Case Study: DNA Magazine

DNA Magazine is Australia's leading gay lifestyle magazine. It is sold in over 3000 outlets around the world and has a readership in excess of 135,000. The website is also one of the most popular gay lifestyle websites in the world, with more than 200,000 registered members.

DNA Magazine has been implemented on populus for over five years. Their shop contains over 1,000 products and they have processed more than 35,000 orders, making them one of the most experienced small business eCommerce retailers in Australia.

The Brief
The initial brief was to develop a companion website that reflected the high production values of the magazine. Central to the brief was the need for a comprehensive content management solution which would enable the in-house team to manage the website themselves. The website needed to include functionality to create multiple web pages and image galleries, broadcast newsletters, and most importantly manage an online shop. 

DNA's eCommerce requriements were quite specific. In addition to the standard catclogue, eCart, and fulfilment administration system they wanted the ability to:

• sell different products to different countries at different price points;
• process payments in both US and Australian dollars; and
• manage the fulfilment of magazine subscriptions.

Our Solution 
In 2005, both the eCommerce landscape and populus were in their infancy. populus already included almost all of the web publishing and communication functionality that DNA required, but it didn't include an eCart function. Our solution was to identify the best of breed platform at the time, integrate it into populus and enhance it to meet DNA's specific requirements.

In addition to providing the functionality above, the hybrid solution we developed had some other notable features:

• the ability for a user to buy product from any page on the website, not just from within the shop catalogue;
• integration with the Verisign and PayPal payment gateways (we later added both eWay and SecurePay);
• multi-layered quantity discounts across product categories and individual products;
• discounts for buying groups (eg. a VIP club);
• gift and sales vouchers; and
• the ability to sell downloadable products.

Andrew Creagh, DNA Magazine's Founding Editor, highlights the importance of effective customer support. 'Being responsive to customer questions and queries has been central to DNA building and maintaining positive customer relationships.' according to Andrew. The DNA website uses populus' customer support component, to track and manage customer support queries.  

Over the last 5 years, DNA has successfully developed their eCommerce presence into a booming online retail business. DNA's management team understand web engagement and are continually thinking of new ways to build closer relationships with their customers. (i)mobius has worked closely with DNA to help bring these ideas to life, within budget! These initiatives include:

• an offline membership card, which was integrated into populus CRM and enabled DNA to offer special discounts to individual members;
• creation and commercialisation of paid content walls; and
• development of a web only flash magazine, Mobi.

Digital Publishing
Worth a special mention is DNA's successful entry into the digital publishing market. Before the iPad was even a glimmer in Steve Job's eye, DNA Magazine was offering digital versions of its magazine via the web to subscribers who didn't have access to the real thing. Using a combination of the Web Publishing, Access Level and eCommerce components within populus DNA was able to craft an online issue that mirrored the offline issue and offer that to subscribers through the online shop. The advent of HTML5 is expected to give DNA greater flexibility to publish an enhanced online edition of the magazine.