computeruniverse.net Revolves Around Consumer Choice with CNET Channel DataSource™With more than 100,000 products available, German online retailer computeruniverse.net offers a galaxy of software, hardware, and accessories. Whether site visitors are looking for business productivity applications, games, DVDs, consumer electronics, stereo components, televisions, computer displays, or digital video cameras, computeruniverse.net is likely to sell it. But breadth of product isn't the only thing that sets computeruniverse.net worlds apart from other online stores. According to Alexander Koppisch, chief executive officer, the site's real difference centers on the quality of information. computeruniverse.net's depth of merchandise details contrasts most high-end German computer stores' basic product specifications and lack of insight or context for customers to find the item best-suited to their needs. In addition to a diverse product selection, computeruniverse.net's shoppers include consumers and business customers in multiple countries. The majority of site traffic comes from Germany, but German-speaking residents and business customers in other European countries and the rest of the world find what they want at computeruniverse.net as well."
Breadth and Depth of Information Upholds Commitment to Customers"We're committed to providing as much data as possible so the customer will find what he needs," says Koppisch. "The challenge is to provide comprehensive, up-to-date information and pricing for all the products we carry, as quickly as possible. That's no small feat when we offer such a huge selection." From the outset, computeruniverse.net founders recognized the enormous challenge that data aggregation would present and sought a way to automate the collection of information. The company's online store was even purpose-built by in-house programmers to receive an automated data feed of some kind. According to Koppisch, "Manual data collection would have meant copying some marketing text here or a picture there. It would be incredibly difficult, inefficient and costly to try to gather extensive data, keep it up-to-date and organize it consistently so that our customers could comparison-shop." However, in Germany there were few suppliers for product data. computeruniverse.net executives looked at online retail competitors' sites as a benchmark for the kind of detail a data supplier would need to provide. The breadth of merchandise information supplied by domestic service providers paled in comparison, so computeruniverse.net turned to CNET Channel's DataSourceT, in order to achieve its mission of providing customers with quality information. "Where the local providers offered information on ten products in a category, DataSource provided details for 50 items," said Koppisch. "For every ten features the others listed, DataSource listed two to five times as many. Those details are crucial for a customer who's purchasing a motherboard and needs to know which processor he can fit on it, which RAM he can use, and how configuration will impact performance." computeruniverse.net also relies on DataSource to provide information about items related to the product sought, such as accessories for a digital camera, laptop bags and other merchandise. "Those products also are part of our commitment to helping the customer make informed decisions, for a quality shopping experience," adds Koppisch. To start shopping, visitors to computeruniverse.net can choose the product category they prefer. They can click on the item they wish to purchase and see exhaustive information courtesy of DataSource, including a picture and the price, a description, and extensive feature data. Users also can select several items and choose the comparison function to see a side-by-side presentation of DataSource-supplied specifications. "It took one person using the DataSource programming guidelines just one day to implement the solution on our e-commerce site," says Koppisch. "Because the DataSource content is well-structured, it's very easy for us to adapt it to our needs and present the data the way we'd like it to look on our site."
Partnering Vaults computeruniverse.net Ahead of the CompetitionBy launching the online retail store with CNET Channel's help, Koppisch estimates that computeruniverse.net was one of the first e-tailers to offer an extensive comparison function for so many different products-and the competition still hasn't caught up. "We'd probably have to spend three to four times as much as we do on site administration-and that's a huge benefit to making DataSource our trusted resource for aggregating and maintaining accurate data for so many products," says Koppisch. But the most important advantage is to computeruniverse.net's German customers, who now have a wealth of information at their fingertips to make informed choices-and to be confident in their purchase decisions. More than half of computeruniverse.net's business comes from repeat customers, underscoring the value of the online retailer's partnership with CNET Channel. Koppisch adds that a direct mail campaign to confirm customer satisfaction levels also has confirmed the reason for the pattern of repeat purchase: Respondents filled the "comments" space of reply cards with praise for the extensive product information, and its role in aiding purchase decisions.
Charting a Course for the Futurecomputeruniverse.net's distinctive attention to merchandise details is so successful that the site has been recognized for its product information by Germany's prestigious Computerbild magazine for two years in a row. Mission accomplished-but the company doesn't see work ending there. "The computeruniverse.net store is always being refined to provide better and better access to high-quality information," says Koppisch. "So we stay in regular contact with the CNET Channel team to make sure we know how the latest DataSource features can enhance our customers' shopping experience: more and better product pictures will be next."
About computeruniverse.net GmbH:computeruniverse.net GmbH is one of Europe's leading online shops specializing in hardware, software, electronic goods, hi-fi and digital imaging equipment, DVDs, and computer games. computeruniverse.net's target markets consist of consumers, businesses, and public sector organizations worldwide. Its customers include both novices and professional users, while its strategy is based on offering high quality and excellent service at a fair price. The company's aim is to take full advantage of the benefits provided by the Internet as a platform for information, commerce, and communication. There is a strong emphasis on supporting customers in the selection of products, in their buying decisions, during the sales process, and, of course, in terms of aftersales care.
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