Posted by Aspidistra Blogger • Uncategorised • November 1st, 2017
Aspidistra Software is proud and delighted, to announce that their client, Industrial Ancillaries has won the B2B ecommerce Website of the Year award 2017.
Judges said: “Industrial Ancillaries have a website which is relevant and user friendly for B2B. This website (created by Aspidistra Software) is very well executed and shows off the integrated work, moving a catalogue online is huge work and a real achievement in itself. Very well thought out!”
Paul Dorey (Aspidistra MD) and Jamie attended the prestigious awards evening in Manchester Cathedral and both were surprised when Industrial Ancillaries were announced as overall winner.
“It’s the first time Industrial Ancillaries have entered a website award, and frankly we were up against some tough competition” said Paul. “And the Industrial Ancillaries website is huge. It’s highly functional and very complex, so whilst we were hopeful, we were certainly not complacent about winning.”
Jamie Dennis, MD Of Industrial Ancillaries, said: “Aspidistra has been our ecommerce provider since 2010 years and we chose them because of their proven specialism in Sage-integrated ecommerce. Our brief was to create a state-of-the-art ecommerce platform that tightly integrates with our Sage 200 system to deliver account-specific pricing and a highly personalised customer experience, as well as a real-time inventory position. The site is interoperable across all devices and provides a consistent browsing and ordering experience whether it’s viewed on a phone or a desktop screen.”
Credit: Don’t Panic Projects/Joe Gardner
To achieve Industrial Ancillaries’ objectives, the ecommerce platform needed to meet the following key criteria:
Paul said: “One of the main challenges we overcame in developing the site was the sheer number of products that needed to be incorporated, and ensuring that these could be efficiently searched – we started with well over 40,000 line items and this has since grown to more than 80,000.
“As well as these intelligent search capabilities, our developers added a number of smart, time-saving features that speed-up the research and purchasing processes, help customers make informed buying decisions, and at the same time encourage them to buy more products.”
Industrial Ancillaries are pioneers – “Our approach is helping to transform the way our entire market works”
Jamie is also proud of the way his site is working to help his customers. He continues: “We work in a complex market where b2b ecommerce is still a relative newcomer. Our aim is to help buyers by taking the hard work out of ordering the products they need.
“We are pioneers in this area and Aspidistra has worked closely with us to understand our market place and to incorporate relevant time-saving, efficiency enhancing bespoke capabilities that come with an end-to-end, fully automated ordering process.
Left to right: Connor Phillips (presenter) Paul Dorey (MD, Aspidistra), Jamie Dennis (MD, Industrial Ancillaries) Greg Borland (Industrial Ancillaries) Adam Hindle (Award Sponsors, Fluid Digital) Credit: Don’t Panic Projects/Joe Gardner
“Customer feedback is very positive and we continue to build on our strengths, always working to streamline the customer experience. Our approach is helping to transform the way our entire market works”
Industrial Ancillaries eCommerce features
In addition to the standard shopfront design, Industrial Ancillaries’ customers also benefit from:
Jamie Dennis said: “At launch, our business operated out of the founder’s car. Now we occupy a custom-built 40,000 sq. ft. office and warehouse facility. We have maintained steady growth by paying close attention to customer service and technology. Our eCommerce platform is an essential part of our current and future success, as we have evolved into one of the UK’s leading industrial distributors.