Success Stories

Forty-two years in the industry will teach you to move forward or be left in the dust. Just ask Dwaine Goodwin.

When the president of Teeco Products, a California-based distributor of liquid petroleum gas products, recognized that no one within the industry was riding the e-commerce wave, he jumped at the opportunity to be the first. "I believe that to succeed you need technology that is ahead of the curve," Goodwin says. "That's why we operate an Activant solution and chose to open a B2B Seller storefront."

A fully hosted and integrated Web-based storefront solution, Activant B2B Seller services existing and prospective customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. By leveraging the power and range of the Internet, B2B Seller offers a convenient, more customer-friendly way of doing business that can help you increase your customer base and expand into new markets.

A Change in Culture

What Goodwin saw in his B2B Seller site was not simply a means of reaching existing customers more efficiently, but a way to embrace a younger, more computer savvy generation. "I look at the B2B site as a change in our culture, a way to accommodate a younger, technologically advanced generation," Goodwin explains. "They feel comfortable placing orders and running their entire business online, so we felt it was important to give them that capacity."

Goodwin believes this approach resulted in the overwhelming response Teeco saw when they opened their B2B Seller storefront for business on June 1, 2005. "We had 20 percent of our customers using the site in the first 30 days, it was quite amazing," he recalls.

A New Era

With features including a favorites list and the Quick Order Pad, B2B Seller helped Teeco Products reach more customers, reduce operating costs, and experience dramatic growth in their bottom line. "Since the customer serves as his own customer service and order departments, transaction costs have dropped significantly," says Goodwin. "Couple that with an average order that is four times larger than before, and we saw a full return on our investment in the first 90 days.

"With such a quick ROI, all our B2B sales are going straight to the bottom line," he adds. "All told, we increased business by about 20 percent in the first six months, and we now have about 15 to 18 percent of our annual orders coming in online."

To keep the orders pouring in, Teeco instituted a free freight program for all purchases over a certain dollar amount. "Our customers love it because it drives their bottom line, and by setting the order level where we want it, we've tripled our average order," explains Goodwin. "If you can triple your volume, and it only costs you two or three percent to do, it's not a bad deal."

As Goodwin looks toward the future, he sees the younger generation as not only a key to financial success, but the catalyst of a new era at Teeco Products. "We've been happy Acclaim users for years, but as my workforce trends toward younger, more Windows-oriented employees, our next logical step is to consider moving to Prophet 21," concludes Goodwin. "It's a Windows-based solution with a short learning curve, and with the younger generation coming in, why wouldn't I want to make it easier for them to do their job?"

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