Tools online, connected to the back office
Selling tools looks simple until you look at the data: variants, sets, accessories, stock per supplier and prices that shift weekly. On our server there is a Toolvizion environment with a catalogue of its own.
The situation
With tools the complexity is not in the photo but in the coherence. A cordless screwdriver exists in two battery variants, is sold loose and in a set, has accessories that fit several machines, and its price follows the purchase price closely.
A webshop that does not take that from the source is on a wrong price within a month. Not because someone is careless, but because every change at the supplier works through in several places in the shop and one place is always forgotten.
The challenge
What the situation at this customer was exactly, and what the result is, we cannot write down yet. That has to be confirmed first, and until then we do not put a story here that we cannot account for.
The thread we can tell: the sales environment is no longer an island. It hangs on the same catalogue and the same order flow as the back office, so stock and price are maintained in one place and not twice. That is exactly the difference between a shop that follows the data and a shop that keeps a second version of it.
What we always do in this type of project
The order below is the same in every retail project where stock and price have to come from one source. It is not negotiable: anyone who starts with the shop and does the data afterwards builds filters on fields that do not exist yet.
So the data comes first, the shop in the middle and the connection to the back office last. Every step delivers something you can see, so you are not waiting months for a delivery that has to be right in one go.
Product data first
Variants, sets and accessories as real relations instead of text in a description. Then the system knows an accessory fits three machines.
Then the sales environment
With filters built on that data, so a visitor can filter on battery, set or brand and get something that is right.
Then the connection to the back office
For stock, orders and invoicing: one place where price and stock are maintained.
The result
There is nothing here yet, and that is a choice. Two numbers and one quotation have to be obtained from the customer first; until then we do not put this case online as a result story.
So what you read here is a description of the work and not of the outcome. As soon as the status is settled and the numbers are in, this story moves from the portfolio to the case studies.
What the customer says about it
This quotation is a draft. We wrote it down the way we understood it from the conversations, so that it can be put to the customer. It only goes live once the customer has approved it word for word and the name and role are in place.
“Our webshop and our stock finally know about each other.”
Three stories that belong with this one
The cases are connected: the same catalogue, the same technique rules and the same agent come back in several stories. These three sit closest to what you have just read.
Do you sell products with many variants?
Variants, sets and accessories are not text in a description but relations in the data. Send us your range and we show what happens once those relations are right.