Crafting an Online Network

On a recent visit to an online forum, Jon Provisor was surprised to discover that there were so many different ways to glue magnets onto paper dolls. But not as surprised as he was to see the forum -- part of the arts and crafts social commerce website at www.acmoore.com -- gain more than 2,000 registered users within a couple of hours of its launch.

"What we've been able to do is give these people who are passionate about their interests an outlet," says Provisor, co-owner and CTO of Guidance, the e-commerce solution provider that helped A.C. Moore design and build the site. "It almost seems like it was pent up, and that's really exciting. This is a lot more than just a product to them: it's a craft, an activity, a way of life, and the forum allows them to express that."

And the forum is only the "tip of the iceberg" of what's going on with the site, which transitioned from simply informational to e-commerce in October 2007; the forum was added last summer.

"It all works with the fulfillment center and inventory, allows returns and ties in to the general ledger, too," Provisor says. "That took a lot of heavy lifting to get it right."

But A.C. Moore was ready. Senior vice president/CIO Dennis Hodgson, who had worked with Guidance while at another company, brought the vendor on board as soon as everything was in place to make the shift from a static site.

A.C. Moore CEO Rick Lepley "is extremely supportive of the e-commerce opportunity and really encourages me to stay out front on the cutting edge," Hodgson says. "From the outset, the concept was to build up more of a community-based site, a place where people were driven to look at projects and to comment on products, so the natural progression was to go to a forum after that. This is a very, very talkative group. They love to express themselves any way they can, and share their ideas with each other. Really, it's amazing how much they're online talking."

Even before adding e-commerce capabilities, the site was drawing seven million distinct users annually. At first, Hodgson says, the idea was to drive the forum and sales through streaming video: When it came time to match previous project videos to products currently being offered, however, A.C. Moore discovered that some were outdated.

The evolution of the project, then, led to a forum that includes not only folders for individual project categories, but also an A.C. Moore Cafe area for general questions, contests and non-specific chat, and the Crafting with Robin section, which includes project ideas from an official crafting expert.

And then there's Ask A.C. Moore Boy, through which customers have access to top brass. Though many companies have management that monitors website activity, discussions and comments on a background basis, A.C. Moore's management team jumps into conversations and makes itself available to the brands' dedicated customers.

"We thought we needed to get closer to our customers," Hodgson says. "It can be tough to relate when you're not on the sales floor. We wanted more information about our customers, and the ability to understand how they want to shop our site and our stores."