Success Spotlight

Dreams Retail, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dreams, Inc. (NYSE: DRJ), is a leading online retailer of sports licensed product and memorabilia specializing in officially licensed high-end apparel and autographed sports memorabilia. After 29 years in business, Dreams is a leading company in the field of not only e-commerce, but also franchising, retail brick and mortar, wholesale and manufacturing and sports marketing. In conjunction with the success of its flagship brand FansEdge and the growth of its extraordinary Web platform, Dreams Retail has grown its online revenue from $4 million in revenue in 2003 to nearly $50 million in 2008. They are among the best retailers online, having been recognized as #216 on the prestigious Top 500 online retailers.

Dreams Retail came to Amadeus Consulting as it was experiencing unparalleled growth, and approached us because of our reputation with building platforms and large e-commerce sites. Though Dreams employs its own talented team of developers with the extensive ability to build its own sites, Dreams Retail wanted to also leverage Amadeus Consulting's knowledge and resources to tackle the opportunities that were ahead of them.

Dreams Retail needed to build a syndication platform to support its sites. As the company was looking to continue this growth, it needed to change from its existing solution that included several bases, to find one solid form that could support many sites. Because Dreams Retail grew organically and through acquisition, it required a unified structure that would merge all of its combined individual properties. Not only would a unified code improve the consistency of its sites, it would also be faster to create new sites and save valuable internal resource time and expense.

Previously the client used independent code and databases, which hindered its continued growth. Amadeus Consulting, using our e-commerce and platform knowledge, built Dreams Retail a code base that allowed the company to have a consistent structure, and allow the ability to modify the structure to its specific needs.

The platform included a robust database to support large amounts of customers, and multilayer navigation that allowed for ease-of-use and faster access for users. The Microsoft .NET platform, with its enterprise architecture, allowed Dreams Retail a large and highly efficient database to use for its increasing customer base. As an example of its volume, FansEdge.com and its affiliate sites received 15,918 online orders amounting to more than $1.03 million in a single day during the 2008 Christmas holiday season.

Additionally, the platform boasts integration with multiple payment processors including credit card and Pay Me Later. Dreams Retail customers can also be assured through Fraud Detection integration that their information is safe when using FansEdge, Pro Sports Memorabilia, Field of Dreams, or any other sites in its family of sites.

The new syndication platform has enabled Dreams to expand its reach online, and has been used with several of its affiliated sites. The platform now supports over 50 syndicated sites and Dreams is continually adding new sites. Even though the site supports a wide array of features, a new syndication (co-branded) site can be brought online in a matter of days, a task that used to take a team of people weeks to complete.

The project was successfully deployed February 2007.