Broadlume, known for its technology innovations in retail marketing and lead generation, has taken the wraps off Enterprise, a customized website for large flooring retailers, manufacturers and distributors. This latest launch aims to simplify the customer shopping journey while offering a breadth of digital tools for clients.
Billed as the “antithesis of the one-size-fits-all approach,” Enterprise, which is 100% set up for ecommerce, can be tailored to the specific needs of each customer. For instance, the more elaborate the business, the more complex the website.
Some of the key features and benefits of Enterprise:
- Allows customers to fully manage their catalog, their in-stock products and private- labeling system.
- All website content—from color to photos to price—can be edited by the customer through the back end.
- Retailers can alter pricing based on which customer visits the website. For a dealer that has many builder accounts, for example, it may want to reveal pricing to some accounts while hiding pricing from others. In short, the retail customer is in complete control.
Among the initial retail customers who have adopted Enterprise are America’s Floor Source (AFS) and Atlanta Flooring Design Center. On the supplier side, The Dixie Group (including its Fabrica, Masland and TRUCOR brands) and International Flooring Company (IFC), creators of the Canopy Floors brand, have come on board.
According to Todd Saunders, Broadlume CEO, additional customers will be brought on board in the coming months. “We’re always happy to have exploratory phone calls with potential customers,” Saunders told FCNews. “The process is extremely hands-on from our side. Our goal is to build a solution for the unique needs of the customer.”
A case in point is AFS, a top five independent flooring dealer with multiple businesses. “We have found that once you hit a specific size you enter into different types of markets—builder, wholesale, etc.” Saunders explained. “The more channels you get into, the more complicated and custom these sites must be—that’s the notion of it.”
In less than two months AFS has seen a noticeable impact to its showroom experience, according to Michel Vermette, CEO. “When we went through the assessment [with Broadlume], we wanted the website to be representative of a showroom floor—from product selection to imagery—to have a connected customer experience so customers can do their pre-shopping online. Customers can do the work at home and connect with everything that we have in the showroom. The beauty of it is your pictures populate directly into our CRM—so when you walk into our showroom, I can see everything you have done. We can pull all your pictures right then and there from the visualizer. It’s a very immersive experience.”
Keeping it simple
Enterprise aims to make shopping for flooring a more seamless experience and help close the deal faster. While it is too soon to measure data to that effect, anecdotally AFS says it is closing a bigger ticket with Enterprise than without. “[Enterprise] is a very visual process and it’s easier for the customer to make a decision,” Vermette said.
IFC’s Canopy Floors brand, which is powered by Broadlume, is another early adopter—having launched phase one of Enterprise just two weeks ago. Canopy is an ideal client for Broadlume, according to the company, because it also has a strong digital focus and allows consumers to order samples online.
“We are trying to take a different approach to market just like Broadlume,” said Greg Wrenn, vice president of product and brand at Canopy. “Broadlume has a lot of experience building websites; they were able to provide expertise. We wanted something custom and on brand for Canopy.”
Sarah Ballew, marketing manager for Canopy, focused on the user interface/user experience in collaborating with Broadlume on its customized version of Enterprise. For example, Ballew studied the websites of trending consumer brands Yeti and Patagonia to see their approach and how it could translate into flooring. The primary goal for Canopy is to create a seamless and easy customer experience. Enterprise will be an important step in that process. “Users will see additional features in the weeks and months to come that truly listen to the end customer on a very personal level,” Ballew said.
To learn more, visit Broadlume.
