B2C ecommerce specialist Iconography is now working with B2B clients to help raise the bar.
‘With our background in B2C ecommerce, working with furniture retailers such as Fishpools, Aldiss, Glasswells and Cookes, we are sometimes taken aback with the gap between B2C and B2B ecommerce platforms – both in terms of platform functionality and client-side expectations of what an ecommerce website can deliver,’ says Wayne Robbins, Iconography director.
‘Recently an experienced ecommerce manager who had moved from furniture retailing, using our platform, into B2B ecommerce was looking to seriously overhaul the ecommerce operation. Having worked with us for more than a decade he called us in to help move ecommerce operations forward by building a new website on our INTUS B2B ecommerce platform. We asked about some of the main day-to-day issues he wanted resolved and these included high costs of pay-per-click that were impacting the company, so improving site SEO could allow them to reduce this cost; the incumbent agency taking too long or charging too much for small changes on the website as the company struggled to access and make changes to the website; and having to pay for issues created by outsourced experts.
‘There were further issues with integration to on-site legacy systems and ERP systems posing a risk of disconnecting and shutdowns. He wanted a flexible platform to help grow and keep up with trends in a profitable manner. Some the main initial benefits of using us were a significant reduction in costs; an improved user experience for both customers and back-end users by making it easier to make changes on the website, and the flexibility of INTUS allowing the constant changes that were needed to be made using the content management system.
‘We got to know the company and found a way to fit with it – rather than the other way around – by providing custom bespoke coding. This saw a four-fold increase in profitability. We spent a lot of time on-site, learning about the company and its processes before offering a solution. We worked alongside multiple decision makers and board members to ensure the message and effectiveness of the ecommerce solution, resulting in a robust, reliable and feature rich platform which is fit for purpose and very easy for people to learn, removing the need for lots of experience to be able to jump in and use the systems.
‘We were able to make changes in a couple of hours, rather than a couple of weeks with previous solutions: this is key in a fast and changing industry where pricing, stock or offers need to be updated quickly.
‘We will be at the January Furniture Show – in Hall 1 on stand G25 – where we hope to meet with furniture and interiors-focused retailers, manufacturers and wholesalers.’
