Tilley Endurables, the Toronto-based mail order clothing merchant known best for the indestructible hats designed by Alex Tilley, the company’s enterprising founder, has relaunched its catalogue site on the World Wide Web, complete with secure on-line ordering capabilities.

The result of the completion of the first of three redesign phases, the new-look Web site, located at www.tilley.com, gives potential customers around the world the opportunity to order the same variety of adventure clothing they would find in Tilley’s paper catalogue.

The site, which has actually been in existence since 1995, but without on-line transactional capabilities, also provides locator information about Tilley’s five Canadian retail outlets and its ‘retail partners’ in Canada and the u.s.

An added feature of the site is the ability it provides visitors to send a free ‘virtual’ Tilley hat to anybody in the world who has an e-mail address.

Tilley’s chief information officer, Pankaj Bhavsar, who oversees the development and maintenance of the site, says the company should begin to turn a profit on its Internet investment this year, for the first time.

When the company started publishing its 68-page catalogue on the Web, says Bhavsar, the level of activity it saw was limited to one or two catalogue requests per week. Now, he says, Tilley is averaging about six paid orders and 10 to 15 paper catalogue requests per day.

‘It’s not a huge number,’ he admits, ‘but compared to what other companies are doing, it’s almost unheard of.’

Bhavsar says the second phase of modifications to the site, which he expects to have finished within the next three months, will have the most impact on the company’s on-line profits, as it will include the introduction of an automatic on-line credit card authorization system.

‘As soon as a customer enters their credit card number and an expiry date, the information will go to a credit bureau for verification and automatically send us authorization to process or reject the transaction,’ he says, explaining that such a system will not only speed up the ordering process for customers, but will also eliminate a costly fulfilment expense for the company.

Another important feature planned for phase two of the Web site’s refurbishment, says Bhavsar, is an on-line inventory management system that will let customers know immediately whether an item they want is in stock. In addition to improving customer service, he says, an on-line inventory system should eliminate any back orders, a major headache for any traditional cataloguer.

Expecting the inventory database to be online within the next two months, Bhavsar says Tilley will then be able to assign tracking numbers to orders placed over the Net. When that happens, he explains, customers will be able to get instant status updates on their orders, much as Federal Express d’es for its courier shipments.

Other phase two site improvements will include an adventure travel ‘storyboard’ area that will guide visitors along a ‘suggestive selling’ path, in which the appropriate Tilley garment for specific travel experiences ­ such as an African jungle safari, for instance ­ will be recommended.

Bhavsar says that in line with its strategy of making the on-line shopping experience more fun and interactive for its customers, the Web site will soon feature a chatline area where customers can gather to trade travel stories and tips, and even talk to Alex Tilley himself, from time to time.

‘Alex Tilley is the key figure for us,’ says Bhavsar, pointing to a ‘Tilley cult’ that has developed among the company’s 700,000 North American customers. ‘It will create a lot of excitement when people know that Alex will be participating in the chat groups.’

The third phase of the redesign, which Bhavsar hopes to complete by early 1998, will see the introduction of audio and video clips ­ starring Alex Tilley, of course ­ within the body of the catalogue.