"The beauty of linking in with our Sage system means that if we sell out of a product, it shows on the website and tells customers when more stock is due in. They can see what they’ve ordered and when it will be dispatched."
Ravensden develop online sales with Intellisell
Objectives
- Ravensden wanted to provide their customers with an alternative method of ordering that was fast and reliable, to showcase its wide product range, maximise cross-selling and up-selling opportunties and to find an easier way to take orders from customers at trade shows and events.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
What We Did
With such a broad range of products in Ravensden’s portfolio, the company relied heavily on product catalogues, personal visits and samples to promote the stock both at trade exhibitions to existing and new customers. Producing specific brochures for different market segments was not only costly but time consuming and didn’t always prove to be successful. The existing website gave a flavour of the range and provided clients with the option of ordering by telephone, fax, email or post. However, with the business having experienced a period of organic growth, the time was right to offer customers an alternative ordering and product search solution.
Michael Papé, Director, explains “Not only did we want to offer our customers the option of ordering online, but we wanted to be able to showcase our extensive range of products to both existing and potential customers. We have looked at a number of ecommerce solutions over the years but critically we wanted a system that linked into our Sage 1000 solution to avoid any duplication of work.” “We had been thinking for a while about giving the customers a portal to search the products in a more user friendly way. We saw a demonstration of Intellisell at the CPiO Customer Conference and indentified that it would be a cost effective way to display stock and pricing and give our customers an alternative way to place an order.
A number of our customers are internet savvy and happy to order online. Furthermore, Intellisell offers us a different way to engage with our customers as we can also log into Intellisell as the customer and create an order as they walk around our showroom or trade show stand.”
Intellisell is a true business to business ecommerce solution and has total integration with Ravensden’s Sage 1000 business software. Customers across the world view the product range, check stock and order securely at any time of the day or night.
Michael Papé, Director, explains “Not only did we want to offer our customers the option of ordering online, but we wanted to be able to showcase our extensive range of products to both existing and potential customers. We have looked at a number of ecommerce solutions over the years but critically we wanted a system that linked into our Sage 1000 solution to avoid any duplication of work.” “We had been thinking for a while about giving the customers a portal to search the products in a more user friendly way. We saw a demonstration of Intellisell at the CPiO Customer Conference and indentified that it would be a cost effective way to display stock and pricing and give our customers an alternative way to place an order.
A number of our customers are internet savvy and happy to order online. Furthermore, Intellisell offers us a different way to engage with our customers as we can also log into Intellisell as the customer and create an order as they walk around our showroom or trade show stand.”
Intellisell is a true business to business ecommerce solution and has total integration with Ravensden’s Sage 1000 business software. Customers across the world view the product range, check stock and order securely at any time of the day or night.
Results
Within three months of using Intellisell, Ravensden has seen a benefit to the business - 13% of the orders received were generated on line. Those customers using Intellisell completely bought into it and generally increased the range of products that they ordered. Additionally they found that a number of customers were using the site to check stock and search for new products prior to ordering by the more traditional methods.
Ravensden customers have a fully searchable, pictorial catalogue and they can see the entire range of products and check availability by choosing to search by stock code or product. The Sage based Intellisell product has a powerful content management system which enabled Ravensden to create a product catalogue, complete with pictures which can easily be updated by Ravensden staff. Michael explains. “The beauty of linking in with our Sage system means that if we sell out of a product, it shows on the website and tells customers when more stock is due in. They can see what they’ve ordered and when it will be dispatched.”
Orders received via Intellisell don’t have to be manually keyed into the system, saving Ravensden time and improving the level of accuracy.
The system has proved invaluable internally as well. Michael explains, “With such a broad product range sometimes it is easy to miss a particular product when speaking to a customer. With the search facility you can type in the name of the animal you are interested in and make sure you provide information on every relevant product.”
Ravensden have taken the system a step further and increased the utilisation by using iPad’s at a major industry trade show, The Spring Fair in Birmingham. Michael explains, “By setting up Wi-Fi on our stand we were able to use iPad’s to take orders and deal with enquiries. Not only did this give us the opportunity to showcase the products face to face with clients it also looked much more professional than using the old handwritten order forms. An added bonus was that the orders did not have to be manually inputted into our Sage system.”
Ravensden customers have a fully searchable, pictorial catalogue and they can see the entire range of products and check availability by choosing to search by stock code or product. The Sage based Intellisell product has a powerful content management system which enabled Ravensden to create a product catalogue, complete with pictures which can easily be updated by Ravensden staff. Michael explains. “The beauty of linking in with our Sage system means that if we sell out of a product, it shows on the website and tells customers when more stock is due in. They can see what they’ve ordered and when it will be dispatched.”
Orders received via Intellisell don’t have to be manually keyed into the system, saving Ravensden time and improving the level of accuracy.
The system has proved invaluable internally as well. Michael explains, “With such a broad product range sometimes it is easy to miss a particular product when speaking to a customer. With the search facility you can type in the name of the animal you are interested in and make sure you provide information on every relevant product.”
Ravensden have taken the system a step further and increased the utilisation by using iPad’s at a major industry trade show, The Spring Fair in Birmingham. Michael explains, “By setting up Wi-Fi on our stand we were able to use iPad’s to take orders and deal with enquiries. Not only did this give us the opportunity to showcase the products face to face with clients it also looked much more professional than using the old handwritten order forms. An added bonus was that the orders did not have to be manually inputted into our Sage system.”
