Jump to content

Creating a businees to customer website


Gump

Recommended Posts

Does anyone have any first hand knowledge of what it takes to develope a selling website? The website design itself is simple enough but the actual functionality of it. Converting orders online to another whse software management system. Mixing all the transactions to make the process complete. Are there any catalog companies anyone is using to develope their catalog? Example: We submit by vendor 50 item numbers for that vendor they in turn add photo stock to our catalog. I'm not happy with the steps involved with our current provider.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your biggest challenge in getting info and pics for product is getting disks or websites that you can obtain them from.

Are you part of a powersports network? Many successful dealers are part of that type of group and they actually help set up the site, download catalogs and links for purchasing, etc. It is expensive, but a serious website company needs to be able to get all those tools.

I would also suggest that you look into drop shipping. I know TR does it as well as others, but otherwise, you are going to have to maintain an inventory...

The successful online companies do both. After all, if I order something and you then take the order and process it and have to order from the distributor and THEN have it shipped to you and then to me, that kills minimally two days. You'd get your ass handed to you in shipping charges. Inventory and drop ship is the only way and too often, small internet only companies get into this with great intentions, but get dusted later in their life.

I will also tell you that tires and closeout items can hurt or help you. You'll be competing against companies that get better deals than what is listed. Dealers that think there is only one "lowest or best dealer price" don't do as much business as some other shops do. Think Parts Unlimited Best dealer cost is what you get and is the same as say, Iron Pony gets? It isn't. There's better than that with all the companies...

Good luck and let us know what you end up with. It's a tough market and hard core, but if done right, will net a lot of money... E commerce is the way to go and dealers that don't get on board are going to hurt.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's a family business, wholesale distribution company. About 50 million in sales. It's Industrial packaging, Janitorial supplies & Foodservice packaging. We market to industrial, schools, goverment offices, mom and pop shops, et cetera. Nothing to do with powersports but I noticed most of those sites link you to the same exact products and layouts especially when it's OEM your searching. Similar to this forum layout. A bunch of sites seem to use the exact same software as Ohio riders. We're updating our inventory management software to Activants Prophet 21 currently. The website catalog company we have seems prehistoric.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's a family business, wholesale distribution company. About 50 million in sales. It's Industrial packaging, Janitorial supplies & Foodservice packaging. We market to industrial, schools, goverment offices, mom and pop shops, et cetera. Nothing to do with powersports but I noticed most of those sites link you to the same exact products and layouts especially when it's OEM your searching. Similar to this forum layout. A bunch of sites seem to use the exact same software as Ohio riders. We're updating our inventory management software to Activants Prophet 21 currently. The website catalog company we have seems prehistoric.

My bad. Might have mis-read - I was thinking you were wanting to do Motorcycle stuff... Sorry. Good luck though. Sounds like you're doing well so that's saying something in this economy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

it's all good, in our business the price of oil pushed up plastics forcing us to pass on numerous unprecedented supplier price increases which lead to price shopping because companies couldn't keep up with the high prices which lead to lower margins. Due to that oil high, companies searched over seas and importing containers of bags or forks et cetera are now the thing. The price of oil has dropped and is forecasted to be extremely low for a while, we might see .99cents again, which will ease up the price shopping and i'm hoping everything will level out and companies here will be able to manufacture again being competitive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...