Spares-Direct-2-U

Spares-Direct-2-U sells electrical distribution and control equipment spare parts and services, predominantly on a B2B basis, but is also open to the public. Approximately 40% of their sales now come from overseas Customers.

The Requirement

Due to the worldwide appeal of some of the products that they sell, Spares-Direct-2-U needed an effective marketing and sales channel to be able to reach out to the market areas which are difficult and extremely costly when using traditional methods of advertising or catalogue distribution.

They knew they wanted an E-commerce application that allowed Customers to identify and order parts with some form of payment gateway.

The Investigation

Wired-i worked with the SD2U team to evaluate the existing business process and the enquiry and order habits of their Customers.

A key element to providing a suitable solution was to determine how much integration would be required to minimise "Swivelware" - i.e., the duplicate entry of data in multiple systems. SD2U already used a single bespoke Microsoft Access database application to manage their product portfolio, quotations, orders, purchasing, and sales invoicing.

The Solution

A carefully planned MySQL database to handle product data, web specific prices and promotions, as well as Customer details and discounts was devised. This would interact with the E-commerce web application to capture transactional information such as quotations, orders, and payments made by Customers from both on and off-line methods.

A two phased approach was utilised, with phase I comprising the rapid development of a basic E-commerce application with existing branding to get an early web presence with payment gateway facility. Phase II would include a complete rebranding for the company, plus a whole new raft of features such as Client Login, specific Customer pricing, self-build quotes, enhanced product search, plus account payment status.

The Result

Phase II which includes the new rebranded and improved functionality E-commerce solution is due to go live in January 2008.