Reports of the demise of Forzani Group’s flagship e-commerce website have been greatly exaggerated, say company officials.
Headlines in some local media reporting the SportChek.ca site was being pulled “are absolute bunk,” says chief financial officer Bob Sartor. “We’re not closing the site down – it will remain an integral part of our marketing initiatives,” Sartor told Business Edge.
Forzani Group has decided to remove the product purchasing option from the year-old website as a money-saving move. Customers will still be able to view products, compare prices and read sports-related content, says Sartor.
Shortly after Forzani Group launched the website last June, it acquired the Kamloops-based discount sports franchise SportsMart, which already had its own smaller but well-established e-commerce site.
“It had far more subscriptions, and was an item-and-price catalogue that had three years more history,” says Sartor. “We felt it made more sense to maintain the older and more established website with more subscriptions and did more business.
“It made money, significantly more than SportChek.ca.”
The original objective of SportChek.ca was to drive volume at store level, he adds, and that’s still part of the plan. Only about five per cent of all the site’s subscribers ever made an online purchase.
Product-related content, stories, coupons and educational pieces will all continue on the revamped site. “We’ve got a lot of people signed up, and we’d be crazy not to use that marketing capability,” Sartor says.
Forzani Group says only one position – the job of the senior e-commerce manager who headed the interactive division for the SportChek site – has been eliminated due to the move. Other staff will be redeployed within the Forzani organization.
