Situation

Bachman's Wholesale provides high quality nursery and landscaping products to nursery and landscaping professionals. A division of Bachman's since 1984, Bachman's Wholesale Nursery Center desired to develop a tool for their customers that would allow customers get quotes and place orders online instead of using the traditional methods of telephone and fax machine. Bachman's believed that having an online ordering and quote capability could provide a competitive advantage over other nursery wholesalers as well as help to retain and grow their client base going forward. Bachman's also wanted to provide this tool as a way for their clients to have the most up to date inventory and availability information for landscape project planning as well as a way to communicate promotional and nursery news items to their clients.

Strategy

• Develop a database-driven web site that contains up to date product information, including detailed product descriptions, product photos, product availability, quantity discount calculators, shopping cart, and the ability to do custom quotes
• Provide a product search tool for easy access to product catalog
• Develop a set of processes and tools that would allow the customer to operate as efficiently and as possible

Solution

The Web site was completed using a combination of static HTML and Microsoft Active Server Pages interacting with a SQL Server database. There are two components to the site for two types of customers – registered and unregistered.

Unregistered customers have limited access to the site. They can browse events, view news, and register for access to the secure portions of the site.

Registered customers are able to access the site via a secure login. These registered customers then have access to view all product descriptions and photos, and to search for a product across all product categories. The customer can also build a shopping cart that can either be used for cost estimation or to print for future reference.

The site was also built to be easy to maintain by the client:

• All product information and images are updated via an automated nightly transfer.
• All database maintenance is done via automated nightly, weekly, and monthly processes.
• Static site information such as discount offers, seasonal promotions, as well as nursery news are all managed by Bachman’s-internal resources.

Results

The site has been well received by Bachman's Wholesale customers. About 25% of their client base registered and used the site during its first year of operation. Bachman's Wholesale has seen a decrease in the amount of human effort necessary for developing quotations for planning purposes by internal sales. This shift has allowed Bachman's Wholesale sales professionals the ability to focus more on the active selling of nursery items and reduced the administrative costs involved in pricing and availability price quotes over the phone and via fax. This result is seen as very positive by Bachman’s and has led to a higher level of customer satisfaction.

This effort resulted in a 2000 Standard of Excellence Award from the Web Marketing Association, Inc. (WMA).