New e-commerce solution brings instant commercial results for luxury fashion brand

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Portaltech, the eCommerce systems integrator and consultancy, has been key to driving a significant increase in sales and customer conversions at L.K. Bennett, the luxury British fashion retailer, since its implementation of the Portaltech QuickLive eCommerce platform went live at the end of January 2010.

In the first 5 weeks since launch, net retail sales increased by over 100% year-on-year and by over 70% compared with the previous season. In addition, customer conversion uplifted by over 100% year-on-year.

Kate Smyth, Head of eCommerce at L.K.Bennett said: "The response has been incredible from the increases we've seen in trading to the feedback from our customers."

Portaltech's leading multi-channel commerce platform, QuickLive, is providing the backbone to L.K. Bennett's web presence. The aim of the website is to become the flagship 'store' for the brand globally, reflecting the in-store customer experience and attention to detail and service for which the retailer is renowned.

After signing the contract in October last year, L.K. Bennett and Portaltech collaborated closely in order to re-platform within an adventurous 12-week timeframe. A highly detailed 'Discovery Phase' helped to establish and determine the key business objectives, critical functional specifications and the deliverables for the website and platform.

Kate Smyth continued: "The timelines for this project were exceptionally tight, so it took absolute commitment from all the teams involved to produce the final high quality site. As an eCommerce team, we have been really thrilled with how straightforward the platform is to use and we are really benefiting from the management we now have over our online presence."

"One of the major benefits of QuickLive is the speed with which it can be implemented," said Andrew Walker, Managing Director of Portaltech. "It provides enterprise grade scalability and regularly updated eCommerce features 'out of the box', and because it is flexible, L.K. Bennett's in-house team are empowered to manage the customer experience as and when required."

Portaltech have a policy to partner with 'best of breed' technology providers. 10CMS were utilised to provide the rich media and merchandising content on the new site. This enables L.K. Bennett to manage their brand presence using stunning aspirational lifestyle images and hot spot overlays that display product information and pricing, As a result customers can reach product detail pages directly from the home page, with less clicks of the mouse, improving the user experience.

About L.K.Bennett (www.lkbennett.com)
Founded in London in 1990 and renowned for signature shoe collections, luxury British fashion house L.K.Bennett has since established itself at the forefront of fashion, offering sophisticated collections of shoes, bags and womenswear. The L.K.Bennett brand philosophy centres on beautiful tailoring, elegant dresses and a universe of style and refinement. Today, under a new creative direction and an in-house design team, L.K.Bennett continues to expand its vision dedicated to femininity and glamour, to meet the lifestyle and requirements of every modern woman.

LK Bennett is available in 115 locations across the UK, Ireland & France with 65 stand alone stores, 50 concessions in quality department stores and a successful online boutique at lkbennett.com.

About Portaltech (www.portaltech.co.uk)
Portaltech is a business and technology consultancy that focuses on the design, implementation, integration and support of eCommerce and mCommerce solutions. It works with its customers to gain a deep understanding of their market space and business challenges so that it can develop transactional applications and web sites that deliver real business benefits. Portaltech measures its success through the delivery of an on-time on-budget solution and on the increased revenues and cost savings that these solutions generate.

As an eBusiness consultancy with unique cross sector experience gained in online and multi channel environments Portaltech's proposition is un-rivalled in the UK. It works on business and technology initiatives for a range of leading brands and companies both large and small, such as The Body Shop, Long Tall Sally, The Royal Mail, Premier Farnell, Sony and Vodafone.

Media Contact
Julie Kirby or Duncan Gurney Ascendant Communications Tel: 07956 955625 Email: jkirby@ascendcomms.net/ dgurney@ascendcomms.net