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  Marty Samuels in his office yesterday at Quiksilver headquarters in Huntington Beach.

I swung by Quiksilver headquarters yesterday to talk to several executives about the new Quiksilver.com marketing and ecommerce website that debuted early this morning.

Marty Samuels, president of Quiksilver Americas, said the company learned from the bumps in Roxy website launch, including online dealers not being prominently featured, and made adjustments for the Quiksilver site.

Some of the key features include a navigation bar on every page that gives consumers several options for buying: on the Quiksilver website, online affiliates, and brick-and-mortar stores.

The goal is to drive more sales overall, no matter where the sales occur.

“We want to give customers all the options to buy in whatever format they want,” Marty said. “We are not trying to hog the whole deal for ourselves.”

Marty said the ecommerce site is important because he believes Quiksilver and the action sports industry in general do not do as good of a job as it could supplying demand. If customers go to a store, including a Quiksilver store, they might not find the right size or color in an item they want. “It’s challenging for retailers and for our own retail team” to order just right, he said.

“A lot of business gets missed,” Marty said.

Marty said that sales on the Roxy site prove the thesis that there is unmet demand out there.

I asked Marty if the Roxy site is meeting plan, and he said the numbers they chose for the plan were a shot in dark because it was untested waters for the company. In the beginning, the site was not hitting the numbers but in the last four or five months, the site is on plan.

“We’re very pleased,” he said.

Here are some ecommerce and marketing features on the revamped Quiksilver website.

 

• A navigation bar at the top of every page with the following categories: “Sites, Shop, Find a store, Online dealers.” The “sites” category lists mini sites for the sports Quiksilver is involved in and for Quiksilver women.

 

• The online dealer section breaks out the dealers by merchandise category based on which retailers have the most robust merchandise selection in that category. It also lists the online dealers URL.

 

• The store locator section is very detailed. Based on a viewer’s Zip Code, it lists the stores nearby with address, phone numbers, URLs if the store has a robust website, and store hours. The order that stores appear is based on distance to the Zip Code. Quiksilver stores do not appear first if they are not the closest. The retailers listed are only the best accounts that represent the brand well, said Dave Rosenberger of Quiksilver.

 

• When a viewer wants to buy a product, there’s a tag that appears that says “See if this is available at your local store?” With an option to click in store availability. Then a list of stores near the viewer appears that have been shipped the product in the past 90 days. The site then recommends the viewer call the store to make sure it still has the item and provides the phone number, address, and store URL if it has an online business.

 

• On the marketing side, each sport culture now has its own mini site with team rider profiles, videos, audio clips, photos, blogs and other interactive elements.

 

• The marketing campaigns are more focused. The homepage promotes the Young Guns boardshort series, which is also being promoted in store windows and in magazines. In some cases, viewers can click on different items team riders are wearing to buy the merchandise.