Apollo Brands Pty LTD (the official distributor of Under Armour in South Africa) launched their Ecommerce platform in South Africa on Monday the 8th June 2020. Amidst an ever-evolving retail landscape, the business pulled out all the stops to take the development head-on despite a global pandemic and stringent national shutdown laws.
Timing could not be better as Under Armour SA announces the launch of their new Ecom platform to encourage consumers to stay at home and safe. The new website will allow customers to easily purchase performance products from the safety of their own home. Whether it be running gear, train gear or the latest fast or long-distance trainers to lock in the kilometres, through launching their new Booking Site and Ecommerce Platform, underarmour.co.za, the brand can now safely provide its audience with any shopping method or preference they need.
“In today’s retail climate being able to track and source data leading consumer trends and behaviour has never been so important. Ecommerce allows a traditional brick and mortar facility to operate within new limits, setting higher benchmarks as we open our product offering to a wider (more techno savvy) audience. Keeping this in mind we’ve put a fair amount of resource into not only developing an ecommerce platform but ensure we daily implement UX Design and key optimisation strategies” says Gareth Kemp the Managing Director of Under Armour SA.
Despite the challenges faced through business adversity, the very DNA of the brand is that it’s built for the hardest worker in the room and by launching the first Under Armour site for South Africans in South Africa, the leaders and crew members of the SA team have never felt prouder.
“We understand that usability is critical for the success of our website and this is a focus of ours. Firstly, it has been designed to be mobile and desktop friendly as we know a large percentage of our users shop from their mobile devices. Fast Load times are also incredibly important to us and we have already made changes to pages where these were slower than expected. For our Under Armour SA shopper end-use is important so they can shop by their desired sport as well as by category. We sell technical performance apparel so in addition, each product carries concise descriptions as it’s our best opportunity to provide them with more of the detail they would get from an in-store experience. We will also be rolling out new exciting additions over the coming weeks which speaks to the innovative technology we offer. Under Armour essentially sell technical solutions for the sole purpose of making athletes better, and we need to focus on clearly communicating this on the online platform and through its usability” says Camille Fletcher, the Ecommerce Manager of Under Armour SA.
Closing Statement from Gareth Kemp:
How brands behave in a time of crisis will determine their customer affinity for years to come. Now is the time to think beyond the bottom line and share a partnership with society that may not have once existed.
