Centralized sales management realized by GMO-PG. Supporting the growth of multi-brand e-commerce payment processing services

Pal Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Pal") is a comprehensive apparel company that develops its own brand nationwide. The company's official online store "PAL CLOSET", which focuses on fashion and miscellaneous goods, adopts the PG Multi-Payment Service of GMO Payment Gateway, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as GMO-PG). We asked about Pal's e-commerce strategy, which aims to realize a familiar e-commerce site like the "Reiwa shopping street". (Company name, position, etc. as of March 2024)

The official online store "PAL CLOSET" with more than 50 brands

PAL, whose key message is "PASSION and LOVE," operates stores nationwide, including fashion brands such as GALLARDAGALANTE and Kastane, and lifestyle goods store 3COINS.
The PAL Group began selling a wide range of items on its e-commerce site around 2010. In 2016, it was renovated and reopened as the official online store, PAL CLOSET.

Currently, PAL CLOSET has more than 50 brands, with sales reaching 20 billion yen in 2023. In addition to the convenience of being able to shop around the various brands of the Pal Group, the company's e-commerce sales have continued to grow since 2016 thanks to the app's customer delivery measures and staff's SNS dissemination.

Unified sales management desk reduces the burden of accounting work

The person in charge of PAL's web promotion strategy is Mr. Satoru Hotta, General Manager of the Promotion Promotion Department at Senior Managing Executive Officer. The company adopted GMO-PG's comprehensive online payment service "PG Multi-Payment Service" in 2016.

When switching from a mall-type e-commerce site that was used as an online sales channel to our own site, we introduced payment processing services after various considerations.

Senior Managing Executive Officer / General Manager of Promotion Promotion Department / Director of Web Business Promotion Office / Director of Communication Design Office Satoru Hotta

"Currently, Pal has a comprehensive contract with GMO-PG, except for some payment method that have been around for a long time.
By introducing a system called payment processing company in our company,
The most helpful thing is that multiple payment methods are aggregated in PG Multi-Payment Service.
Until then, I was troubled by each payment different contract documents, rules, and payment cycles. I had to deal with each method each time, and I had bitter memories of accounting-related work, such as the timing of payments occurring many times a month.
However, with GMO-PG's payment processing company system, it is very smooth and efficient to have a single contact point for inquiries, from the introduction of new payment method to the content of sales management operations.
Even if you have any questions or problems, it's nice to know where to contact."

"The daily trading volume on PAL CLOSET is huge. In addition to supporting the payment of such e-commerce sites with PG Multi-Payment Service,
refund GMO-PG Remittance Service is also available,
I think our service has made us significantly more efficient in our back-office operations." That's what GMO-PG sales Tatsuya Futaguchi says.

GMO-PG Tatsuya Futaguchi

"I feel that it is not only useful for the e-commerce business that does customer payment, but also for improving internal operations.
It is not desirable for a company to inflate day-to-day human costs due to administrative tasks such as clearing transaction amounts and managing accounts receivable. The fact that the introduction of PG Multi-Payment Service has also contributed to reducing related operations within the company will be a very important factor in the continued growth of the e-commerce business in the future."

d Payment Merpay • Added 3 new payment payment methods of auPAY

From October 2023 to February 2024, PAL CLOSET added three payment method: d Payment, Merpay, and auPAY.

"One of the reasons we considered introducing a new payment method was a request from our customers, and we also felt that the entire market was changing as QR code payment became more prevalent throughout society," says Hotta.

While adding new payment method has positive aspects, such as improving usability after implementation and acquiring new customers, it also requires a burden on both cost and man-hours, such as development for each payment method and testing processes before release. In that respect, Mr. Hotta says that he relied on GMO-PG's companionship.

"payment method In addition, Considering proposals from each payment processing business with GMO-PG I did.
When interacting with new businesses, communication costs are high. That's where I understand Pal's business and payment By using the person in charge of GMO-PG as the point of contact, we were able to proceed very smoothly from the requirement definition (Mr. Hotta)

Reducing development man-hours with "OpenAPI type"

PAL CLOSET has been developing with PG Multi-Payment Service OpenAPI types since the addition of d Payment payment.

PG Multi-Payment Service uses the
We have prepared a connection method called OpenAPI type developed with technical specifications in accordance with international standards.
It supports 12 types and 21 brands with high end-user needs, and payment method​.
The main feature of OpenAPI types is that they are
Each payment method must be grouped into three types: Pay payment, credit card payment, and cash payment.
Since each group can be organized in a common interface,
For payment method with identical groups, click
It is optimized to reduce the load on additions and modifications, and to respond flexibly to fraud detection.

"We understand the load on adding payment method and the implementation itself, but we didn't have much concern.
When considering it, we suggested that we should adopt the Pay payment payment method type.
With this connection method, the API method of Pay payment payment method is unified, so the burden of adding Merpay and auPAY and modifying it after d Payment is reduced.
We chose to adopt the OpenAPI type without hesitation."

"Depending on the merchant, it may take up to a year to implement payment method additional considerations, requirements, and implementation. With the adoption of OpenAPI types, we are able to add payment method to PAL CLOSET faster than usual, a few months.
I think it is also a great practical advantage when we have to deal with operational aspects such as version upgrades and maintenance that may occur in the future," says Daisuke Ogawa, sales director of GMO-PG.

GMO-PG Daisuke Ogawa

Mr. Hotta says that in order to provide customers with peace of mind when releasing the release, it is not possible to reduce the number of testing man-hours.

"For example, Pal is actively promoting the use of the app, so it was essential to test the app thoroughly.
Although the development part is not easy to talk about openly, it is definitely a plus for the company to be able to reduce development man-hours and improve operational efficiency by adding a loady payment method. When adding payment method this time, we were implementing it on the premise that there would be no increase in internal work or system burden.
No matter how much you read the requirements definition document or test it, irregular things may occur. In such cases, GMO-PG is a point of contact. If we add more payment method in the future, we would like to proceed in this way."

It is said that the number of merchants adding various Pay-based payment on e-commerce sites such as product sales and retail is increasing.

"Recently, we have been receiving more and more consultations based on the premise of connecting by OpenAPI type. Unlike the traditional method of developing each payment method individually, like Pal,
There are an increasing number of cases where multiple Pay-based payment method are being considered, introduced, and developed in parallel.
I feel that it is a connection method that meets the needs of merchants."

"Among them, the addition of payment method by Pal this time was a precedent in which we proceeded with the study of multiple payment method in parallel.

The awareness that "we have to grow e-commerce" leads to sales

Currently, PAL CLOSET's main customer base is mainly women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.

"The composition ratio of customers in their 20s, 30s, and 40s is almost the same, and considering the demographic distribution by age group, it can be said that women in their 20s have strong support," says Mr. Hotta.

Mr. Hotta is in charge of a wide range of PAL's in-house e-commerce business, as well as promotion, digital marketing, and CRM (customer data utilization) for each brand. We have led the e-commerce and OMO strategies that should be worked on by the entire company, such as actively disseminating social media and promoting the use of apps.

"We hope that with the addition of new payment method, we can reach the new users that each payment method has, but we don't really think it will happen anytime soon. In addition to acquiring new users in the future, it is also nice to see that the number of data that can be collected will increase.
The difficult part of e-commerce business is that you can't see the customer's face. Unlike physical stores, you can't directly hear information about what products customers are looking for and why they are buying them. We have no choice but to judge customer trends based on data, so the use of data is very important. We are still checking various data mainly on revenue growth, but we hope to make further use of it in the future to increase the resolution of customer requests and benefit each brand's strategy."

​PAL's e-commerce business, including PAL CLOSET, continues to grow sales. The growth of the e-commerce business will continue to be a core strategy, and we aim to achieve e-commerce sales of 100 billion yen in five years.

"PAL CLOSET wants to continue to be close to our customers, just like a shopping street.The continued growth in sales of e-commerce sites is also due to the increase in the number of customers who use SNS to communicate and purchase multiple brands.
I would be happy if you could start by using PAL CLOSET as an entry point for each brand, and then become a fan of PAL CLOSET."

Pal's "PASSION and LOVE". As with physical stores, Mr. Hotta wants to realize a "Reiwa shopping street" by working together with customers and staff of each brand to create and liven up the e-commerce site.

"In-house e-commerce mall-type sites such as PAL CLOSET, where our own brands are gathered, can be said to be equal to the personality of a company.

Currently, Pal's sales ratio via e-commerce site is 39.4%*, which is higher than that of other companies in the same industry, at 39.4%*, compared to other companies in EC ratio the same industry. What is the secret to this?
*From Pal Group Holdings Co., Ltd. 2nd Quarter Data for the Fiscal Year Ending February 2024

"What is important for the company's future growth is to correctly recognize that we need to grow our e-commerce as a growing market. Of course, there are multiple factors that contribute to the growth of the e-commerce ratio of e-commerce to company-wide sales. However, it is important to first grasp the current situation," says Hotta.

As of 2015, before the current PAL CLOSET, PAL's EC ratio was about 4% in the fashion sector. Recognizing that this is low compared to other companies in the same industry, he set an immediate goal of 10% e-commerce ratio and thought about how to get more customers to use it.

"One of the strengths of PAL CLOSET was that we handle multiple brands of the PAL Group. Each brand is the entrance to customers. First of all, I focused on growing each brand through e-commerce and wanted to create success stories.
If a single success story is created, it can be quickly deployed to other brands in a highly reproducible form. By doing so, we were able to continue the PDCA cycle through data analysis and communication within the brand."

(From left)GMO-PG Ogawa Pal Mr. Hotta / GMO-PG Futabuchi

PAL CLOSET has more than 50 brands. It is said that the efforts and ingenuity of the people in charge of each brand while running a small PDCA have made it possible to achieve the expansion of the e-commerce business so far.

"I think it's important for our department to only communicate the results of data analysis and direction suggestions.
Each brand will incorporate it into its own form based on the model of the success stories we have received from us. In our department, we prepare a platform that is easy for each brand to use, and on top of that, the person in charge of each brand expresses their own colors. If there is no system in place where individual brands are actively moving in this way, the e-commerce site itself will not grow.
The current style of quickly turning the PDCA cycle is also established because we have been able to improve the efficiency of internal operations by introducing PG Multi-Payment Service. I would like to continue our partnership with GMO-PG and create PAL CLOSET together with our customers and brands."