Contents tagged with Commercial Card Growth

Payment tech manufacturer blames low online sales on outdated ecommerce site
September 10, 2015
Just as a strong ecommerce site can boast sales and revenue growth for manufacturers, suppliers and distributors, an out-of-date and poorly optimized site can also have a serious negative impact. Just ask Panini SpA, a payment technology manufacturer that develops check processing and depositing software and hardware for banks. With locations in Turin, Sao Paolo and Dayton, Ohio, and a customer base that spans hundreds of global banks and thousands of branches worldwide, Panini certainly can't be blamed for thinking small. Yet, despite this international reach, only 5 percent of the company's sales are generated online.

As Francesco Grasso, the manufacturer's corporate marketing manager, points out, this small figure is because of the company's outdated ecommerce site. … more
Sunglasses manufacturer sets sights on B2B ecommerce after online sales skyrocket
August 19, 2015
Linda Farrow is a world-renowned designer, sunglasses manufacturer and wholesaler that produces both its own line of sunglasses and collections crafted by designers like Dries Van Noten and Matthew Williamson. The company serves approximately 2,000 wholesale clients (90 percent of their business buyer consumer base), ranging from large retail chains like Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus to smaller boutique stores.

Although headquartered in London, the United States and Asia account for some of Linda Farrow's biggest markets, making the distributor-wholesaler one with a truly global reach. At the same time, this means there's a seven-hour time difference and potential language barrier between sales representatives and clients, obstacles that drag out turnaround times for … more
Work uniform distributor switches to new ecommerce platform and sees online grow, data entry errors drop
August 19, 2015
Servicing approximately 2,000 businesses, including hospitals, banks and retirement homes, the customized uniform distributor Wildman Corporate Clothing has had a rocky relationship with B2B ecommerce in the past, but appears to have finally found its footing.

In 2007, the distributor recruited one of its own suppliers, SanMar Corporation, to build a B2B ecommerce platform for them to engage with buyers and process sales online. Wildman subsequently became a victim of its own success, so overrun with orders placed online that its new site couldn't keep up. To better accommodate this demand from their buyers, Wildman switched over to new sites created by their in-house team of developers, which required Wildman employees to add in supplier SKUs and product data into the content … more
Sewing machine manufacturer sees higher sales thanks to updated ecommerce platform
August 11, 2015
Up until a year ago, the website for sewing machine manufacturer Janome America Inc. was not performing to buyers' and distributors' expectations. The site allowed Janome's North American customers to browse its catalog of products, project examples and sewing tips, but its primary function was a marketing one. If a buyer wanted to place an order, it couldn't be done online. Even more frustrating is what the website did offer was incredibly inconsistent — the resolutions and sizes of videos and products photos varied wildly, and the manufacturer's custom project ideas and sewing tips were scattered throughout different web pages rather than collected in one convenient location.

That all changed last fall, when Janome upgraded to a new B2B ecommerce solution … more
With 95 percent of its sales processed online, Hallmark Business Connections looks to build on B2B ecommerce strategy
August 11, 2015
Hallmark may be best known for its selection of greeting cards that buyers scramble to purchase on Valentine's Day or their anniversaries, but its B2B division, Hallmark Business Connections, has quickly proven to be just as successful.

Established in 2010 by the greeting card manufacturer, Hallmark Business Connections provides two B2B ecommerce websites — HallmarkBusinessConnections.com and shop.HallmarkBusinessConections.com — that enable business buyers to "view text and video content and contact [Hallmark] specialists [...] to help plan and launch employee recognition, employee wellness and customer engagement programs [...] [or] independently set up such programs and buy physical or digital versions of cards or certificates."

This two- … more
Electronic component distributor doubles site visitors, increases conversion rate with redesigned ecommerce site
August 05, 2015
Since rebuilding the website for its e-marketplace, Arrow Electronics Inc. has seen nothing but increasing numbers.

In 2014, the global distributor — which sells more than 185 million electronic components to "the innovator, tinkerer or academic working on an individual engineering product" — generated $22 billion in revenue. Not content with that success, though, Arrow decided to retool its electronic marketplace site, Verical.com, to attract even more buyers, ranging from individual consumers to larger manufacturers. This past May, the company redesigned Verical with HTML5, making it more mobile compatible, along with adding a search and navigate feature that allows buyers to find specific products or manufacturers more easily.

The end result: … more
Boxing, fitness product distributor looks to shift 10 percent of its B2B customers online
August 04, 2015
Since 2012, Everlast Worldwide Inc. — a boxing and fitness product manufacturer, distributor and wholesaler — has operated its ecommerce platform out of Yahoo! Stores, a fact that, while saw online sales grow, limited their overall ability to keep pace with customer demand and make upgrades accordingly.

"How our web site was laid out was very, very outdated," Mike Ebert, Everlast's director of ecommerce, tells Internet Retailer. "To update the template for the front end of the web site would have been a huge investment."

Instead of creating expensive, time-consuming piecemeal updates to its site, Everlast instead decided to invest in a new B2B ecommerce solution from Magento Enterprise, which offered greater options for customization that … more
Post-It Note manufacturer aims to double online sales with hybris ecommerce solution
August 03, 2015
Perhaps best known for its Post-It Notes and company motto, "3M Science. Applied to Life," the high-tech industrial and scientific product manufacturer 3M has proven itself to be a wildly successful player in the B2B ecommerce world. For a decade, the company has used its own in-house B2B ecommerce platform to manage and process its online sales. In 2013, this channel represented 22 to 25 percent of its total sales output, tantamount to $7 to $8 billion in revenue. Despite this success, though, 3M has set an even loftier goal for itself in the coming years and needs a new ecommerce solution to reach it.

That's why, after a decade of use, 3M is abandoning its in-house platform for a new B2B ecommerce solution developed by hybris Software. With the new platform, dubbed "bCom," 3 … more
Industrial supply distributor attributes 40 percent of sales to ecommerce
July 30, 2015
Last month the industrial and business supply distributor W.W. Grainger established itself as a B2B powerhouse after claiming the first-ever "B2B Ecommerce Player of the Year" award. Just a few short weeks later, the company has proven yet again that the award was well-deserved, with a new report attributing a whopping 40 percent of its sales for the first half of 2015 to ecommerce.

On Friday, July 17, Grainger released its second-quarter earnings, revealing that its ecommerce channel had accounted for 40 percent of total sales made between January and June. Not only is this tantamount to an impressive $1.6 billion in revenue, but marks a significant increase over this same six-month stretch last year, which saw ecommerce comprise 35 percent of total sales, worth $1.36 … more
Online sales success prompts firefighter, military equipment manufacturer to upgrade ecommerce platform
July 30, 2015
Since it was founded in 1908, the family-owned manufacturer W.S. Darley & Co. has sold firefighter and military equipment to a wide range of B2B buyers including fire departments, government agencies and truck manufacturers. For over 90 years, these sales were conducted through paper catalogs, but in 1999 W.S. Darley made the jump to the ecommerce space with two new websites. Each site was specialized to sell exclusively either firefighter or defense equipment. The latter in particular proved successful almost immediately — as Internet Retailer notes, when the company shifted its 4,000 military product SKUs onto their website, sales skyrocketed to account for 50 percent of their total online revenue.

Sixteen years later, 20 percent of W.S. Darley's B2B … more

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Contents tagged with Commercial Card Growth