Episode 1 – Company Store Benefits
Episode Recap
When distributors first become interested in an online solution they often wonder what the benefits are to starting an online Company Store. Afterall, distributors like you know there’s no point investing valuable time and money into something that isn’t going to directly benefit both you and your client.
The benefits vary depending on the specific solution you choose but the five most common benefits we hear from clients are highlighted below.
1. Company Stores make ordering easy and efficient by providing one centralized ordering location that shoppers can access anytime, anywhere. Good bye to the days of placing orders by phone or fax!
2. Company Stores help maintain brand and logo integrity with logo virtualization and logo permissions ensuring your clients correct logo, colors, and branding guidelines are followed for each item in your store.
3. Company Stores help your clients stay on-budget and avoid unauthorized spending with features like manager approval (MOAS), account balances, and group budgets.
4. Company Stores support multiple programs like Reward and Recognition, Uniform Programs, and more so your client can run all of their programs on one system.
5. Company Stores act as an extension of your customer service by offering pages like FAQ and Contact Us. Shoppers can access their account dashboard to check past orders, account balance, and order status.
There are countless ways a Company Store can benefit both you and your client. Have a particular benefit you’d like to share? Leave a comment on any of our social accounts!
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Episode 2 – Qualifying Clues
Episode Recap
When sitting down with a client, there are a few key phrases you should listen for that will indicate when they are ready for an online store. Below are the most common qualifying clues you may come across and how an online store can help.
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- Your client says, “I want an easier way to place an order with you.”
- Meaning: Unless your client is over the moon with their fax machine or email system, they need an easier approach to ordering their promotional products from you.
- By offering an online store, you can: provide them with a familiar retail experience where they can place all their orders with just a few clicks.
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- Your client says, “I want my employees to be able to place orders with you and use their own credit cards.”
- Meaning: Your client needs their ordering system to be accessible and intuitive for employees to use on their own.
- By offering an online store, you can: provide them with a familiar, retail-esque online store that has the ability to accept various payment options such as credit card, account balances, gift certificates, coupons, and custom payment methods like Employee ID or Purchase Orders.
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- Your client says, “I need certain employees to have access to different shipping options.”
- Meaning: Your client needs permissions.
- By offering an online store, you can: provide them with the ability to give different users different access to the store based upon login. For example, when Jon from accounting logs in he only sees the option for standard shipping while Tiffany from Sales and Marketing can also see the option for two day and overnight shipping since most of her orders are time sensitive.
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If you are speaking with one of your clients and pick up on one of these clues, go ahead and mention how setting up a Company Store could benefit them or give us a call and we can walk you through the next steps.
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Episode 3 – How To Get The Most Out Of Your Design Time
Episode Recap
Whether you purchased a Turnkey Solution (which includes six hours of design time) or a la cart hourly design time, there are a few things you can gather beforehand to make sure you get the most out of the time you’ve purchased. These include:
1. – Hi-Res Logo
2. – Brand Guidelines*
3. – Websites & Image Examples
4. – Custom Font FilesIt’s also helpful to decide whether or not you want our designers to create a custom homepage image or slider images. If that is something you would like our team to help with, you will also need to provide any hi-res product images that you would want us to include in the design.
Sending examples of imagery you like will help our designers get a feel for the style and aesthetics you prefer. If you want our team to base the design off of a pre-existing website your client already has, please send the URL.
We recommend saving all of these things in a folder, so when it’s time to kick off the design of your store you can quickly send everything over with a click of a button. That way our designers have everything they need to start creating your store right away.
*Brand guidelines typically include brand fonts, color codes, and any rules regarding logo usage or spacing.
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#AskAnExpert – Episode 4 – Meet Our Experts
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#AskAnExpert E4: Meet Our Experts
Meet the Company Store experts behind our new #AskAnExpert video series.
Posted by BrightStores on Friday, March 30, 2018
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Episode Recap
- Last week one of our followers asked us about our experts, which we thought was a great question! So, who are these experts?
And last but not least, our cutest expert…
Want to join the fun? Get involved!
Let’s be honest; we didn’t create these videos to watch ourselves online, heck most of us are introverts. We created this series because we wanted to give our clients another way to find solutions and get answers to their questions. Maybe you’re looking for advice on how to sell Company Stores or think that someone else would benefit from your question. Those are all great reasons to join in the conversation.
So how can you get involved? It’s easy, just jump on in and join the conversation, whether that is during the live stream or after.
We host these on Facebook Live every week, typically on Thursdays or Fridays. But if you don’t have Facebook or it’s not your cup of tea, we also upload these videos to our YouTube, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.
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