Background to Intro 2020
Based in Maidenhead Berkshire, Intro 2020 has been importing and distributing photo, optical and video products for almost 50 years. As the sole importer and distributor of 16 major brands, it supplies leading retailers throughout the UK and Ireland, including many notable names such as Amazon, John Lewis, Jessops, London Camera Exchange, Wex Photo Video and many more.
Intro 2020 had an existing B2C website which was run in tandem with its Sage 200 software. Without integration, setting the products up in Sage and then duplicating the product details on the website proved very time-consuming. The area sales representatives faxed orders in daily, which then had to be transcribed and input into Sage. Everything was double-checked by the internal sales team who then processed the orders. Keith Ruffell, Director & General Manager explains, “Whilst we had good procedures in place to ensure accuracy, there was a lot of potential for errors”.
Intro 2020 objectives
- To grow its B2B online presence enabling it to compete more effectively.
- Provide the area sales reps with more efficient tools for their job and real-time information about stock and new products.
- Increased merchandising and order-taking opportunities.
Keith and his team began to explore affordable, out-of-the-box solutions that would integrate with Sage 200.
Having shortlisted three eCommerce solutions, Keith was confident Intellisell was the right choice for the business. “Once I saw the demo and spoke to the Intellisell team, I was confident they could deliver what I was looking for in a timely manner. I felt we would have a strong, long-term partnership.”
Customers embraced the new order facility
It’s almost five years since Intro 2020 went live with Intellisell. Having done a good deal of market research on competitors and with customers, Intro 2020 was pleased to see that customers embraced the new order facility and within only 3 months of go live, more than 20% of its customers were onboard. To date, 80% of its regular customers place their orders via Intellisell.
Intellisell is a dynamic B2B website, populating the stock and products directly from Sage. Keith describes the simplicity of adding new products to its portfolio: “We add the basic details on Sage, place the purchase order with the supplier and before it arrives in stock all of the content is uploaded into Sage and synchronised with our Intellisell websites”.
Easy to navigate and very intuitive, Intellisell has a simple search function and a quick buy facility from the homepage, where Intro 2020 can take advantage of the solution’s flexibility by providing the dealers with details of promotions, new products and specially discounted items.
The benefits Intro 2020 has experienced
- Accessible 24/7/365 days a year, with Intro 2020 customers having the ability to check stock, access information about new products, view images, and specifications, download price lists and reports and see delivery due dates on backorders.
- Customers can also view their account balance, copy invoices, statements and order confirmations all in one place.
- Several of Intro 2020’s large customers have the facility to do mass downloading from Intellisell to Excel. It lists all of the products, data fields, codes, short and long descriptions, features and prices and enables them to submit their orders on a CSV file, which in turn can be uploaded directly into Intellisell and Sage 200.
- Together with the B2B website, this has made it possible for Intro 2020 to reduce the number of people in the sales office and eliminated any re-keying errors.
“Intellisell has helped keep our customers more informed and has provided more transparency and more confidence in our products and our ability to supply them”, explains Keith.
The sales reps can now process an order more efficiently as they can input orders directly for their customers, either onsite with the dealer or over the phone. Keith explains, “The rep logs in as a ‘staff’ user, then they can log in as their customer as a second layer. Intellisell has written a bespoke piece which attaches the rep’s dealers to their account so they can only see their own customers, ensuring that confidential information isn’t disclosed across the sales team”.
Since implementing Intellisell
Intro 2020 has seen an uplift in orders. “We regularly receive orders at weekends and evenings which we would never have done before. The customer comes into a shop and wants to buy a special lens and the dealer hasn’t got it in stock, they place the order and it can be with them early the following week. If a dealer knows they can order the goods and receive them the next day without having to wait for the rep to go and visit them, we will naturally receive orders, where a competitor could previously have got in there first”, explains Keith.
Operatives on the shop floor have been able to take advantage of logging into Intellisell as a guest user to access and query product information and availability without having all of the financial information. Intellisell has saved time referencing queries back to the sales office from its busy Berkshire warehouse.
Keith concludes: “I’m more than happy with Intellisell. Since we went live we’ve done quite a lot of bespoke development, the solution is very flexible so we’re constantly updating and refreshing it. The Intellisell team is very easy to work with and we get a very personal service, they respond quickly to our queries and requests. Moreover, I can confidently say that we’ve seen increased revenues since implementing Intellisell”.
