Dick’s Sporting Goods wasn’t always (and still isn’t primarily) an online merchant. The national chain began as a single shop in New York State in the mid-twentieth century, and since the founder’s son, Eddie Stack, took the reins in 1984, Dick’s has maintained a focus on expanding its brick-and-mortar presence, in part via acquisitions. They do, however, maintain an e-commerce store – which, of course, is why you’re reading about them at Ultimate Coupons.
The original Dick’s website was found at Dsports.com, beginning in 1999 (not to be confused with Direct Sports Net, a news site who held the same domain earlier on). By the end of 2000, DicksSportingGoods.com was the official address – and it wasn’t to remain an in-house concern for long. The company began a business relationship with GSI Commerce in 2001.
GSI’s origins can be traced back to KPR Sports, a pre-internet company that specialized in overstock sporting goods. In 1995, KPR acquired a large stake in footwear firm Ryka, and the company’s name was changed to Global Sports Incorporated. CEO Michael Rubin became determined to move into e-commerce in the late nineties, beginning by hiring a web designer and contracting with various sporting goods chains to create web stores for them. In 1999, the shoe and excess inventory businesses were sold off to allow the company to focus its efforts entirely on its online efforts. Though the original clients were all sport equipment merchants, there was nothing exclusively sports-related about the business model, and soon retailers in other spaces were on the roster too. The company name was shortened in 2002 to the now familiar GSI Commerce, and its current list of clients includes, besides Dick’s, names like Sports Authority, Modell’s, American Eagle Outfitters, Kenneth Cole, Betsey Johnson, Toys R Us, Mattel, RadioShack, Cost Plus World Market, Ace Hardware, Zales, GNC, Bath & Body Works, and the official NBA, MLB, and NFL online stores. (Obviously, some of these are as far from sporting goods as it is possible to get within mainstream retail.) Services provided include website infrastructure and design, logistics, marketing, and customer care.
Rubin has been the center of the business since founding KPR Sports (named for his parents), and he and his company have received a fair amount of media attention thanks to his stint on the CBS primetime reality show Undercover Boss, which aired in March 2010 after having been filmed during the preceding holiday season. He credits his experiences in GSI’s fulfillment and customer support call centers with his developing a more empathetic attitude towards his employees, saying “If you are a CEO and are approached by Undercover Boss, you have to do it. It is a great way to connect with employees, figure out what their needs are and learn how to better run your business.” He even started a program within GSI whereby ranking members of the corporate staff spend a week working in customer contact. His experience, however, has been a mixed blessing – not just because he admitted to being an inadequate box-packer, but because the surge in search traffic his company received created a vicious cycle. In August 2010, it became widely known that GSI had posted losses in seven of the prior nine quarters, since what might otherwise have been an under-the-radar news item became the top ranking search subject in Google Trends, thanks to folks recognizing the names involved from the TV reality program. As word spread, stock prices dropped by 5.8 percent.
Although GSI stores share a common platform, there’s nothing to immediately tell customers that the sites are related. As you can see, the Dunham’s front page looks almost like a print advertisement, with a minimal index and most of the space taken up by graphics. While Both DicksSportingGoods.com and SportsAuthority.com have more detailed top category indices, the former has a sidebar for more immediate navigation by sport, while the former focuses on well-known brands in a second horizontal nav bar.
As you start shopping these sites, though, you’ll notice similarities in the way that they work. Helpfully, search results will display not only the names and images of found items, but mentions of deals that the items are eligible for. It’s a user-friendly touch that prevents disappointment at the checkout stage (ever tried to buy something online, only to discover that it fell into one of the categories of exceptions for your coupon code?) and assists in selection. The inventory categorization system is also quite sophisticated, allowing you to find, say, ski boots for women made by Nordica and priced at $200 or less, or women’s cold-weather water-resistant insulated jackets from Patagonia in medium, without having to enter search terms or scroll through pages of inappropriate items. Familiarize yourself with these elements of GSI sites and you may be able to identify their clients elsewhere on your online shopping trips!
References
(http://blog.shop.org/2010/03/22/talking-with-gsi-commerce-ceo-michael-rubin/)
(http://www.shallownation.com/2010/03/19/michael-rubin-gsi-commerce-cbs-undercover-boss-video-photos/)
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail?entry_id=69677)
