For 20 years, California-based Office Relief has been a one-stop shop for ergonomic needs with the largest selection of office ergonomic products available. Among Office Relief’s client list are some of the country’s most recognizable corporate names.

With e-commerce, looks are important, but functionality is everything – especially for a company like Office Relief that has long-standing and complex business-to-business relationships.

Prior to working with b2b2dot0, Office Relief had an ecommerce site that was difficult and expensive to maintain. The site also lacked any distinction between casual consumers and corporate clients. And, it was completely disconnected from SAP.

“In many ways, we felt like our old site was holding us hostage,” said Paul Blaubach, President and CEO of Office Relief.  “It was expensive to maintain because updates had to go through an external vendor, and it was impossible to get new products on the site quickly.  On top of that, new orders placed on our site triggered a long list of internal manual processes.”

“But, we feared that replacing our old site would be even more expensive and painful. Then, b2b2dot0 showed us how we could quickly move forward with a redesigned e-commerce site that was integrated with SAP and offered sophisticated b2b functionality.”

The new site, which launched in Oct 2011, was built using a combination of b2b2dot0’s configurable web platform and Magento, an open source ecommerce content management tool. The new site features:

• Real-time SAP data-integration
• Public b2c product catalogs
• Private, b2b product catalogs with customized price lists and complex b2b order management rules
• Centralized, easy-to-use content management for multiple microsites
• Powerful and flexible marketing tools

“Just a few years ago, if an organization used SAP and wanted to build a web-based sales channel, there were only two choices: build a custom web site from scratch or heavily customize existing software products. Both options were incredibly time-consuming and resource intensive.” said Sam Bayer, CEO of b2bdot0. “We take a different approach. Only b2b2dot0 leverages open-source technology, delivers it in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, integrates it with SAP, and uses an agile mindset.”

“Our core solution, in combination with the Magento platform, creates a unrivaled option for companies looking reduce the cost of e-commerce and make the most of their ERP investment.” Bayer added.  “As far as I’m aware, there aren’t any other solution providers that can deliver real-time SAP-integrated e-commerce, in less time, for less cost than we do.”

About b2b2dot0

b2b2dot0’s founders know web-based b2b eCommerce. We know SAP® systems. And we know how expensive and time-consuming implementing SAP software-based b2b eCommerce can be.  Our SAP software-integrated solution leverages existing SAP installations to provide seamless eCommerce functionality faster, less expensively, and with lower risk than building a custom website or heavily customizing existing software products. b2b2dot0 is based in Raleigh, NC, with satellite offices in Colorado, Illinois, and Switzerland.  For more information, visit, www.b2b2dot0.com.

About Office Relief

Office Relief is a leading supplier of ergonomic equipment nationwide. The company provides customers with a wide range of products from adjustable chairs, sit/stand tables and monitor arms, to peripheral products including keyboards, pointing devices, headsets, and more.  For more information, visit www.officerelief.com

Here is an excerpt of the requirement:

“Our US sales organization works with a non SAP ecommerce tool for sales of all materials. Every night (European time) a job is scheduled to send over the information about created orders and deliveries. As such orders get created in SAP.

Most often the delivery for these orders already occurred so they just want to deliver them out of SAP once the orders are created there. They do not want SAP to calculate the earliest delivery date based on ATP logic and routing because then they have to constantly set the delivery date in future during delivery creation.

Our US colleagues only mind of the stock levels which they constantly (every 10 minutes) update to their web based tool and which they want to be accurate all the time.”

So let me get this straight.  SAP has all of the information…Material lists, inventory, etc… and supports the requisite business processes…ATP logic, Deliveries etc…that the business requires, yet they have chosen to duplicate all of that in their standalone B2B ecommerce website??

Why?

Isn’t anyone concerned with the fact that they’ve now added a resource burden to maintain all of that information in two systems and…as the inquiry suggests…have to invest in making sure that they remain synchronized?

Actually, I know why.  Politics.

See this post for the research behind my conclusion.  I’m 99.9% sure that the US Business unit saw the need to “get on the web” and the folks in HQ who own SAP couldn’t quite fit it into their work schedule.  (Probably because they were too busy developing and supporting poorly designed “patches” to systems).  So the business unit goes ahead and builds their own website and drags IT kicking and screaming to support them with the “integration” into SAP.  The irony is that both organizations are now spending extra time and money to participate in a “forced conversation” with one another.  In this case, the unintended consequence of delivering orders in the ecommerce website first is that the CSR’s using SAP now have a harder time creating those deliveries manually.  Of course this spawns a project to change the posting process to relieve that burden…which will probably spawn another project to…and another and another.

That’s a total waste of human capital that could be applied to much more important business objectives.

By the way, I wonder how this company is managing the “post order entry” customer service requirements for tracking orders, reprinting invoices and reporting on historical purchases.  Let me guess…duplicate data in both the website and SAP and batch programs to synchronize the two.

What a waste.

The whole point of implementing SAP was to consolidate data into a central repository so that the entire enterprise could be working off of one set of business data and rules.  Why is it that when it comes to ecommerce websites, that that philosophy and architecture is so easily dismissed?

I guess if people can’t talk to one another in real time it’s no big surprise that the systems they support can’t either.

Sam

By now the arguments for their prediction should be familiar:

1. The internet is probably here to stay.  The “let’s wait it out because it could be a fad” days are behind us.  The dot.com era may have ended in a smug “I told you so” for some skeptical business leaders and IT managers, but now that the hype has finally settled, it’s time to get real.
2. Webshops save time and money.  According to the article, 50%-80% of quoting and ordering time can be saved and 100% of ordering errors can be prevented.  We agree.
3. B2C experiences set expectations for B2B.  It’s becoming harder and harder to ignore the discontinuity between smartphones that joyfully read your Amazon “we recently shipped your order” emails to you on the way to work and then getting to work and having to send a fax to place an order with your favorite industrial supplier.
4. I just hired my daughter.  Well, I didn’t actually hire her, but I did hire a fellow who is her age.  More and more of us baby boomers are being replaced with Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers.  The new generation will not tolerate the “old ways” of doing business.

So what’s holding the industry back?  We’ve conducted in depth interviews with over 50 SAP based Manufacturers and Distributors who range in size from $10M – $3B in annual revenue in the past three years and here is what we’ve learned:

1. 6% don’t need an ecommerce website. Frankly, these folks are kidding themselves.  No one wants to talk to a customer service representative unless they have to.
2. 49% have IT departments that are too busy.  Nothing pains me more than having to listen to business executives who get the cold shoulder from their IT departments.  I’ve been in this industry for over 30 years and unfortunately some things never change.  It’s the same old blah blah blah.  We’re too busy to add real value to our company’s customers because we’re: “integrating a new subsidiary”, “upgrading to a new version of SAP”, “implementing a new warehouse management system”, “building a new data warehouse”.  It’s phone, fax and email for another year!  What if we told you that we only need 30 hours of the IT team’s time to bring up a world class SAP integrated webshop?  Still too busy?
3. 32% want to build it themselves.  These are folks that think they can do it cheaper and faster themselves and would prefer to “control” the technology once it’s in production.  Unfortunately, these are the same folks that end up being part of the 49% of the IT departments that end up being too busy to work on projects that add real value to the business because they underestimated the effort to build and support their own homegrown systems.
4. 13% are focused on their customers.  These are the enlightened organizations that are thinking in terms of the business.  They are looking for the fastest, cheapest way to deliver real value to their customers.  They are leveraging their investments in SAP, taking advantage of open source products like Magento, and  investing in cloud based solutions to compress time.  These are our customers.

I know 2012 is going to be a great year!

Sam

We just went live with www.officerelief.com this past weekend.  Within the first two days of going live, here is one piece of feedback we received:

“Love the new layout of the website! Found a new product I had not discovered before..might be the solution I’ve been looking for.”  Ergonomist at major California Medical School

The need for a usable catalog comes as no surprise to anyone focused on their B2C business, but why is it so hard to convince the B2B community of the value of an online product catalog?

The irony is that everywhere we turn, these B2B organizations ARE producing catalogs.  They have to be, otherwise how would anyone know what products to buy or materials to reorder?  Unfortunately, they are still focused on producing only print versions of their catalogs.  They are still operating in the pre-Internet model of mail them a catalog (or email, or download, or view a flash version of that print catalog) and then let them use the standard ordering channels to buy (phone, fax, email…or even an SAP disconnected webshop).

That is so yesterday and so below today’s internet savvy user’s expectations.  Today, everyone shops Amazon or Zappos at home, so they expect a similar experience at work.

So why is it so hard to convince these B2B organizations to get with the online catalog program?  Because of all of the perceived technical hurdles.  Well, as of today, with OfficeRelief.com in production, those hurdles are now within the reach of the understaffed, underfunded and overworked Marketing departments!

Our Magento solution helps the B2B organization start with their SAP system and:

• create personalized catalogs for each B2B customer
• provide real time access to pricing and inventory information that is in SAP
• integrate with SAP based tax calculations, freight determinations and credit card handling (Paymetric)
• post orders in real time to SAP
• provide real time access to delivery status and order related documentation
• present, and soon to be able to pay, invoices and open items online

On top of all that, let’s not forget all of the wonderful presentation and merchandising capabilities that come with Magento itself!

If you really cared about your customer’s experience…translate that paper catalog into an online Magento experience and let your customers discover…and buy…”the solution that they’ve been looking for”.

It’s not that daunting at all.  Ask us how.

Sam

RALEIGH, NC (SEPT 30, 2011) — b2b2dot0 – a software company that provides web-based solutions for manufacturers that run their enterprise on SAP® — is proud to announce that it is now a Magento Bronze Industry Partner.

The Magento Partner program gives companies like b2b2dot0 full access and support for developing and administering robust and intuitive eCommerce sites for all types of businesses.

b2b2dot0’s SaaS web sales channel for SAP allows manufacturers to process orders directly into SAP in real-time, as well as provide a customer self-service portal. Manufacturers can leverage their investment in SAP by providing customers a way to do business that is available 24×7 and adds value to their relationships with customers by giving them business-critical information at their fingertips.

Designed to mimic large-scale ecommerce systems that run merchants like Amazon and eBay, Magento brings full eCommerce capability for a sophisticated shopping experience.

“The combination of b2b2dot0’s core solution and the Magento platform creates robust, graphics-rich, b2c-style ecommerce sites that most people have come to expect on the web,” said Sam Bayer, CEO of b2b2dot0. “The difference is that we’re delivering b2c-style web experiences in a b2b environment with personalized products, pricing, terms and real-time data from SAP.”

“Just a few years ago, if an organization used SAP and wanted to build a web-based sales channel, there were only two choices: build a custom web site from scratch or heavily customize existing software products. Both options were incredibly time-consuming and resource intensive.” said Bayer. “We take a different approach.  Only b2b2dot0 leverages open-source technology, delivers it in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, integrates it in real-time with SAP, and uses an agile mindset.”

“Our core solution in combination with the Magento platform, creates a unrivaled option for manufacturers looking reduce the cost of b2b eCommerce and make the most of their ERP investment,” Bayer added.

“As far as I’m aware, there aren’t any other solution providers that can offer more b2b ecommerce functionality, in less time, for less cost that we do.”

Read more about how we facilitate two-way, real-time integration between SAP and Magento.

About b2b2dot0

b2b2dot0’s founders know web-based b2b eCommerce. We know SAP® systems. And we know how expensive and time-consuming implementing SAP software-based b2b eCommerce can be.  Our SAP software-integrated solution leverages existing SAP installations to provide seamless eCommerce functionality faster, less expensively, and with lower risk than building a custom website or heavily customizing existing software products. b2b2dot0 is based in Raleigh, NC, with satellite offices in Colorado, Illinois, Georgia, and Switzerland.

About Magento

Magento is the fastest growing eCommerce platform with over 225 solution providers, 100,000 merchants and brands worldwide and a host of Industry Partners that create applications and extensions for the Magento platform. Magento is a feature-rich, professional Open Source eCommerce platform solution that offers merchants complete flexibility and control over the presentation, content, and functionality of their online channel. Based in Los Angeles, Magento is a fast-paced, entrepreneurial organization dedicated to the mission of enabling the eCommerce ecosystem. www.magentocommerce.com.

To begin with, as with all IT based projects, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that integrating Magento with SAP is strictly a technical exercise.

It is far from it.

The experiences of our three active Magento/SAP projects and the scores of conversations we’ve recently had with Manufacturers of all sizes, have re-taught me the lesson that launching a successful ecommerce website is anything but a simple technological exercise.  It is a complex business undertaking that spans many parts and levels of the Manufacturer’s organization, often times crossing many time zones as well as functional, political and cultural boundaries.  It always requires interactions and negotiations with a myriad of business and technology partners and can have dire consequences if it fails…after all, no one wants to be responsible for driving away customers!

What makes the integration of Magento and SAP especially challenging, is that technically, both are world class platforms that were designed to be the system of record for practically all of the core business objects and processes required to manage an ecommerce website.  Both want to own: the definition of products, determination of pricing, calculation of taxes and shipping, the placement, shipment and tracking of orders and the administration and reporting on all of these.  Frankly, applied to the right business problem, they both perform very well in their own right.  That’s what makes them “best of breed”.

So with all the technical and political turf battles going on here, why would b2b2dot0 be interested in integrating these two platforms?  We’re committed to doing so for three reasons:

First of all, we’ve been asked to by our clients and prospective clients.  That should be reason enough!  Companies like The Cycling Sports Group (CSG), Office Relief and Blount are operating under the following strategic assumptions:

1. SAP is the backbone of their company and is responsible for all financial, sales transactions, logistics and corporate reporting matters.  SAP is the center of their corporate universe and will absolutely remain so.
2. SAP doesn’t manage marketing content efficiently or effectively.  (In other words, the marketing department doesn’t want to depend on IT in order to update images, add product videos or change descriptions…)
3. SAP doesn’t provide a good B2B user experience on the web (at least affordably)
4. The web is a must; it is not a “nice to have”.  (Believe it or not, there are still quite a few companies out there that are still waiting to see if this “internet thing” is real or might just be a fad.)

Based on these strategic assumptions, and the belief that simple architectures produce manageable systems, all three companies have decided that for their B2B scenarios:

1. SAP is the system of record for all master data and transactions,
2. Magento will manage web content, catalog data and merchandising, and the shopping experience
3. b2b2dot0 will provide SAP master and transactional data to the web as well as manage the checkout process
4. b2b2dot0 will provide a single sign-on, and manage the security model, across all three systems.

Secondly, after examining the current state of the art in integrating the two platforms…simply put…we can do so much better.

Seriously, take a look at the following architectural diagram of what a “typical” production ecommerce website’s data processes looks like:

Just count the number of times you see the words extract, interface, import, export, and trigger in this diagram.  What you don’t see in the diagram is the word replicate…that’s just assumed!  This is a production website that is obviously fraught with operational vulnerabilities and is a maintenance nightmare.  No doubt it’s a customer services challenge as well and desperately needs replacing!

Lastly, it’s important to our future.  Our SAP Magento integration (we partner for Magento branding and design) is providing us with a sustainable competitive advantage in an expanding market.  We sense the changes in the B2B ecommerce market by the conversations we’ve been having in the last 18 months.  More and more manufacturers are looking for alternatives to the “big ticket” “enterprise class” ecommerce solutions like ATG, IBM, Demandware etc.  They are just too big, too expensive and too difficult to implement and maintain.  eBay confirmed that when they recently made the decision to purchase the Magento platform.  Many of them are also looking to replace their version 1.0 standalone ecommerce websites “experiments” (see diagram above) with solutions that better leverage their commitment to SAP in a scalable and sustainable way.

So we’re all in.

We’ve placed a “bet your company bet” on the importance of Magento to B2B ecommerce in the SAP space.  We’re excited because our clients are excited.  We’re also very encouraged by our traction and momentum in the marketplace and the rate at which it is growing.

In the coming blog posts I’m going to take a deeper dive into the details of how we get Magento and SAP to play nicely with one another in both B2B and B2C scenarios…both technically and organizationally .

You’ll learn about the features that we’ve developed that address the synchronization and management of the following business objects in the SAP – b2b2dot0 – Magento solution:

• Items
• Prices
• Inventory
• Personalized catalogs
• Taxes
• Freight
• Payments
• Orders
• Quotes
• Deliveries
• Returns
• Security

I’ll also address how to decide which integration strategy is right for you and your business challenges.  After all, launching a dozen products to a B2C channel in a defined territory where you only expect a handful of orders per day is a vastly different challenge from a worldwide B2B dealer channel that generates 500 orders per day.

Stay tuned for exciting things to come!

Sam

According to Zack’s Investment Research the number 1 company in the Industrial Machinery Industry, as measured by Return on Equity (ROE), is our very own Blount International, Inc.!

Zack’s elaborates that:

“The ROE is a general indication of the company’s efficiency; Investors usually look for companies with ROEs that are high and are growing.”

Not only was Blount ranked #1, but its 162% ROE was 3.4 times greater than the #2 company on the list, Graco!

Frankly, I’m not all that surprised because since we first went live with Blount in the US in March of 2009, they’ve continued to invest in their eCommerce efforts by rolling out sites for the UK, Germany, France, Russia, Sweden, Brazil, Canada, Belgium, Japan and The Netherlands.  They’ve also integrated in catalogs and product selector guides as well as added support for reporting shipping errors and self-service for retrieving international shipping documents.  Soon, Blount’s customers will even be able to pay their invoices online!

Blount really understands that there is a real win-win in providing real time information to their customers via our SAP Integrated B2B webshop.  Not only do customers appreciate the 24×7 support and visibility into their business relationship with Blount, but Blount saves money in the process…hence the high ROE!  In fact, last month alone, Blount’s customers registered close to 6000 business goals accomplished by their customers… without the intervention of a single one of Blount’s employees for those routine transactions.

That’s 6000 cost saving win-win business events every month!

Any idea who was ranked the #4 highest ROE in the Industrial Machinery Industry?

I’ll spare you the click to go back to the Zack’s report…it was Nordson, Inc.!  That’s right, b2b2dot0′s first customer and the winner of the Progressive Manufacturer of the Year Award in 2009 , our very own Nordson, Inc.

Coincidence?  I think not.

We’re proud to be the eCommerce supplier of choice for such thought leading, and world class executing, manufacturers.

Our congratulations go out to Barry Brunetto of Blount and Shelley Peat of Nordson.  You guys rock!

Sam

First of all, I need to applaud the newly appointed President and CEO of TMI, Frank J. Mummolo, for recognizing the importance of great customer service to his business.  He expressed it perfectly when he said:

“At TMI, we continually strive to provide a comprehensive and superior customer experience, from the time an order is placed and throughout the lifecycle of the product.  It is not enough to help a customer when they are placing an order.  We want to be there for them continually so that they know TMI is fully committed to their satisfaction”.

We at b2b2dot0 couldn’t agree more!  His company’s execution of this capability is an entirely different story.

I applaud TMI’s initial efforts to improve their customer service capabilities, but I sincerely hope they don’t think they’re done rolling out enhancements to their website.  While they may declare that they’ve rolled out “an advanced order tracking system”, I think they’ve just brought their website up to date with the expectations that we had in the later part of the 1990′s.  Here’s why I think so:

1. Customers can only track orders that were delivered by only one of their shippers, C.H. Robinson.
2. If you want to track any other shipper, according to the TMI website,  “If the Ship Via field (in your order confirmation email) is UPS or another LTL carrier, please call TMI Customer Service…”  Seriously?
3. There is no capability to search and view all of your orders.  You have to work off of your individual email confirmations.  I’m only assuming that because there is no obvious way to “log in” to the website. 
4. You have to navigate away from the TMI website (they provide a convenient link to do so) and go to the C.H. Robinson site to use their order tracking capability. I hope the TMI website developers didn’t work overtime to deliver this feature.  Seriously.  Navigate a user away from your website?  That can’t be good for business.
5. You have to manually enter the Customer Reference Number on the C.H. Robinson website.  Which, by the way, according to the C.H. Robinson website “In order to search reference numbers that contain commas, you must put quotation marks around the number to receive exact results.”  That’s user friendly.  Not!

So what’s really going on here?  Bottom line… TMI spent more energy on the press release than they did on the website upgrade.

I think TMI has some really cool products and excellent customer service ambitions, but they certainly lack an eCommerce vision and are clearly not up to the challenge of executing one.  Frankly, they’re not alone.  We see this all the time in the “industrial” market.  These laggard companies barely have the energy to maintain a “brochure” website that informs the market about their products.  They are totally outclassed trying to deliver transactional support for the order to cash cycle on their websites.

That’s where we come in.

It’s now 2011 and we’ve learned a thing or two since 1996. Things really aren’t that bad in the B2B eCommerce world and we’d be more than happy to help TMI create and execute a world class eCommerce strategy.  They’d have to get on SAP first .

Sam

Today I want to update my experience and give a very loud shout out to Steve D. who is Thule’s Internet Manager!  He not only found, and professionally responded to my blog post, but he personally expedited my key order.  I hope Thule knows how wonderful an employee Steve D. is.  In my experience, he is a rare find and Thule is truly lucky to have him in their employ!

To begin with, I want to put a face on the very definition of awesome customer service.  Great customer service, as is poor customer service, is not an abstract concept, it is very real.

Pictured here are my daughter, son-in-law and grandson, with their Thule outfitted SUV at the end of a glorious Memorial Day weekend.  Thanks to Steve D., my grandson’s jogging stroller is securely packed atop the car for their 8 hour drive home, as opposed to squishing Josie (the family dog not pictured here) in the back of the car.

In addition to the expedited key order, here are a few other insights that Steve D. was kind enough to share with me:

With respect to why they don’t offer overnight shipping on the Thule website, here is what Steve D. observed:

“Our Oracle ERP system has had issues with getting these important orders into the system on time, and instead of giving customers false hopes of getting an item on time, we have taken down express shipping and hope to relaunch it (after full testing) in June.  Having an external e-commerce site passing data into our ERP is not ideal, but it has worked (with overnight shipping) and we hope to retain that level of service when resources are available.”

This is the problem with batch integrations in between ecommerce websites and ERP systems.  50% of every potential client that we’re speaking with is looking to replace their existing ecommerce website because of the complexities…and innacuracies…introduced by these batch interfaces. 

Complicated architectures beget operational complications.  Real time integrations don’t.

With respect to why Thule uses the Shopatron service:

“The main reason we continue to use Shopatron is our ability to fill customer orders while also allowing customers the ability to utilize dealers close to their homes.  On $10 key orders, this is difficult and takes longer than we would like.  Our issue is most online and brick and mortar dealers do not stock these parts and we force all these spare orders back to Thule.” 

This is one of those paradoxes of trying to integrate disparate systems. 

You integrate systems to try and reduce the friction between them…which works for the targeted business processes, but worsens the “special (unexpected) cases”.  In this case, the integration is designed to process “normal” new Thule product orders which should save customers shipping cost and time if they can be fulfilled by a local dealer.  That actually makes a lot of sense to me.  However, the paradox is that “exception conditions”, those that require expedited handling, get delayed.  They fall through the cracks and pay the price…unless you have a person like Steve D. monitoring the social networks or every order placed (not a scalable solution).

This isn’t the first time that I’ve heard “don’t check expedited shipping because it forces the order into a slower manual review and processing queue”.

Steve D. summarizes his email correspondences with me with his vision of Thule Distribution 3.0:

“…if all of our dealers had the same quality of service and shipping. I actually think a preferred dealer network that the customer could either pickup the product at, or Thule would ship directly to for installation would work the best – Thule distribution 3.0?”

Now we’re talking!

Steve D. gets to the heart of the design challenges of his distribution network when he observes…IF all of our dealers had the same quality of service and shipping.  They don’t, yet Thule doesn’t want to offend any of them and that’s why they went with the Shopatron network.

The better answer would be to cultivate a few “Class A” key dealers in the territory, and then do the following:

1. Refer the consumer to the geographically correct dealer website to check location, price and inventory.  If the consumer is satisfied with what they learned, they place the order right then and there.
2. If the consumer isn’t satisfied (delivery times too long etc.), than they order directly from Thule.  Thule informs the dealer that product is being shipped into their territory (either dropshipped to the consumer or direct to the dealer)…pays the appropriate commission…and the dealer picks up the customer from there.

You really don’t want to put an intermediary like Shopatron in between you and your dealers and customers.  That’s such an outdated dot com era solution to a modern day “we want it now” expectation.

Thanks again Steve D. for being our Memorial Day hero!

Sam

P.S. – If Thule were an SAP customer, they could have a solution to their problem today .

The right way delivers a win-win-win solution to the entire demand chain.

The Manufacturer drives traffic to their website and educates their potential customers 100% in accord with their brand promise.  If the consumer chooses to buy the product right then and there, the Manufacturer makes sure their distribution channel gets the order and fulfills and services it according to their contractual agreement.  In return, the distribution channel gets to “own” the customer and receive fair compensation in return for their services.  The consumer gets the right product at the right time at the right price.  Everyone plays their role like a fine tuned orchestra.

Perfection.

The wrong way makes the end consumer pay the price for harmony in the distribution channel.

Unfortunately, I find myself on the receiving end of this lesson as I write this blog post.  It concerns my grandson, a missing key to a Thule car carrier, and the upcoming Memorial Day holiday.

It started innocently enough last Thursday with a call from my daughter.  She and her family live outside of Philadelphia, PA and I live in Raleigh, NC.  Since we were going to be meeting in Arlington, VA (exactly half way between us) over the weekend, she suugested that I bring our Thule car top carrier and give it to her as discussed weeks ago.  That would make it easier for her to pack all of the paraphernalia that a young family of three (and their dog) would need to spend the Memorial Day weekend with us the following week.

“What a great idea” I thought.

I went to retrieve it from the attic, the Thule’s resting place for the past 7 years since our last documented camping trip.  It was just where I’d left it, with all of the hardware required to mount it to a car roof, safely locked inside of it.  Unfortunately, I had no idea where the key was so, off to the web I went.

A quick google search revealed that I wasn’t the only person on the planet in this predicament.  This truly is a great use of social media!  The solution to my problem was just a click away at the Thule website.  Armed with the serial number engraved on the lock, I was able to place an order for a replacement key.  Unfortunately, I was only given one shipping method to choose from and that was for the painfully slooowwww 3-7 business days.  No overnight or express!  I placed the order nevertheless and received the following order confirmation moments later.

That’s when I started to understand what was going on with my order.  It wasn’t being managed by Thule at all!  It was being managed by a company called Shopatron who supposedly was doing Thule and their dealers a favor.

Not!

Here is a part of the order confirmation that I received:

There are two immediate problems with the order.

First of all, the order total is only an “estimated” total.  It could go up based on taxes.  (Never mind that I’m already paying $4.95 to ship a $2.75 part…I would have paid more to get it quicker if it could keep the peace within the family!)

Second, only “standard shipping” was available…and noone to talk to, or write to, to inquire!

The bottom half of the order confirmation was even more confusing:

1. They left a space for other items that I might be interested in but there weren’t any?  Aside from selling me a new lock if the key didn’t work, if it was me, I would have tried to sell me an updated carrier.  Mine had to have been 15 years old!
2. Who am I really buying this from?  Thule?  Shopatron?
3. Better yet, who is going to support me?  There are two different phone numbers and a website to call.  I’m hoping I get the right key the first time around.
4. Lastly, just in case things really go bad, I can always write a letter to Shopatron Order Support at the PO Box given.  Really?

So what’s going on here?

Back in 2000, when the whole eCommerce industry was abuzz about “disintermediation” Shopatron had a brilliant idea.  They went to major Brand Owners and simply said, “Keep your distribution channels happy.  If you are going to take an order on your website, pass it on to your distributors/dealers to fulfill.  This will keep them happy and they will continue to sell/support your products”.

Seriously.  My order gets posted to a website, where Thule’s dealers get to log in at their leisure to decide whether or not they want to fulfill it.  The one lucky dealer who services my zip code is usually the one that is given first dibs.  Meanwhile, since I placed my order on Friday, three days have already passed.

Wouldn’t it be easier if Thule took my order, shipped it out of their warehouse, and passed the commission to my local dealer?  I know I’d be happier.

According to the Shopatron website over 1000 brands and 12,000 of their retail partners have signed up in the ensuing years.  But that doesn’t make them right.  That just makes them behind the times.

Unfortunately, the bar has risen in the last decade.  With free 2 day shipping from Amazon and unquestioned returns processing by Zappos, I really don’t think that waiting a week to “maybe” get a replacement key will cut it.

If Thule doesn’t want to take orders on their website (which might make sense for their business model), they would be better served to help me find an online dealer that can take my order in real time.  All they did with the Shopatron process was delay my order, give me confusing information and potentially inaccurate processing.

Thule and their dealers may be living in peace, but I have a locked car top carrier that will not be adding any value to my Memorial Day holiday!

Sam