Mall retailer Bakers Footwear Group Inc. has launched a mobile version of its Web store in response to customer lifestyle changes and the general industry trend toward greater mobile accessibility of store assets.

Bakers tapped Virid to design, build and manage its new mobile retail site. As Baker’s ecommerce platform provider for more than two years, Virid’s designers and developers brought their experience in the mobile space to align the Bakers’ mobile store with its Bakers Direct PC Web store.

“Bakers’ strategy is to provide easy tools for its customers to shop when and where it is convenient to her schedule,” said Steve Deller, founder/CEO of Virid, Reston, VA. “The target demographic is women who want to buy the latest fashion footwear, typically late teens through their 40s.”

Bakers Footwear Group is a national, mall-based, specialty retailer of footwear and accessories for young women ages 16-35. It currently operates 245-plus stores nationwide.

The company’s merchandise includes private-label and national brand dress, casual and sport shoes, boots, sandals and accessories.

Bakers’ sister brand Wild Pair stores offer fashion-forward footwear to both women and men ages 17-29.

More retailers turning to mobile
Bakers’ mandate to Virid was to execute an elegant mobile site for that makes it possible for the retailer to offer its customers the same shopping experience on their mobile devices that they get in its Web store.

Bakers required that all of its functional and display areas of the Web store exist in parity with the mobile version of the site.

Virid’s marketAgility platform makes it possible for Bakers to edit content once for both sites yet at the same time is able to identify unique content for each. 

Promotions and coupons available on the PC site are all available on the mobile site.

Bakers is focused on delivering a device-optimized experience that retains brand parity with the other retail channels.

The payment mechanism on the mobile site is the same as the PC site. Bakers accepts Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express.

Mr. Deller said that as part of Virid’s ongoing work with Bakers, the company saw that a growing number its customers were using their mobile devices to access the PC Web site. 

Bakers users have a unique and unusual array of devices that do not follow the trends of the rest of the Internet, so Virid had to make some adjustments to create a mobile environment that would work for its diverse customer base.

Virid’s marketAgility ecommerce platform was tailor made for meeting their needs and made it possible to move quickly to create this mobile site.

Bakers’ strategy is to promote the mobile site on the PC site, as well as via email blasts and social media.

“Virid provides a mobile site built on the same back-end platform, ensuring that all instances of the site are in sync,” Mr. Deller said. “In addition, having one admin tool means that the Bakers Web team does not need to make changes in multiple places.”

Final Take
Virid’s Mr. Deller