COVID-19 Is Driving Change
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Online Ordering Taking a Leading Role
King of Prussia Mall, outside of Philadelphia, has a new tenant: The Covid-19, Inc., with the catchy slogan,
“Put us out of business. Buy our masks”.
We see that COVID-19 has drastically changed the business landscape for retail and B2B. Online ordering by consumers is skyrocketing and businesses are catching the habit. C. David Doud in his article of August 23, 2020, “COVID Is Driving a Step-Change in E-Commerce – And That Also Means B2B”, references a study by Wunderman Thompson Commerce. That study found that B2B online purchasing had increased by 22% since 2019 and that respondents to the survey reported that they are making 48% of their B2B purchases online. Significantly, 67% of those online purchases were with suppliers that provided custom online ordering portals developed by the supplier vendor specially for the buyer’s company.
Custom online ordering portals are gaining popularity primarily because of the convenience of ordering and the cost controls that are implemented in a well-constructed online ordering portal. When respondents were asked, in the Wunderman Thompson Commerce study, “What would make your B2B purchasing job easier?”, 43% said Real-Time inventory availability and 32% indicated they wanted Clear Fulfillment/Shipping information. In other words, they needed access to data that would help them with “Today’s Tasks” and “Planning for Future needs”.
For the last 8 years we at BRIDGE® have been providing such an “online ordering system” for our clients with our SurePrint® online ordering portals. These online ordering portals are custom designed to meet the specific need of each client. SurePrint® not only gives 24/7 access to their purchasing portal but also delivers vital inventory management and shipping location documentation for all orders and releases from inventory. We like to say they are “Powered by BRIDGE®”.
- Every piece of apparel, promotional print product, swag, business card or any other print service needed by your company can be purchased or released from inventory within your custom online ordering portal.
- Employee & Admin logins for your employees to set security and ordering levels.
- Allow branches and individual employees to order what they need when they need it.
- BRIDGE® SurePrint® allows you to control corporate approved branding on every item and saves past designs for quick restocking of needed supplies.
- Allow branches and individual employees to order what they need when they need it.
- Consolidated billing that allows you to customize and control cost center expenses. This saves your corporate billing department time and money!
- Multiple report formats available to help you control inventory and plan future budgets for marketing materials
- Items placed in inventory on our premise relives the client of costly storage space and personnel cost to pick and pack orders. This is especially helpful during these COVID-19 times with many employees working from home but still needing to send supplies to office locations around the country.
Our goal and commitment to you is to not only manage the item purchase cost of your inventoried items, but to manage and control the internal operational costs of purchasing, inventory management, warehousing and distribution of goods to their final cost center destination.
For a FREE Print & Promo Online Ordering Store Demo
Richard Stienstra
President
BRIDGE®
Printing & Promotional Products, Inc. ©2020
