Customer

A Fast Way To Trade, 24/7

Like your business, your customers are unique and dynamic businesses with different trading habits. Most often they are time poor and need answers quickly in order to pursue their commercial objectives. Furthermore, they may be too busy during the day and prefer to browse and place orders outside of business hours. Waiting for emails, waiting in phone queues, waiting for responses often frustrates customers and may lead to giving up and going elsewhere.

Therefore, the option to go online and trade using your Live eCommerce Online Store allows your customers to instantly communicate and work with your business any time of the day without ever needing to pick up the phone or send out an email. This in turn increases customer satisfaction and reinforces their perception of your company as a valuable supplier.

Finders Keepers

For most businesses, finding and sourcing the right supplier is a time consuming process and the same applies to your company. At the simplest level, they need to find you, then determine if you sell the products they need, if you have the expertise to back those products, whether you can deliver to them and within a desirable timeframe, what reputation you have in the marketplace and finally what arrangements can be struck that is commercially viable to both parties.

Your Live eCommerce Content Managed Website will greatly assist potential customers in their ability to find and evaluate your business. Once they find you through either offline promotion material (brochures, referral, ad campaign) or online (search engines, forums, links from another site, email etc), they will visit your website and establish their first impression of your company. They will begin by examining the presentation of your business, browse your product catalogue (priced or unpriced), learn about the range, brands or services offered and ultimately make a decision to enquire and establish a commercial relationship.

A Web User Account For Everyone

In most cases, larger customers may have several personnel placing orders with you at any given point in time. For instance, one of your customers may have personnel placing orders from 5 different locations such as their retail stores or warehouses in different states. In your system, you have setup the customer as a single debtor account with different delivery locations. It is imperative for your customer that the personnel in each location can trade and place orders independently of the other.

The Live eCommerce Online Store enables you to setup an unlimited number of unique web user accounts assigned to a single debtor account in your accounting system. Each web user has their own shopping cart and personalized items so that they can login and order completely independent of one another. In the example above, you would allocate 5 web user accounts for each location. As each web user proceeds through the Checkout process, they are asked to nominate the delivery location which is sourced from the debtor account in the accounting system. The delivery address and order details are posted as part of the order that is submitted live into the accounting system.

A Catalogue Browsing Experience Like No Other

Helping your customers find their desired product in your catalogue in the least amount of time with the least amount of clicks will keep them coming back for more. This is particularly important for large inventories.

The Live eCommerce Online Store comes with a multi-inventory-field keyword search facility. Search results are ranked similar to that of search engines. The default search profile is configured to search on product code and short description which also includes partial keyword searching. Partial keyword searching ensures that customers will find products if they drop an ‘s’ off a plural word or if they know the start of a product code.

Better still, the search profiles can be modified or new one created. For instance, you may want the default search profile to search on product code, description and a custom inventory field in your accounting system containing the products brand.

Additionally, the Live eCommerce Online Store allows customers to browse your catalogue by navigating your category tree either visually or through text labels. Furthermore, category level detailed descriptions can assist customer identify with the products sold in the category.

Compile Orders Over Time

Often companies have various trading rules. Minimum order total must be greater than X or, freight will apply for orders less than Y. These rules enable you to offer the solutions and services that customers value. Unfortunately these rules mean that customers must change their habits and behaviour in order to derive the best value from your distribution framework.

Alternatively, customers place orders according to their own agendas. This may be related to cashflow, stock movement, demand cycles, available space etc.

Whatever the motive, the Live eCommerce Online Store allows customer to compile orders over time. This means their shopping cart lives forever. Inventory and pricing are always maintained and up-to-date every time the customer logs in. The net effect is they can build orders as they go and submit them when they are ready. They do not need to maintain separate order lists that often go amiss nor do they need to place small orders regularly that compound their freight budgets.

If Its Not There, Can You Find Me One?

If your customer cannot find a particular product they wish to source from you in your online catalogue, there is a risk that the customer goes elsewhere. Instead, the Live eCommerce Online Store has a “Cant Find What Your Looking For” facility which allows customers to describe the product they cannot find which upon submitting is sent to you as an email.

This demonstrates flexibility and willingness on your part to go above and beyond which is surely to impress. Furthermore, you save your customer time from needing to go elsewhere.

Obtain Detailed Product Information

The Live eCommerce Online Store allows customers to review extensive product details and optionally view images and download attachments containing spec sheets etc. Customers will also observe and take advantage of products with various flags such as On Special, New Release or flags custom which are displayed in the search listings also.

Take Advantage of Latest Promotions

Flagged items allows customer to identify products on promotion in search listings and product details pages. In early 2009, eSITE.CONNECT will release the new Web Marketing module which allows customers to receive promotional offers via email or SMS and login to the website and take advantage of special deals. Promotion Campaigns can be configured in different ways and may even require special access through VIP/Promo codes.

Review Up-To-Minute Pricing & Stock Availability

Most businesses particular wholesalers or those that trade with other businesses have account specific pricing configured in their accounting system. There may be several layers of pricing such as the price level, account and category level discounts and customer specific contracted prices.

Once logged in, the Live eCommerce online Store will display the customers’ specific pricing as configured in your accounting system. Additionally, customers often want to know how much stock is available. There are many different configurations to achieve this depending on how transparent you would like to present stock information from stock indicators on search listings to Live backorder checks based on quantities added to cart. This means customers can learn that their desired quantity of an item is not available and then they can choose an alternative product. This saves your customer time as they do not need to wait on the phone enquiring on their pricing or stock availability.

Simple and Quick Order Submission

The Live eCommerce Online Store has a very intuitive Checkout process. Customers can set order specific details such as a purchase order reference, delivery address or detailed instructions such as “Please deliver to reception”. Customers can choose from their allowed payment methods configured in their customer card such as Pay on Account or Credit Card.

They finally review/print a copy of their purchase order, confirm the Terms and Conditions and simply submit their order. If they nominated to pay by credit card, they will be prompted to enter their card details and a Live transactions will take place which immediately debits their card. Once payment has successfully completed, the web order is submitted Live to your accounting system and a confirmation receipt sent to the customer containing the Web Order Reference No.

A Briefcase Of Goodies

For customers logged into the B2B wholesale Online Store interface, they can access the My briefcase facility which contains various personalized facilities such as:

Shopping Lists, Contracts, Favourites, My Most Ordered products for quick list based reordering.
12 Month online order history for reviewing or reordering.
Live Account Enquiry displaying the customers MYOB account:
- Review Account Balance and check their On Hold status.
- Review/Pay Outstanding Invoices Online.
- Browse transaction history.
- View current orders and reprint historic invoices.
Personal web user account manager with the option to create peer users.
Feedback form for sending feedback enquiries.

Even Accounts Payable Have Smiles

The Live eCommerce Online Store B2B Account Enquiry Module will save your customers accounts departments time by allowing them to review and reprint outstanding invoices and examine their transaction history. Furthermore, accounts personnel can nominate outstanding invoices and Pay Online via Credit Card or Direct Deposit (BPAY and Paypal are coming soon).

Ship Goods To A Customer’s Customer

For customers who are resellers, you may offer a service so they can request goods to be drop shipped directly to their customer without an invoice. This saves your customer handling and freight fees.

The Live eCommerce Online Store Drop Shipment Module allows the reseller to request the order to be drop shipped during the checkout process.

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