Plow the Fields and Power Digital: Tractor Supply Company Boosted by AEM

Centuries of horse pulling power plowed the fields across the world (Still to this day, there are many regions where the horse continues to help man tend fields.) But then at the closing of the 19th century, the machine overtook the mammal, lessened the burden of the beast, and boosted the productivity of agriculture with modern technology.

The tractor has come to symbolize modern farming, and plows the fields all across the United States, helping to keep the country fed. So core to agriculture, there’s a whole retail and ecommerce sector built around rural lifestyles and agricultural work.

And one of the best companies within the sector that rose to the top of the pack is the aptly named Tractor Supply Company, which is the largest rural retail chain in the US, and provides everything from home improvement products and agriculture products to livestock and pet categories. Of course, as you may have expected, the company began life in 1938 providing a mail order service for tractor parts.

Today it is the go-to retailer for farmers, with almost 2,000 stores spread across the country. So it’s no surprise that Tractor Supply Company harvested $8.3 billion in sales last year.

Yet like the entire retail industry during the pandemic, it represented a major challenge where they’d have to show a resilience to get through tough times.

So what Tractor Supply Company did was look inwards, analyze its content and design, and decided in its attempt to boost growth to utilize Adobe Experience Cloud, including the digital experience management (DXM) system of Adobe Experience Manager.

Fortunately for the company, in the last handful of years it began to develop and expand its operations to include ecommerce, options for buying online and picking up in-store – the exact solutions that became essential for all retailers during the pandemic. Fortune favors those who unknowingly strengthen their emergency lockdown ecommerce strategy without even realizing there will be a pandemic.

Shifting BOPIS to curbside pickup was simple and quick. And during Q2 of this year its total sales spiked 35% while its ecommerce surged by three-digit points.

And then Tractor Supply Company decided to double down on digital by boosting their content with Adobe, from Analytics and Target to Adobe Experience Manager.

Adobe’s suite of digital solutions means that Tractor Supply Company can now:

• Comprehend more deeply the digital shopping journey, with utilizing the insights of Adobe Analytics
• Drive deeper personalization with targeted promos and services with Adobe Target
• Build and maintain a consistent digital experience across all channels with Adobe Experience Manager

So how are Tractor Supply Company feeling about embarking on this digital adventure with Adobe? Well, here’s what their Chief Tech, Digital Commerce & Strategy Office, Rob Mills, had to say: “When our company embarked on digital transformation, we realized that shopping was no longer about supporting individual channels like in-store, web commerce, and mobile.

“The customer dictates the terms, and our job is to make their use cases feel seamless. Whether a shopper is using their mobile device in a store or leveraging curbside pickup, it all needs to have a feeling of harmony. It is a tall order, but technology partners like Adobe will help ensure we deliver and continue our trajectory of growth.”

Tractor Supply Company, by innovating over the years and continuing to do so, has found itself being a leader in CXM systems, something which other retailers – across all categories – would benefit from studying the movements of the country’s most popular rural retail chain.

PS: ArganoUV is one of the world’s leading Adobe Experience Manager tech teams. Contact us to see how we can work together.