CPQ eCommerce Solutions

It all started with Sting

In August of 1994 Dan Kohn, a 21-year-old with an entrepreneurial spirit sold his friend a CD (Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales) through his website, NetMarket. Marking this the world’s very first eCommerce transaction and paving the way for companies like Amazon, eBay, and so many more to come. 

A new area of home improvement

Fast forward to today. Many months into a global pandemic and eCommerce has been a part of everyone’s daily lives. Another thing that’s been a part of our daily lives is our homes. Never before have we spent so much time at home. Thus creating a renaissance of interest in home improvement. 

The sudden need for improving our homes probably began with building our home offices and creating spaces for our children to learn. Only it didn’t stop there, in a recent study released by  Porch, a hub that connects homeowners with a myriad of services found that 3 out of 4 homeowners carried out a home improvement project since the beginning of the pandemic. With millennials spending the most.  

A large number of these projects focus on the outside of the home where homeowners are making the most of their outdoor spaces and updating the exteriors of their homes. An NPR article sights that Home Depot reported a 23% increase in sales, $38.1 billion in Q2 alone. It’s incredible to think that during a pandemic when so many businesses have been halted in their tracks, others can come out on top and be profitable. It makes sense though, these businesses that have a strong online presence come out on top in the eCommerce space.   

CPQ eCommerce Solutions make it happen

This brings us to how B2C and B2B businesses benefit from CPQ and eCommerce technology. CPQ eCommerce solutions help businesses:

Create faster conversion cycles. Customers can build and customize products themselves in a matter of moments. We’ve found that customers who invest the time to build their own quotes are more likely to complete their purchases.

Eliminate mistakes. With inventory integration, sales teams know what products are on hand and their costs. Accuracy also eliminates misalignments that slows down engineering teams. No more spreadsheets, no more errors, no more wasted time. 

Meet customer expectations. Having an interactive complete online catalog opens up endless opportunities for upsells, add-ons, or suggested upgrades like never before. Customers can see all the possibilities and your product sells itself. 

 Before, the quoting process was manual, designs needed to be double checked and CAD drawings needed to be created. Their engineering team was backed up for weeks and the sales team was losing customers. No one was happy. 

Another customer of ours, Timberlane, creates beautiful custom shutters and garage doors. These home additions really add to the curb appeal of our homes. Timberlane’s product isn’t overly complex but with so many options, they needed something easy for their customers to use and accurate for their engineers. That’s where we came in, we helped develop an accurate quoting system that integrates across the organization. Pairing with Salesforce CRM and other existing tools, Timberlane is able to keep all their pricing, inventory, and reporting up-to-date. 

Successful eCommerce needs an easy-to-use interface. It’s critical for your customers to be able to make confident buying decisions. And we want companies to be confident in their end-to-end eCommerce experience from landing page to checkout.

Customizable eCommerce experiences are considered by most consumers “the norm”. We’ve been energized by the need companies have of bringing a customizable approach to the eCommerce side of their business. We’re confident in our abilities to create CPQ experiences that increase conversions, save time, and make customers happy. To think it all began with the sale of a CD, although we’re not surprised that Sting was involved in some way. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help integrate CPQ into your eCommerce experience reach out.