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SPEAKER : Carlos Barrabes
Background: When your
business founded, what did it sell originally, where was the first store?
Briefly describe the history or your organisation from this stage to the
present day.
This is a piece of our new "Enterprise history" in our new Web Site. You can cut or reorganise it while maintain the main sense:<<
Barrabés Esquí - Montaña
In 1987 the Barrabés family consolidates their gait through the mountain and ski world. Both of the José Barrabés’ elder sons joined to their father to open an specific shop of mountain gear.
The first shop, that occupied one floor of the actual ski and outdoor fashion shop, soon it started to work. Attended to J. Cristóbal and Carlos Barrabés, they required the assistance of one more person in the high seasons. In 9 scarce years, the shop has been converted in a shop specialised in alpinism and mountain gear, it already had two floors and had several employees. Barrabés Esquí - Montaña was already a firm reality.
A specialised shop
In 1996, Barrabés Esquí - Montaña gives a giant step at built a new shop dedicated exclusively to the mountain and ski technical gear. They are five floors in a new building with the biggest offer of specific gear for all the disciplines relation to the alpinism and the ski: rock, aid and ice climbing, alpine, nordic, touring ski, telemark, etc.
At the time, they dedicate the other shop to the ski and outdoor fashion, giving an answer to an important hikers and skiers sector more modesties.
However, the mountain sports’ temporality and the limitation of stay in a village as deliciously far of everything suppose a serious handicap for the business expansion. Barrabés had passed from two brothers working hand to hand to have a personnel with about 30 workers, but had they reached the finish?.
Distance sales. The new challenge
Barrabés Esquí - Montaña already sale at distance, by catalogue, with certain success. But the new challenge consisted in increases this facet and, at the same time, rush on the information benefiting Internet’s take off. So, it was born a revolutionary Web that allows to consult products and make reserves through Internet.
A spectacular results in only a few years of internautic offer have converted to Barrabés Esquí - Montaña in one of the pioneers in the sale by Internet. Now, a new and more ambitious project has gave as a result this Web place that we hope you are fully enjoying.
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What is the difference between the products you sell online service compared with your traditional shopping outlets?
Actually there's no difference. We have been selling by catalogue and telephone for a long time. Simply we change the way to communicate with our clients: Internet is simple and easy to use, cheaper than telephone and powerful than catalogues.
What Microsoft products do you use for your online services?
As Operating System we use Windows NT 4.0, and for e-commerce software we use Proxy Server 2.0, Exchange Server 5.5, SQL Server 6.5, Site Server 3.0 y Site Server Commerce 3.0. For details you can ask to César Torre from Renacimiento Sistemas (ctorre@renacimiento.com).
Why did you select Microsoft software for your online retail operation?
Its a solid, simple and economic system. And Microsoft has helped us to use his enterprise solutions. Consultants, information and formation are good reasons to decide partner in such a difficult travel.
What other important technology components do you use?
Almost anything. Cisco routers for publishing over Frame Relay and HP & Intel hardware for servers.
Who is your Web site / design partner?
Our main real partner is Microsoft. He has helped us in all the development and has provided the contact with Renacimiento Sistemas (www.renacimiento.com), a small consulting enterprise which is the main guilty of e-commerce part of the Site. They have provided the necessary knowledge over Microsoft Technology to make everything work.
Why did you choose them?
As I told before, because of his knowledge in development over Microsoft technology.
Did you choose them?
As a Barrabés Web Site Architect I confirmed the Microsoft proposal. After few work sessions I was sure they where the correct choice.
Describe the implementation of the service including pilots and trials
We've not finished already. Actually, we'll be online with our first pilot Web Site the next week. At this time we'll start to work to polish all the little bugs and to make new sections and extend actual ones.
When did you go online?
The old Web Site started to work more or less two and a half years ago. We will be online over last November's week.
What was the first product sold, to whom and when?
We don't remember exactly the first sale, but we can remember some of the first special sales just after start. For example a pair of climbing shoes to someone from Alabama, U.S.A. We also remember something sold to a client in Honolulu (probably a technical jacket).
How many customers have since bought products from the site and how do you expect this figure to grow?
We can't precise the exact number. There is a lot of clients that came to Benasque with the Web page printed, and we are sure there's a lot of people that call us by phone after visiting the Web, instead of use e-mail. So how many clients come from Internet?. We don't know.
What are the best selling products?
Climbing shoes
Where are your online customers from?
Our customers come online from everywhere. But our best customers are from Spain, Portugal and U.S.A..
Do you limit the regions to which you sell and if so why?
No, we don't.
What feedback have you had so far from your customers and your business partners?
From our customers we have first hand information on capabilities, product quality and so on. More of our clients write back to tell us how his gear has worked or failed. So we want to provide some direct feedback line to our clients at the new Web Site.
What are the benefits to your overall business of an online retailing service?
Information. All the information we have is available at a mouse click distance. Wherever the client be, he has only to search and see. And if he has a question, he can simple mail us. Serve this wide information to remote places by other way is almost impossible. And our main business is to give the client all the information joined to all the possibilities.
What are the disadvantages?
Almost only one, the client needs a computer and an access to internet. But this seem to be a relative disadvantage tending to disappear.
How have you personalised the service for individual customers?
We are fully using Membership from Microsoft, so we have information on the page they usually visit, we store information over they preferences and plan individual offers, and so on. Also we store his purchase history so they can see their own trajectory as our client.
What payments/banking/security system have you used to make payment as easy as possible?
We use a payment method provided by our main banking partner. This able us to give the responsibility over money transactions to the expert people. They provide a secure and easy way to pay by several banking cards (Visa, MasterCard an so on) and guarantee the operation.
How have you marketed/publicised the service?
At this time we are working on it. We want to publicise it at traditional mountaineer press and Web finders like Yahoo or Lycos.
What is special abut your use of technology and Web site design compared with other online retail sites?
I think there are two main differences with other sites:
The site design has been planned in order to give the widest information with minimum effort in the client side. The architecture of the Web is a dangerous field because the client only has to click away to forget it forever. If you can't find what you search or you can loose over pages and pages with no easy way to get out, you'll never come back. We have cared specially to provide a friendly and easy to travel Web Site plenty of useful information and, if the client want to do it, he can also buy .With the benefit of hindsight, is there anything you would have done differently during the implementation of your system?Fully use of Microsoft technology. This permit integrate all the site parts over only one main philosophy. Everything works together, it's simplest to maintain and easy to upgrade.
May be. I will not eat pizzas over the server while we were developing. The pepperoni always remain over the chassis.
What are your future plans for the service and how much do they depend on the success of the current operation?
We plan to grow the information areas in the Web. More auxiliary services to provide the client enough information to take their own decisions. We want to expand our product offer and our services: more detailed weather forecast, widest technical information, etc.
But it's sure it depends
on Web site success. If not our main plan will be revise the Web Site direction
and philosophy in order to adjust it to clients and mountaineers needs.