Fab & Fix is a window and door hardware supplier based in Coventry. They have around 1000 customers ranging from sole traders such as carpenters and builders to large manufacturing businesses.
They implemented Aspin's InterSell B2B eCommerce system over the course of 2010. We spoke to Fab & Fix's marketing manager, Tom Freeman, who spearheaded the project, about the implementation.
Q: Which of InterSell's features do you find most useful?
A: InterSell enables us to show or hide promotional banners to different customers according to their account settings. This is not only handy for promoting new products but also for making customers aware of product guides. As we sell a very technical product telling customers what part fits with what, benefits them but should also help to increase sales...
We've been able to upload our entire product catalogue from our Lakeview back-office system to InterSell. InterSell also provides a comprehensive content management system and I've been able to embed a lot of YouTube content on the website along with making use of the standard WYSIWYG features it provides.
Q: What made you choose to go with Aspin and InterSell?
A: Talking to Marcus [Aspin's Business Director] and seeing Aspin's previous projects, demonstrated to me that they were capable of understanding the complexities of our business... We needed an IT provider who could cope with our future development and growth...
I chose InterSell because its 'out-of-the-box' functionality was very good... for Fab & Fix InterSell is in the sweet-spot ... it also provides a good pricing structure which most of the entry-level eCommerce systems don't have...
InterSell was also one of the few systems I found that was designed specifically as a B2B eCommerce platform. It provides a pricing structure and order-flow which is a lot more suited to our needs than the standard check-out processes offered by a lot of systems. For example, its sales order processing interface enables you to build up your order via a variety of different methods, including template ordering and fast-line order entry.
Q: Does the finished system differ from your original specification? What did you decide to do differently?
A: Over the course of the project, we completely re-worked our product catalogue, re-organising our products into three different ranges and reducing the number we offered from 5000 to a core of around 1500.
We also realised that we required greater detail in the financial information produced by InterSell than we had first specified. For example, we wanted customers to be able to see individual order lines on historic orders and invoices. At each stage, the team at Aspin were helpful and responsive... What's more they were never daunted by our changing requirements...
Originally, Aspin had only been going to develop our B2B eCommerce system but we are now working with them to develop our public website as well.
Q: What advice would you give to a business looking to implement a B2B eCommerce system?
A: When specifying your website, it's important to have a site that matches your customers' needs. We tried, where possible, to replicate our existing order processes within the new system...
You also need to be realistic about timescales... You never appreciate how much time it will take getting images and data together. It's also important to consider how your requirements will change over time and how the website will cope with the introduction of new pricing structures and products.
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