Guitar Center Launches New Website

Guitar Center Launches New Website

New intuitive GC web portal significantly amps up the user experience

ANNOUNCEMENT HIGHLIGHTS:

- GuitarCenter.com is now based on an updated IT platform infrastructure, creating a seamless omni-channel user interface

- The new site, GC biggest web investment in over 9 years, brings a more intuitive and beneficial experience for customers, employees and vendor partners

- Future enhancements involve native application for iOS and Android and upgrades to mobile capabilities

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 11, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Guitar Center, the world's largest instrument retailer, has launched its new redesigned website at www.guitarcenter.com. The new site offers a more seamless omni-channel user interface, along with increased scalability, stability and performance. Based on the current Oracle Commerce platform, the site now communicates more directly and efficiently with the rest of the Guitar Center enterprise - offering a more effective, intuitive and beneficial experience for customers, Guitar Center employees and vendor partners alike.

The redesign is the result of a two-year initiative that involved customer insight and user experience teams, both of whom worked together with end users and consultants, performing in-depth research on what current and future Guitar Center customers are looking for when browsing the GC site. Additionally, the teams did in-depth research on over 40 "best-practice" websites, to develop an optimized user interface regardless of browser or platform.

For the customer, the new site offers the following features: personalization of the customer's experience, improved navigation to browse store inventory, search enhancements (for instance, the ability to shop products by store radius), a product page redesign (larger images, clean layout, clear pricing and integrated video content), Services pages with enhanced content, a centralized Customer Service Center, and the ability to let customers transact with GC in the manner that best suits their needs.

Additionally, the site features an updated Vendor Portal, allowing Guitar Center to offer its vendor partners more accurate and complete product data. This portal is part of the site's larger Product Information Management (PIM) upgrade, which offers standardized product information, scalability to support significant increases in the number of products the system can manage, and consolidation of product data and internal processes to enhance efficiency.

Looking forward, future enhancements will involve native application for iOS and Android, optimization for tablet and mobile experiences, new payment options and much more.

"Guitar Center is a dynamic, fast-moving company, and Oracle Retail solutions strongly support the kind of business agility and flexibility that is so important in today's commerce anywhere environment across brands and countries," said Jill Puleri, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Retail.

"Since launching the site, the responses from both our customers and vendors have been extraordinarily positive, and we're proud to offer them an innovative and frictionless omni-channel experience," said Jeff Wisot, Vice President of Marketing and E-Commerce for Guitar Center. "Over the next five years, we have plans to continue to enhance and expand the limits of guitarcenter.com to make it as intuitive as possible while providing our customers access to our unrivalled inventory and service, both online and in our 270-plus brick-and-mortar locations."

Guitar Center's Oracle deployment also includes Oracle E-Business Suite Financials, Oracle Service Cloud and Oracle Database, which were developed and supported by AAXIS Commerce, an Oracle Partner Network (OPN) Advanced Specialized Partner for Oracle Commerce.

About Guitar Center:

Guitar Center is the world's largest retailer of guitars, amplifiers, drums, keyboards, recording, live sound, DJ, and lighting equipment. With more than 260 stores across the U.S. and one of the top direct sales websites in the industry, Guitar Center has helped people make music for more than 50 years. In addition, Guitar Center's sister brands included Music & Arts, which operates more than 140 stores specializing in band & orchestral instruments for sale and rental, serving teachers, band directors, college professors and students, and Musician's Friend, a leading direct marketer of musical instruments in the United States. With an unrivaled in-store experience, an industry-leading online presence and passionate commitment to making gear easy-to-buy, Guitar Center is all about enabling musicians and non-musicians alike to experience the almost indescribable joy that comes from playing an instrument. For more information about Guitar Center, please visit www.guitarcenter.com.

You can visit our press room at http://www.guitarcenter.com/pages/press-room and send media inquiries to media@guitarcenter.com.

About Oracle

Oracle offers a comprehensive and fully integrated stack of cloud applications and platform services. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), visit oracle.com.

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.



SOURCE Guitar Center

Guitar Center

CONTACT: FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Robert Clyne | Clyne Media, Inc. | 615-662-1616 | Robert@clynemedia.com; Sarah Chavey | ANTHEMIC Agency | 323.464.4745 x 808 | Sarah@anthemicagency.com; Syvetril Perryman | Guitar Center | 818.735.8800 x 2979 | media@guitarcenter.com; Greg Lunsford |Oracle | 650.506.6523 | greg.lunsford@oracle.com

Web Site: http://www.guitarcenter.com


-------
Profile: intent