Leading Home Appliance Company Uses BuyDesign Storefront to Offer Online B2B Order Management to Small and Medium Size Wholesale Customers
Salton Inc. (www.saltoninc.com), a leading designer, marketer and distributor of a broad range of branded, high quality small appliances has gone live with BuyDesign Storefront to provide 24x7 online ordering and account status inquiry services for Salton’s small to medium size wholesale customers – primarily local and regional retail stores. Salton supports high volume national customers with EDI-based order processing, and supports direct consumer sales with an existing consumer-oriented web site.
With its intuitive self-service capabilities and features like automatic e-mail order acknowledgements and confirmations, BuyDesign makes it very easy for wholesale customers to order standard SKU-based Salton products while at the same time reducing the need for customer service involvement. Customers have access to up-to-date product catalogs and pricing, with features such as customer-definable order pads for frequently purchased items. They are also able to maintain their own customer profiles with shipping preferences, addresses, etc. Order, shipment, and invoice status are available online for all orders, including those submitted by phone or fax.
“Our goal is to make it easy for retailers of all sizes to do business with Salton,” stated Christine Burback, Salton Director of eCommerce and Customer Service. “For wholesale customers who only order periodically, BuyDesign makes it really simple for them to browse, price, and order our extensive product line, and to manage their own account. That should help us further increase sales through smaller retailers over time.”
“BuyDesign effectively puts the MAC-PAC ordering process directly into the hands of Salton customers,” Burback added. “This gives Salton customer service representatives more time to spend on wholesale customers’ special needs by reducing the amount of time required to support routine orders. It will also help eliminate human errors that sometimes occur with phone and fax orders by automating the entry of orders into our order processing system.”
“A lot of MAC-PAC users think of BuyDesign as being only for configured products, but it works great for standard SKU-based products as well,” added Jim Toto, Salton IT Director. “We don’t use configuration today, though we are looking at possibly using it as a guided selling engine down the road.”
BuyDesign is tightly integrated with Salton’s MAC-PAC XE system to automatically synchronize product, customer, and order information. Salton uses MAC-PAC XE in all of the company’s U.S. sites located in New Jersey, Illinois, California, North Carolina, and Missouri.
About Salton Inc.
Salton is a leading domestic designer, marketer and distributor of a broad range of branded, high quality small appliances under such well-recognized brand names as Salton®, George Foreman™, Toastmaster®, Breadman®, Juiceman®, Juicelady®, Westinghouse®, Farberware®, Melitta®, Russell Hobbs®, Tower®, and Haden®. Salton has the leading domestic market share in indoor grills, toasters, juice extractors, bread makers, griddles, waffle makers and buffet ranges/hotplates and a significant market share in other product categories. Salton also designs and markets tabletop products, time products, lighting products, and personal care and wellness products under such brand names as Block China®, Atlantis® Crystal, Sasaki®, Calvin Klein®, Timex®, Ingraham®, Timex®, Westclox®, Big Ben®, Spartus®, Stiffel®, Ultrasonex™, Relaxor®, Carmen®, Hi-Tech®, Mountain Breeze®, Salton® and Pifco®.
