The new Makroshop.be website offers a powerfull marketing channel!

Upgrading the Makroshop.be website to its widening product range was the challenge Makro has recently given The Reference’s experts. Given their high popularity and online traffic, the Makro websites constitute an ideal online advertising space for companies targeting retail customers.

A new step in a successful e-commerce story

In 2011, The Reference launched the e-commerce platform for Makro:  Makroshop.be.
The site was very well received by the public and was even awarded with the prestigious Sitecore ‘Site of the Year” in 2011, in the category  of ‘Best Retail/ eCommerce Site’.

At first, Makro’s online sales channel consisted of two theme stores: an office utilities shop (for professionals) and a garden shop (for anyone really…). Along with the e-commerce specialists of The Reference, “home delivery” was later added as an additional service.

In the meanwhile Makro’s online product range has been expanding gradually to now include multimedia, telephony, electrical, DIY items and much much more! However, the steep rise in product offer required an improved platform so that the website remains intuitive and user-friendly. Following a thorough analysis of the existing website, The Reference restructured the navigation pane, refreshed the design, and shortened the checkout process.

In cooperation with Adhese, the Makro websites become a powerful marketing channel

Considering Makro’s significant (and growing) web presence, it was only logical to start offering alternative bannering options (skyscraper, imu, leaderboard, etc.) and online display packages on both the corporate website (Makro.be) and on the shopping website (Makroshop.be). With well over half a million page views per week on these two websites, companies that focus on retail customers can discover a new powerful online marketing channel.

The Reference sought the right market solution to turn this specific offering commercially available and found it in Adhese. Being an advanced and comprehensive online advertising solution, Adhese takes care of the campaign, order and inventory management for its clients. It also manages the ad serving and comes with advanced reporting tools and forecasting offers. Finally, The Reference made and designed an attractive rate card, offering marketers an overview of the new advertising opportunities on the Makro websites.

Peter De Jonghe, E-Commerce Manager at Makro: “Makro is happy to now offer a wide range of banners and interesting online visibility packages. We are convinced that marketers will find precisely what they are looking for in order to deliver their brands’ message through our sites. This way we would like to offer a new channel to reach end customers in an efficient manner,  serving not only our suppliers but also other service and product providers. Throughout every step along the way, The Reference proved to be an excellent partner on this project. Following the advice of The Reference’s experts we opted for a professional partner like Adhese for the management of our inventory. We can now confidently look forward to the next steps we want to take within our e-commerce story.”

Sven Marievoet, one of Adhese founders: “It was an interesting challenge for us and a great opportunity to work with the team of The Reference in order to dive even deeper into the possibilities that our ad server offers. The time when online advertising only revolved around bannering is over; controlling both content and ads within the same system brings a multitude of opportunities! We expect such developments and collaborations, like the one we’ve established with The Reference, to bring us to places we haven’t yet explored of before, something we are very excited about! “