eCommerce that Promotes Growth
The Story
Background
Gemline® is a premier manufacturer and supplier of high-quality promotional goods, such as writing instruments, bags, business accessories, drinkware, and food and lifestyle gift items. Gemline designs and builds many of their products in-house, including those sold under brands such as Aviana™, Gemline, Gourmet Expressions®, Heritage Supply, Life in Motion®, Travis & Wells®, and Vertex®. Gemline complements their in-house product line with additional high-quality promotional products designed by consumer brand partners.
Challenge
Gemline had an existing eCommerce platform to sell their products, however they were dissatisfied with the platform’s user experience. This platform did not integrate with their other business systems, meaning that the Gemline staff had to manually manage the data. For example, if there were product-related changes or updates in their PIM system, those did not push to the Commerce platform; development staff needed to manually change product information through a process that included more than 15 steps. In addition to requiring an immense amount of manual effort to manage, the platform did not offer a comprehensive view of their sales cycles, customer journeys and insights, and overall company performance. To add to their struggles, Gemline had to rely on third-party technical resources to make changes or upgrades to their eCommerce site, and after finding out their platform version was being deprecated, they knew they needed a new and better solution. Trifecta’s challenge was to establish an eCommerce platform that delivered immediate benefit through a modern architecture and solution set, while providing a foundation for future growth.
Our Work
Strategy
Following a discovery period with Gemline, the Trifecta team presented two implementation options to achieve Gemline’s success criteria. Each approach involved the implementation of Salesforce B2B Commerce on Lightning Experience. Through a collaborative conversation about Gemline’s timeline and project goals, we identified the best strategy to meet the client’s needs.
Our team integrated B2B Commerce with Gemline’s ERP, IFS Applications, to streamline order processing. We also built integrations to Gemline’s PIM, Salsify, which enhances their agility and allows separation of duties between marketing and IT staff. Now, product changes entered into the PIM will automatically update product records on their Commerce site through a nightly sync process. Gemline’s marketing staff now also has the ability to manually push changes through in real time, if they don’t wish to wait for the nightly sync.
“Trifecta was able to demonstrate their deep knowledge of Salesforce and translate it into solutions that met our unique business needs.”
eCommerce Solution
In addition to alleviating Gemline of the massive amount of manual processes, another focus of this project was to enhance the user experience for Gemline customers. Some of the ways we accomplished this was by building an integration to Zoom, an external eCatalog system. This integration creates alternate browsing options for users, and enhances their site’s visual experience. The site also allows clients greater visibility of Gemline’s inventory and product availability, the ability to estimate freight charges, and access to sales and marketing materials to streamline the quote and ordering process. We also integrated with an external web-based design editor, which allows Gemline’s clients to visualize product customizations in real time before ordering. Finally, we improved the checkout flow by integrating B2B Commerce with Gemline’s payment processing gateway and implementing a tiered pricing structure that adjusted product pricing based on volume purchased.
The Results
Results:
Gemline’s new eCommerce solution launched in April 2021. It provides a 360-degree view of the customers, integrating their systems, providing insight into the full customer journey, enhancing the user experience, and providing a foundation for digital transformation. By integrating B2B Commerce with Gemline’s ERP and PIM, Trifecta has eliminated the manual processes and additional maintenance costs that caused them to become dissatisfied with their previous eCommerce platform. Our solution has increased order processing efficiency, has transitioned Gemline to increased self-sufficiency, and has decreased total cost of ownership. Specifically, Gem has experienced the following YOY metrics in the months since launch:
- 40 percent increase in web registrations
- 100 percent decrease in manual interventions for sample orders
- 35 percent savings in time spent maintaining and updating their site
- 56 percent increase in page views
- 282 percent increase in web sessions
As Gemline continues to leverage Salesforce Commerce and focus on more strategic business efforts, they are targeting several additional goals to maximize their investment. Gemline plans to take advantage of the analytical power of Commerce Cloud and utilize behavioral data for marketing, site optimization, and process improvements. In addition, Gemline has future plans to expand into omni-channel capability.
“We work with a multitude of IT partners and Trifecta stands out because of their ability to provide meaningful guidance and to deliver results.”