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sales tell you who you work for,

gross profit tells you who works

for you, but net profit tells you

what works—period.”

John Campbell, director of

corporate solutions for distribu-

tor HALO Branded Solutions in

Sterling, Illinois, says his firm’s

clients are most often looking for

stores that can fulfill B2B

requests for employee giveaways,

clients and trade shows, personal

purchases by employees, and

awards and incentives for

employees or sales teams.

TECHNICALLY SPEAKING

Distributors who do offer

company store opportunities to

clients are most likely going to

either manage back-end opera-

tions themselves, or work with

providers that specialize in set-

ting up and managing company

stores on their behalf.

“Our most complicated

stores have many hundreds of

hours of development time into

them and are continually evolv-

ing as the needs of our more

demanding clients warrant. In

terms of maintenance, your day-

to-day operations may include

catalog management, order pro-

cessing, user management and

spending account management,”

says Eric Granata, ecommerce

director at ROBYN. “There are

ways to automate or simplify

each of these tasks, which will

depend on what ecommerce

platform your store is built on.”

Campbell says his company’s

clients often want to know if

PCI compliance for processing

credit card payments is available,

and what costs are associated

with website development and

hosting, and fulfillment services.

Distributors, therefore, should at

least understand how to integrate

with a client’s procurement sys-

tem to maximize single-sign-on

and punch-out shopping cart

capabilities.

Many clients don’t speak to

Granata’s team in technical

terms; rather, they share pain

points and ask ROBYN staff to

educate them on a solution. “For

this reason we spend a lot of

time educating the client and

managing their expectations

before we begin the building

process.

“For the distributor, a basic

understanding of HTML, CSS

and JS, while helpful, is not nec-

essary if you are using one of the

many company store solutions on

the market,” he adds. “Many

technology providers will provide

custom development and inte-

gration services as well. If you’re

after larger and more complex

programs, then you want some-

one on your team with more

technical prowess.”

TAKE OWNERSHIP

When it comes to deciding

who will shoulder the responsi-

24 •

PPB

• JULY 2016

INNOVATE

BUILDING A

SUCCESSFUL

COMPANY

STORE

Does your client want a company store?

Start by asking these questions:

• What products or types of products do they want?

• What minimums will be listed?

• Will individuals be placing orders or will one person

be ordering for everyone?

• Will items be shipped to a set business address or

individual addresses?

• What payment methods will be used?

• How quickly will the customer expect to receive the

product after placing an order?

• Will the customer require a specific domain name for

the store?

• What are the customer’s expectations for order

volume?

Complex, custom company stores may

include several or all of these elements:

• Custom site design

• Complicated products with many variants

• Variable data print products

• Approval rules

• Spending accounts and promotions

• Third-party software integrations

• Digital asset management

• Dynamic imaging and document creation

• User groups

• Custom order workflows