years.
units sold across all channels on Black Friday 2022.
Senior Manager for Business Transformation, Molton Brown Limited (Kao Corporation)
Striving to surpass customer expectations across channels
A moment of peace, a moment of calm, a shower’s healing balm: luxury fragrance, bath, and body brand Molton Brown sources only the best ingredients to offer customers long-lasting fragrances that uplift, refresh, or unwind the senses.
Born on South Molton Street, London in 1971, Molton Brown is an icon of uniquely British style. Passionate about quality, it has made its products in England since day one and is continuing on a journey of craftsmanship and artistry to give consumers the ultimate quality experience.
However, Molton Brown’s legacy e-commerce system did not support this luxury experience. It could not handle high levels of online traffic reliably or share customer data readily with ERP and supply chain systems. In addition, the brand’s Web site had become dated, lacking key functionality expected by consumers.
Kao sought an omnichannel customer experience that lived up to the Molton Brown legacy. With a key strategic focus on experience, the company set to work on delivering exceptional customer interactions – but it needed the right technology to help it inspire online shoppers.
Senior Manager for Business Transformation, Molton Brown Limited (Kao Corporation)
Creating a smooth experience from browsing to checkout
Molton Brown opted for the SAP Commerce Cloud solution due to its comprehensive digital commerce functionality, which it knew would enhance personalization, peak-traffic handling, and speed. Aside from enabling a better customer experience and providing strong security certifications, SAP Commerce Cloud would also help the company reshape its IT infrastructure in the cloud.
SAP Commerce Cloud integrates intuitively with diverse payment solutions, allowing Molton Brown to offer numerous payment options, as Naresh Krishnamurthy, its senior manager for business transformation, explains. “By helping our customers more easily browse our collections and providing payment options they trust, such as Apple Pay and PayPal, we’ve removed unnecessary friction from the e-commerce experience.”
Adopting a retail omnichannel mindset, the team chose to integrate SAP Commerce Cloud with the SAP Emarsys platform. It understood using these solutions together would help it personalize marketing tactics to build trust and drive more sales.
Senior Manager for Business Transformation, Molton Brown Limited (Kao Corporation)
Engaging customers continuously through more personalization
Molton Brown’s move to SAP Commerce Cloud gives the luxury brand a strong footing to deliver the right balance between a great brand experience and smooth online shopping. Inspirational imagery that is easy to scroll makes online browsing a pleasure, and customer satisfaction is higher due to greater transparency of product availability in stores and online.
Molton Brown made complex steps as straightforward as possible with operational improvements in delivery options, loyalty program functionality, and a better checkout experience. And with 99.99% site uptime, managing prime-season shopping volume is also easier. Since launching its revamped e-commerce Web site, the brand has seen its conversion rate lift by 30% over the past three years.
To interact directly with customers within highly personalized omnichannel journeys, Molton Brown plans to tap into integration between SAP Commerce Cloud and SAP Emarsys to link its site to Facebook and Instagram. The company already uses the social networks for lead generation to help build new relationships online, deploying negative match lists so it does not market to the same person twice.
And thanks to a reduced investment in hardware, software, and associated maintenance costs, Molton Brown has fashioned significant savings in the total cost of ownership of its IT environment.
Vice President of Global Sales Channels and Strategic Development, Molton Brown Limited (Kao Corporation)