WISKA UK Ltd Chooses B2B commerce platform for Easy Online Ordering
Posted by: electime 7th March 2018
Consumer-style product browsing, promotional offers & self-service will enable 24/7 customer service
WISKA UK is to roll out ODSNet as its B2B e-commerce platform for UK wholesalers.
The business expects a significant shift in B2B sales moving to online within the next three to four years due to improved purchasing and account management, while, it adds, sales teams will have more time to add value for customers.
WISKA UK primarily sells to the electrical wholesale market. Until now, this activity has primarily relied on taking orders by phone, email and fax. But when WISKA UK conducted a market survey last year, it confirmed an increasing appetite among B2B organisations for purchasing products online.
“We anticipated that e-commerce would be of interest to our customers, and our research confirmed this,” says Elliott Rothon, WISKA’s UK marketing manager. “As more millennials come up through the workforce, the convenience of buying online will only grow in appeal.”
WISKA UK chose ODSNet after reviewing a range of e-commerce platforms. ODSNet stood out as it offers a rich, intuitive, consumer-style user browsing experience, along with the ability to integrate directly with WISKA’s SAP back-office systems.
This means the website stays completely up to date with the latest stock and price information, and promotional offers, and that orders flow through directly to sales and finance systems, without the need for manual data re-entry.
As a result of deploying ODSNet, which is due to go live in April/May, WISKA expects a sizeable shift in online sales throughout 2018 and, within three to four years anticipates that online B2B transactions will become the “norm”.
This is expected to lead to new revenue growth as wholesalers are able to place orders around the clock, and from anywhere, and because ODSNet can present personalised product offers to individual customers as they log in. The time saved by WISKA UK’s sales team on sales order processing, meanwhile, will enable them to provide enhanced customer service.
On-the-road sales agents will also have access to ODSNet, through ODS Field Sales, on their mobile and tablet devices.
“This will give them the tools to react to customers in real time, enabling them to provide an enhanced customer experience,” Elliott explains.
For now, WISKA will focus its e-commerce activities in the UK, where online purchasing in a B2B context is more accepted than in other markets.
“We certainly see our relationship with ODS as a continuing partnership – something to build on as the market evolves and as technology advances. We’ve started by delivering a successful and professional e-commerce platform. Once that’s live, we’ll continue to benefit from ODS’s expert guidance, ensuring that we capitalise on every possible opportunity that comes from this.”
