How Sitecore helps Thule gear up for direct-to-consumer sales

Thule is a global sports and outdoor brand. We’re headquartered in Sweden and operate in 81 markets and 24 languages. We’ve been providing premium products for active people since 1942. Our aim is to help individuals and families live active lifestyles by making it easier to transport their gear for hiking, biking, skiing, surfing, or simply exploring the city. Our motto is ‘Bring your life’ and our product lines include roof boxes, luggage, and other gear and equipment. As well as our main brand Thule, we also have a line of lifestyle bags and packs branded as Case Logic.

Like any successful business, we’re always evolving to respond to market needs. In recent years, this has meant expanding our product lines to support active families. Our children and family line includes child car seats, pushchairs, and bike seats, and ensures the Thule brand is useful and relevant throughout the course of our customers’ lives.

Historically, we only sold our products via retailers, but we have started to include sales direct to consumers in response to new purchasing patterns. Creating new ways to engage with consumers on digital channels was already becoming a trend for us and we are continually strengthening our approach.

Getting closer to customers

Selling direct to consumers meant we needed a completely new approach to marketing. We developed a consumer engagement strategy that’s all about educating our customers, building trust, and being authentic. We call it ‘touch, tell, sell, and care’, aligned to the stages of the sales funnel.

• Touch is all about creating awareness of the brand and inspiring customers.
• Tell comprises educating customers about products and helping them find the exact product that they need. Our products are high quality and last for years, so people tend to research them before investing.
• Sell is our strategy for enabling fast and seamless commerce.
• Care is focused on turning customers into brand fans. We work with brand ambassadors, including sports professionals and outdoors enthusiasts, to share advice and stories that motivate and inspire our customers.

Creating efficient digital foundations with Sitecore

Sitecore solutions have an important role at every stage of customer engagement, and we have a long-term partnership with the company. Our consumer-centric websites — Thule.com and Caselogic.com — as well as our retailer-facing site, Thule.net, are based on a suite of Sitecore solutions including Sitecore’s platform DXP, Sitecore Commerce, and Sitecore Send.

We are working with Sitecore to modernize our marketing technology and lay the foundation for future growth. We are taking advantage of best-of-breed products to create an integrated ecosystem. The flexibility that comes with the full portfolio of products means we can easily choose the right solution for our business needs.

Gaining greater insights into customer behavior

With Sitecore, we’ve optimized our website and e-commerce experience with a sleek design and intuitive navigation. With the recent redesign of all three websites and continued efforts on improving the customer experience, we are already seeing great potential for growth.

We are also making use of the Sitecore Send out-of-the-box marketing automation and AI-driven experiences to enhance our product recommendation and abandoned cart reminders, which is improving conversion rates. When we started to send out our direct-to-consumers newsletter, we could instantly see some very good click-through rates. It’s a continuous feedback cycle so we can see what’s successful and what isn’t and tweak our approach so that we continue to create and share relevant and engaging content.

The future is bright, and it’s crucial that we continue towards an omnichannel approach by tailoring content to where the consumer is in the funnel and delivering it across our websites, email, and social media. It is about knowing our consumers, what they need, and how we can engage with them in the best possible way.

With Sitecore, all our content management efforts are efficiently managed by a two-person team. Sitecore provides Thule with the digital foundations we need to enter new markets and continue to evolve, meet new customer needs, and grow the business. And best of all, it’s fun — great fun!