Contents tagged with Commercial Card Growth

Office supply distributor appoints new CEO with emphasis on B2B sales growth
July 28, 2015
Essendant Inc., a distributor of business and industrial office supplies, announced earlier this month that it was appointing a new CEO with an eye for expanding the company's B2B ecommerce strategy and online sales.

In a conference call with shareholders, the newly appointed CEO Robert Aiken noted that one of the key strategies for the distributor going forward was "winning the shift to online." The company has already seen modest increases in its online sales just this year alone. In the first quarter, Essendant generated $283.46 million in online sales, tantamount to over 10 percent of its total sales for the quarter. In Q2, that number rose by a further 4.4 percent as total sales also increased by 1.6 percent.

To capitalize on this growth and realize even greater online … more
Why one executive thinks B2B ecommerce should take more cues from B2C
July 06, 2015
While there has always been a clear demarcation between B2B and B2C businesses — different clienteles, different products, different messaging — ecommerce has helped to slowly but surely blur those lines. Increasingly we see more B2B vendors such as manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers adopt B2C-esque approaches to how they market themselves and sell to their buyers. While not all may be convinced of the efficacy of B2C strategies for their B2B enterprise, one executive thinks that this perception may be holding back sellers from reaching their true potential.

"One of the challenges [of working with B2B sellers], honestly, is the perception that B2B is, or should be, different from B2C," Ryan Shields, CEO for the Indaba Group, recently told PYMNTS. … more
Survey: Online purchasing drives B2B merchants to buy more, become repeat buyers
July 02, 2015
Not only does B2B ecommerce provide an easier, more convenient method of purchasing for customers, it also makes them more likely to buy more and become repeat buyers, according to a new Forrester Research report.

That study, "The Case for Channel-Shifting Offline Customers Online," finds that when wholesalers, distributors and suppliers are able to migrate their offline customers onto their B2B ecommerce platform, it significantly increases their buying activity. Additionally, that report determined that 60 percent of merchants who purchase goods through multiple channels — online through the web or mobile, and offline through stores and sales reps — tend to spend more than those who simply buy through one channel. In other words, if a company opens more … more
Regulatory compliance material supplier turns to ecommerce to streamline its business
June 25, 2015
For over 60 years, family-owned J.J. Keller & Associates Inc. has sold over 6,000 workplace safety-related products to more than 420,000 businesses, 91 percent of whom are Fortune 500 companies, looking to better understand the government- and industry-set regulations and operating standards for their fields. Their products and services run the gamut of compliance manuals and online courses to preparation training for government audits involving workplace safety, transportation safety, hazardous material handling and human resources. Now the supplier is looking to take a bold new step into the ecommerce world.

Adrienne Hartman, the company's director of commerce, government and customer insights, noted at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition that … more
Medical garment manufacturer poised to double online sales
June 25, 2015
The medical garments manufacturer Medelita LLC was founded in 2008 by a physician's assistant who recognized that medical professionals both needed and wanted more comfortable outfits to wear in their work environment. Hospitals and other health care companies immediately took notice, placing large online orders with the manufacturer — so large, in fact, that the company's ecommerce site couldn't keep up.

"The site would just freeze," Dan Stepchew, Medelita's chief marketing officer and technology operations manager, tells Internet Retailer. "We'd have customers placing large orders online who would get frustrated, so they would just call in their order instead."

Not only was this frustrating for the buyers, but for the company itself, which prides its reputation on … more
Construction supplies distributor launching ecommerce site to target its offline buyers
June 18, 2015
Founded in 1981, Nefco Corp. is a construction supplies distributor that, as of last year, has grown its revenue stream by as much as $75 million, thanks to a reliable base of over 20,000 customers. Like many other B2B vendors, Nefco quickly realized the need to begin integrating a B2B ecommerce platform into its business, to open new avenues for sales and growth via online purchases. The problem: most of Nefco's 20,000 buyers place their orders through offline channels, either over the phone or through the distributor's sales reps.

"[Two years ago, we] realized we needed to start exploring ecommerce and see what that's going to mean for our business," Mickey Slater, the company's head of digital strategy, marketing and ecommerce said earlier this month at the Internet … more
Baby stroller manufacturer hopes to attract more mom-and-pop retailers with new ecommerce platform
June 17, 2015
For 50 years, Maclaren has manufactured and sold "umbrella" baby strollers to retailers. Although their aviation-grade aluminum material made the products lightweight and easy to use, the act of actually purchasing them was anything but. As Jim Ramsey, the company's global head of technology, recently told Internet Retailer, their B2B ecommerce platform simply wasn't intuitive for customers or even their own employees to use.

"We had no means of tracking customer orders," says Ramsey, though that was apparently only the tip of the iceberg. Not only was their system unable to manage customer orders, Maclaren employees also had to tediously update each of their websites separately, pass through several steps of reporting to procure sales data for a given month and field multiple requests … more
New study finds that cards are bridging the gap between paper and e-payments
June 17, 2015
A new whitepaper published by Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) finds that adopting an e-payment and commercial card program is even "easier and less complex" than some executives may believe, with cards in particular offering an intuitive way to bridge the gap between costly, inefficient paper transactions and electronic payments that offer faster returns.

While 70 percent of companies are currently making the transition from paper to electronic, card payments have emerged as a popular choice for combining "timely, real-time cash transfers [...] [that] can help save time and money" with a greater accountability over how those payments are managed, according to the SVB paper, "Take Charge: How to Successfully Plan and Deliver a Strategic E-payment and Commercial Cards Program".

As PYMNTS.com& … more
Wholesalers and manufacturers expected to outspend retailers on ecommerce solutions by 2019
June 17, 2015
With the value of B2B ecommerce steadily on the rise and anticipated to top $6.7 trillion in the next five years, manufacturers and wholesalers are ramping up their investments into ecommerce services — so much so that these companies are expected to surpass online retailers in B2B ecommerce spending by 2019.

That's according to Forrester Research analysts Peter Sheldon and Andy Hoar, who recently spoke at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition to outline the near-future of B2B ecommerce and how vendors are responding to market trends. According to Sheldon and Hoar, these platforms will provide manufacturers and wholesalers with order management, online content management and production information management features. The analysts noted that when asked about … more
Despite stiff competition, industrial supply distributor grows online sales by implementing new ecommerce platform
June 17, 2015
Ever since Amazon relaunched its B2B marketplace Amazon Supply as Amazon Business earlier this spring, B2B ecommerce executives have had to go back to the drawing board to figure out how they could compete with the industry giant. For one industrial supplies distributor, the solution was simple: getting back to their roots.

"For us it's taking 75 years of experience and staying laser focused on that," Steve Baruch, vice president of digital and strategy for MSC Industrial Supply Co., told a crowd at the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition. "For us, it's not becoming the superstore for the business world, it's about focusing on the things that create that unique value for our customers."

For MSC, this meant retooling its ecommerce platform to better cater to its … more

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Contents tagged with Commercial Card Growth