La Redoute info

1. Overview

La Redoute currently has more than 10 million active customers worldwide and is established in 26 countries. As France’s leading online retailer, La Redoute is a major player in the U.K. e-commerce landscape. La Redoute is the third-largest ecommerce market in Europe and offers a unique channel to capitalize on the country’s growing e-commerce opportunity. With a significant volume of active users and infrastructure that consumers are familiar with, La Redoute offers access to new sources of demand to help you embark on your expansion plans.

La Redoute was founded in 1875 and expanded to its online marketplaces model in 2010. Today, La Redoute is the most visited fashion and home e-commerce website in France, with more than 7.2 million unique visitors per month and more than 10 million active clients currently using the website. La Redoute’s mobile application has more than 700,000 users and the marketplace has almost 2 million fans on Facebook. More than 1,000 brands currently operate through La Redoute, including Morgan, Samsonite, Puma and Bonobo Jeans.

La Redoute is currently established in 26 countries and supports retailers across the globe. U.K. retailers wishing to expand internationally can gain access to the largest marketplace for fashion and home in France and have their products viewed by an extensive and diverse audience. La Redoute features a vast variety of categories, including men’s and women’s apparel, lingerie, shoes and accessories, home accessories, technology and furniture. The first and most important thing about La Redoute is that the primary language used on La Redoute is French, so accordingly, all listings need to be translated. The second thing is the pricing – all products must be in euros, and the merchant receives his payments from La Redoute in euros. Finally, all products sold on La Redoute must be new, rather than refurbished or used.

2. Account Registration and Fees

2.1. Application

In order to sell on La Redoute all sellers must fill in and comply with the following documents:

• Code of conduct;
• Terms & Conditions;

Conditions Particulières 2014.doc

• Contract;

Contrat de Services Marketplace Type EN LA REDOUTE 2015.doc

• Vendon’s information;

MRKTPLCE_Vendors Information Administrative en.xls

After filling and completing all the documents La Redoute is creating the account. On the day of writing of the present document, there is a little to be done on the website in ways to set up the account. The whole account is pre-set in the contract or with API calls.

2.2. Fees

Fees are due on the total sale of every order incl. shipping and credit card fees. All prices and fees are presented in EURO. La Redoute provides PayPal, Credit and Debit card payments. The formula is as follows: 14% excl. VAT + 49.90 EUR monthly subscription. La Redoute is deducting any commissions that may apply and then disburse the money to the agreed account.

The process of getting the payments is as follows:

When an order is accepted from the Seller and shipped we must change the status of the order to “shipped” (via API). La Redoute will start counting down 30 days from that day and then they will disburse the money on 1st, 11th and 21st day of the next month. For that period of 30 days the buyer can raise a claim and La Redoute are keeping the money as a guarantee as they do all refunds. The buyer can log in in his account and confirm at the day that the parcel arrives to his address and that way the seller would not have to wait for the 30 days as this is the longest period La Redoute will wait for any claims. After receiving the amount in his bank account the Seller might raise payment complaint within the next 10-20 days, depending on the contract. Commissions are only returned for the amount above 5eur (excl. VAT).

3. Integration

The technical integration between La Redoute and Hemisphere is via API. The marketplace provides a set of API services which makes it possible to exchange information. There are API call to retrieve or provide information for orders, stock levels, prices, shipping update, etc.

To obtain API credentials one has to be approved to sell on La Redoute and sing a contract. These credentials are usually provided by email or in the details of the contract.

3.1. Hemisphere account integration

After receiving all the details is a simple manner on placing them accordingly to tabs in Hemisphere.

Picture 1 – Hemisphere main menu

New account can be created only from Admin level of users. Expand Admin tasks menu and clink on plus icon

for Accounts.

Picture 2 – Create new account in Hemisphere

On the new opened tab fill in the field Account name, Marketplace, Time Zone and VAT. After selecting the marketplace as La Redoute a new tab “La Redoute” will be show on the menu below.

Picture 3 – La Redoute tab

3.2. Hemisphere account setup

• Create Seller – each seller has unique API credentials and not more than one should use the same (except for the Arcade model);
• Create Stock Profile – stock profiles are Hemisphere functionality and is working as usual
• Create Shipping template section – La Redoute don’t provide other shipping options rather than Regular;
• Create Account Location – La Redoute doesn’t support separate item location. It can be used only in Hemisphere for now;
• Skip Payment method – we cannot use different rather than La Redoute payments;
• Skip Location address – La Redoute doesn’t support Location addresses;
• Skip Return policy – La Redoute doesn’t support Return policies;
• Design template – n/a (customized listing design is not offered);

3.3. Stock Levels

There are some limitations on stock updates – not to be sent often than 1 hour. La Redoute system could not operate that fast and newer feed might overwrite and stuck the previous one and as a result none of them will be shown correctly on the website. More limitations could be found on 6-Offers.

3.4. Prices

There are some limitations on price updates – not to be sent often than 1 hour. La Redoute system could not operate that fast and newer feed might overwrite and stuck the previous one and as a result none of them will be shown correctly on the website. All prices have to be in euro and the only applicable value for currency is EUR. All prices should include VAT, although the percentage could be different for each product. More limitations could be found on 6-Offers.

3.5. Orders

On La Redoute orders acceptance is required. This is done automatically by Hemisphere. The integration is set in a way to check for Out-of-stock orders and if the quantities of all items ordered is sufficient the order is automatically accepted. After Seller’s acceptance La Redoute are debiting the buyers account and the payment details are imported in Hemisphere.

3.6. Shipping

Free shipping is not mandatory on La Redoute, but it is strongly recommended. All shipping services provided have to be tracked. There is no maximum delivery time requirement. On the thirtieth day of dispatch the MP will close the order so it is better to be received by the buyer by then. The best option is between 2 and 5 days of confirmation. Maximum dispatch time is 3 days.

3.7. Cancellations and refunds

Refunds can only be sent to the MP after the order has been marked as shipped!

3.8. Testing

TBC

4. Design

As La Redoute is invitation only marketplace so the for the Store front. They are creating design visuals only for big brands and Seller could provide new banners and run promotions with them. For now all aspects of the design are discussed with La Redoute directly via email.

5. Inventory management and product creation

La Redoute is a catalogue based marketplace, there so we have to first create the products and then send an offer for the product.

The mandatory specification for each product are:

• The product GTIN13/EAN13 number;
• The leaf category;
• The product identification;
• Master SKU;
• Title;
• Description;
• Product brand (via the brand code delivered by La Redoute);
• Main photo;
• The Cataloguer identifier;
• The taxonomy attributes of the article subclass;
• The variation of attributes (color and size);
• One or several photos representing the article (8 photos max);

Picture 4 – Sample listing

5.1. Title

In order to have a certain homogeneity, the titles must be constructed in the following order: Type of product, specification, and collection name if applicable.

The maximum length allowed is 100 characters. However, for site design purposes the title is limited to 2 lines of 18 characters each, spaces included.

It is not allowed use the size, the color and the name of the product brand in the title. That information is populated in a dedicated field. All titles must be in French and must not include HTML tags.

5.2. Product description

The product description must be written in French. It should be sales oriented, appealing and respecting the legislation (ex: material composition, energy class,). The description must be readable and correctly formatted (example via the use of HTML tags). We ask you to use HTML tags so the accented characters are correctly read and displayed on the website.

5.3. Categories, variation and item specifics

La Redoute’s website is organized into categories which rely on brands, families and sub-families with related attributes to this classification. In addition, we cannot create new colour and sizes, but to match with the existing values.

5.3.1. Brand

Not every seller could sell every brand. That is one of the first and most important thing about selling on La Redoute. They must create a specific internal code for the brand, in order to get a simple product listed. Therefore, new sellers must provide them with a list of the brand they want to sell. If the brand is new La Redoute will create it and will provide the brand code to be used.

The brand of a product is a mandatory attribute which allows:

• The customer to filter products by brand;
• To find the brand under product photos in page list;
• Search engine to return more relevant results to customers;

5.3.2. Taxonomy. Tree classification, Family/Sub-family

To classify the products, La Redoute required from each seller to use the “Sub-family code” which describes the most accurate classification node.

Example:

Table 1 – Taxonomy

Most up-to-date taxonomy can be found in the file below:

SubFamilyTaxonomy.xlsx

5.3.3. Variation specifics

There are 3 variation specifics for each SKU:

• Couleurs commerciales
• Grille de Coloris générique
• The attributes referring to size (which is different for each category)

5.3.3.1. Colours

Colours have to be matched with the corresponding names from La Redoute’s catalogue. The MP is providing an updated version on request only.

La Redoute XML Values.xlsx

Attribute « A0485 – Colours generic grid» = Generic colour code to which it can be linked: La Redoute publish a 16 “generic” colours table, allowing the buyers to filter by the offered colours. As part of the Inventory optimization all “commercial” colours has to be linked to the MP’s generic colour.

Example: The commercial colour “fuchsia” would probably be linked to the generic colour “pink”.

Table 2 – Sample Attribute colour values

5.3.3.2. Size

Sizes which are offered on La Redoute have to be exact and correctly presented. All size values are specific to the sub-category/sub-family.

La Redoute XML Values.xlsx

All SKUs which are part of Variation Master have to have unique Size values, otherwise the whole Mater will be rejected.

5.3.4. Item Specifics

Item specifics are used in order to provide more info for the buyers and to have better search visibility. Some ISs could be split into more than one sub-level. La Redoute is providing updated version of the file on request only.

La Redoute XML Values.xlsx

Hemisphere runs a script to automatically look for update on any on the XML values. This also helps the Inventory team to optimize the products. They don’t need to use any values and work only with the names of the Item Specifics. Preferably to be used the English value, but if for some reason it is missing the French one can be used. Hemisphere always links the Attribute value label with the Attribute code regardless of the language.

5.4. Image Requirements

Pictures can greatly contribute to the products attractiveness on La Redoute. No videos are allowed for now and all requirements are about the quality of the photos.

Image requirement:

• Main photo which represents the product. It will be displayed on the listing;
• For the products which have colour variations, at least one photo per each colour;
• Maximum 8 photos per item;
• Not less than 400 pixels and more than 641pixels on the longest side (if the image in less the MP’s engine will resize it and it will appear pixelated). To use the Zoom function the photos have to be more than 1200 pixels. The photos should not be more than 3500 pixel otherwise will be automatically resized;
• Images should be clear of any branding, logos or website addresses;

Graph 1 – Photo quality measurement

6. Offers

La Redoute is a catalogue based marketplace. Seller initially sends the mandatory information in order to create the item itself and then sends “offers” to the existing product. Offers could be send by a seller if he is authorized for the specific brands. If he is not, La Redoute don’t list the seller. In situation where a new seller provides information that he owns or manufactures the brand the old seller will be denied access to the brand and no longer will be able to send offers. Prices, stock levels and delivery options are all set in the offers. All offers are to be send per EAN/SKU level, which means that the seller have to push as many offers as his SKUs for sale are.

The offer data could be divided into 4 different feeds:

• Seller item: Essential item data including item and seller identifiers;
• Description: offer description;
• Delivery offer: Data regarding the shipping terms;
• Price offer: Data directly related to the price;

Offer data requirements:

• Compulsory (C): if a condition is missing, the offer will be rejected during the integration process;
• Dependent (D): Data depending on one or several other data linked (example: Item identification La Redoute and universal identification), at least one is compulsory;
• Non-compulsory (N): Optional data which will not make the offer rejected if it is missing;

Table 3 – Offer data requirements

6.1. lIST/DELIST/UPDATE

Each seller can push updates for the whole offer or just partially while takes into account the mandatory fields in the corresponding feed. This process is automated in Hemisphere, so there is nothing un

Hemisphere product account statuses:

• Not needed –
• Pending –
• Relist –
• Sent –
• Completed –
• Error –

7. Orders

There are 4 stages in the life cycle of an order on La Redoute:

• Created - Customer order;
• Accepted - Seller acceptance;
• To ship - Customer debit by La Redoute;
• Shipped - Order shipped to the customer;
• Refused – order cancelled by Seller;

Graph 2 -  Order status chain

When a buyer places an order on La Redoute, it is the MP who is first taking control. La Redoute uses a scoring tool to detect potential frauds on orders. If no fraud suspicion is detected, the order is created. Hemisphere is pilling data on regular intervals to retrieve the orders. The order will contain the following information: items references, quantity, price, postal code, city and delivery country. At this stage the order has a status “Created”.

Before the seller successfully receives the order, he has to check the stock level. If the product is no longer available, he can cancel the order. In that situation the status is changed to “Refused” and La Redoute sends an automatic e-mail to the buyer. When there is a multiple line order it is possible to cancel only the missing items and to accept the rest. Hemisphere is not able to do that currently.

If all of the ordered items are present in stock, the seller can accept the order and the status is changed to “Accepted”.

The next step consists of verifying the customer creditworthiness. It is done by La Redoute which can, at this stage, cancel the order for payment failure. If the customer debit fails, the order status becomes “To cancel” and then automatically “Cancelled”. Otherwise, La Redoute debits the buyer and sends him an automatic e-mail “Acceptance of the Marketplace order”. After successful retrieval of the payment detail the status of the order becomes “To ship”. If the seller chooses to cancels the order at this stage, he cannot choose the status “To cancel”. The seller has to use the status “To refund”.

If there are no problems with the order creation or anything else the seller can pick and pack the order. When this is complete, the seller has to send the “Shipped” status along with the delivery tracking information. La Redoute sends an automatic e-mail to the buyer “Shipping order e-mail”.

The shipping update must contain the following fields:

• CarrierContactInformation » which is the name of the contact carrier;
• TrackingNumber » which is the delivery tracking number of the parcel (carrier);
• TrackingURL » which is the Internet address of the delivery tracking ;

Graph 3 - Order acceptance process

8. Customer Service

All sellers are expected to meet the targets on seller performance metrics, which is crucial for La Redoute to achieve and maintain the highest level of customer satisfaction.

Metrics for evaluation: CPO (Cost per Order);

Customer complaints: not more 15%;

Negative feedback can be removed with the help of La Redoute;

1$^{st}$ line of CS is provided by the seller and always in French;

Refunds are issued by Pentagon via API (TBC);

Maximum response time for CS: 48 hours;

Maximum time for returns authorization: automatically;

La Redoute requires CS over the phone but for now we are not providing such service and we are using their phone number;

9. Account Management

La Redoute are just creating their “Seller Central” page, so there is not much to do there for now. Account manager would have to use Hemisphere and direct communication with MP to run cross-promotions.

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