ESW Case Study
WIZARDS OF THE COAST.
About WIZARDS OF THE COAST
Wizards of the Coast (WotC), a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc., is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes.
WotC popularised the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, and further increased its success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game.
The Challenge
In May 2019, WotC introduced a highly-anticipated special collector’s edition of Magic: The Gathering. 12,000 units of the exclusive War of the Spark set were to be sold in a flash sale on the eBay marketplace. The event’s traffic surge disrupted eBay’s inventory controls and in just five minutes, demand had oversold supply by almost five times – requiring refunds to more than 30,000 collectors.
The Solution
WotC turned to ESW for its expertise and capability in producing flawless flash sales. ESW’s ecommerce engine serves as the perfect complement to the awareness and anticipation that accompanies WotC new product releases. Store features enabled an immersive customer experience with games, continuity marketing and bundling.
With the turnkey infrastructure to support the large audiences WotC draws on a short turnaround, ESW has executed nine additional WotC’s launches across the US, Canada and the EU.
ESW now supports the high-volume, high velocity flash sales that WotC needed with expanded global reach including fast and safe international shipping with DDP and secure localised payment options on all stores.
ESW launched the WotC employee flash sale site on Dec. 2, 2020 with exceptional speed—developing and deploying a full store in three territories in just three weeks. Combining fulfillment integration and customer care services, the unique domain was expertly tailored to WotC’s custom requests.
ESW WAS ABLE TO LOCALISE EACH MARKET
IN THE FOLLOWING WAYS:
Countdown timer to event
Pre-purchase and backorder feautures
Subscriptions for notifications of events or future updates
Bundling offers
Free digital games
Customer queue for entrance of the site
ESW as Merchant of Record
Ecommerce the way it should be
A complete direct-to-consumer and marketplace ecommerce solution live in weeks, not months
- Feature-rich architecture plugs into your back-end or front-end systems
- Merchant and Seller of Record to ease compliance
- Shared success model for predictable costs