OVERVIEW

In 1972, Ed Flynn and Ned O'Hara started a school uniform program providing superior products and a convenient shopping experience to partner schools and families. Today, we outfit 500k+ students from 1500+ schools across the US. Bigcommerce supported our 6 Million SKUs with variants.

CHALLENGE

In March 2020, we, FlynnOhara (FOH), started the implementation of “BigCommerce” to replace our legacy website. This website had many limitations, and the technology was past its time. As we began to see the site take form, we were challenged on how we would be able to utilize our Gift Card Program in this new environment.

We looked at three vendors for this program, and the one that best fit our business model was “99minds”. The other vendors believed in the traditional “Gateway” to “Bank” methodology where transactions were authorized, and the selling/redemption was reported through the “Bank.” Offerings for managing these programs were limited. Another critical decision maker was the ability to offer our customers an “Omni-Channel” experience with our website and in-stores. The ability for our customers to use these cards/certificates on the web and store seamlessly ranked as a top requirement for FOH. Because our systems were explicitly customized for FOH, integrations did not come out of the box for the other vendors. “99minds” offered traditional API calls that fit within our environment and a web portal (WebPOS) to allow customers to sell/redeem gift cards while implementing.

SOLUTION -

1. Integrations (Legacy Environment)

   We were looking for a vendor that had the ability of supporting a customized legacy environment without the time it would take to develop this collection. “99minds” provided a cookie cutter API collection that worked seamlessly for our environment. Also, provided a portal to quickly start up their program while integrations were being connected.

2. Program Management

   There were multiple levels we wanted to capture information upon. Other vendors' offerings were limited, requiring a manual effort to track and report usage. “99minds” offered a suite of tools to manage the program. They provided different levels through “Campaigns” so these can be reported upon easily and shared through their portal. This ability allowed our schools to manage their program through a portal eliminating the need of producing reports and sharing this information.

3. BigCommerce (Integration)

   While evaluating vendors, we were looking for a partner with “BigCommerce'' that would complement their functionality. “99minds” did not replace what BigCommerce offered but only added features and functions that reduced our development time and offered visibility to the program that exceeded what other vendors had to sell.

4. Ease of Use/Configurations

   One of our pain points with our current provider and the other vendors as we evaluated was the ease of use of the system. With “99minds”, our user community could easily access the program and report on every transaction from beginning to end. “99minds” offered a very robust configuration to control how each “Campaign” can be configured. The configuration offered every detail you need to control the management of the program (too many to list!)

5. Digital and Physical Cards

   When looking at our vendors we wanted the ability of supporting digital and physical cards. We had a good surplus of cards that we were still using in our stores and online. “99minds” provided the ability of importing our existing cards into the program. This allowed us to shut down our current service and move forward solely with “99minds”. Their API collection allowed us to select between Physical or Digital giving our customers a choice for the program. They also offered a “Sell as a gift” feature. Partnerships with Klaviyo allow our Marketing team the ability of customizing our message to our customers.