Boosting Performance at Your Webstore
One of the most sought after answers is how do you get performance at your webstore front? Most distributors don’t have good enough data in their ERP systems to run a webstore. So the question becomes how do you build that data, gain trust and increase your sales at your webstore front? We reached out to Stacey Pandeloglou whom we’ve have known for a number of years. His comments as a quest author are shown below. But first a word about the Tech Vision Series of posts.
Electrical Trends’ Tech Vision Series continues…
We continue to reach out to various developers and suppliers of ERP software, functional bolt on software for onsite and in the Cloud offerings. No comment is made about the offering as you interact with various authors. In this issue we look at how do distributors change their “funky” ERP data to enrich it and add pictures, so Internet customers can buy from them. Developing a good webstore in today’s market place is very demanding as a certain percent of sales will move to the Internet.
The issue at your webstore front
Managing the enriched product content needed to drive a best in class web commerce experience has become the defining issue for wholesale distributors wanting to take web commerce seriously. Electrical distributors of all sizes understand that some portion of their business will move to the web for sales, support, quoting and estimating.
Information needed
To obtain the full advantages of selling over the web (typically higher margins), distributors must provide the level of information needed for an informed buying decision. Without that rich data and an excellent search experience (to quickly find the wanted product), a B2B website will not perform well. Buyers (contractors, service providers) need to make certain the product meets their specification before they will purchase online.
Distributor focused
There are many sources for good content, but there are not many distributor focused solutions for managing, editing and sharing the data and driving the intelligent search experience at a webstore front.
About Second Phase
Second Phase, a leading firm in providing customer portals and webstores to wholesale distributors since 2004, has heard from their over 110 distribution customers (all have been Eclipse distributors and they are now integrating with INFOR distributors) and have developed a must-have list of requirements to help solve the data management issue (their number 1 need):
• Must manage the data collection process from all the typical sources for distributors, including data service companies (such as Trade Service and IDEA), vendor provided data, and a distributors’ PIM entered data on a daily basis, which augments the data with real time pricing and availability from the distributors’ ERP software.
• Provide an open source data repository that can be used in different ways by each branch and allow data sharing across groups (e.g., buying groups).
• Provide a very easy to use Product Information Management (PIM) tool for conducting mass edits of the data, configuring auto data imports, setting security on data (private or shared), adding new product data/images/documents, and indexing data for intelligent search capabilities.
• Able to be implemented at the buyer’s group level so every member can add to and access data from a master catalogue that benefits everyone. (“We understand Second Phase and Trade Service collaborated to develop a 330,000 item catalogue for IMARK with over 40 distributor initially committing.”)
• Hosting on a real time scalable service that optimizes speed and security at all times.
• Provides intelligent search features to quickly help the customer “narrow their search”
• Works directly with Customer Portal Solution and other webstores, third party software, and mobile apps needing product data through an industry standard REST API connection.
David Gordon is President of Channel Marketing Group, which helps manufacturers and distributors accelerate sales generation and gain insights through channel strategy, marketing planning and market research initiatives. He can be reached at 919.488.8635 or dgordon@channelmkt.com.
Allen Ray is an experienced business owner/negotiator and consultant who supports manufacturers, distributors and others in the distribution channel with accelerating growth and generating more through put with greater profits for business owners.He can be reached at 817.271.0236 or allen@allenray.com
More in CEW by David Gordon:
Innovation Takes Culture, Not Only Books: Part 1
Innovation Takes Culture, Not Only Books: Part 2
Selling Lighting or Selling Data?
Is it Time to Hit the Reset Button?
Amazon Upgrades from Supply to Business
Evolving the Role of Marketing Within Your Distributorship
Strategies in Light Observations: Distributor LED Opportunities
Are You Ready To Sell LEDs Differently?
16 Distribution Industry Trends for 2016
Lighting the Way to Demand Creation
Converting Emails Into Sales Through Thoughtful Communications
Learning from Amazon and Generating Ideas
Turning Your Staff into a Competitive Advantage
Sales and Marketing – How Can Joint Sales Calls Become More Effective
Creating Demand to Drive Profitable Growth
Is Your Company a Kool-Aid Drinker?
What Manufacturers (and Their Reps) Don’t Know About Distributor Joint Sales Calls
