For Michael Bailey, Digital Content Supervisor at Prime-Line Products, it doesn’t matter who the retailer or vendor partner is, they want to ensure the same content for everyone. By having “one source of truth”, it makes work much more efficient – especially for someone responsible for sharing their digital content with their retailer/vendors.
Finding Efficiency in the Details:
A Conversation with Prime-Line Products
If you are a person who likes to repair things yourself, or are one of the many weekend visitors to a hardware or home center, you’ve likely encountered a Prime-Line product, even if you weren’t aware of it. A manufacturer that makes replacement hardware for many household items like door knobs, window locks, bathroom fixtures and cabinets, Prime-Line is all about high quality repair solutions. And the vast number of items in the Prime-Line catalog makes content management a challenge.
Syndigo held a series of discussions recently with two of the company’s eCommerce leaders to learn more about the changes they have seen during the past year and the ways they are leveraging Syndigo capabilities to drive sales with their retailer business partners.
The Challenges... and Opportunities
In the past, Michael and others at Prime-Line had to pull together multiple different spreadsheets – for each vendor – to distribute their content. With tens of thousands of SKUs to manage across their partners, it was nearly impossible to keep all vendors up to speed at the same time. And if edits to content were requested by one, the odds were low that they would be replicated across other spreadsheets. This obviously caused inconsistencies in data quality, in addition to a large amount of time manually working on the sheets.
By accessing data from one source, Michael’s spreadsheets are reduced to one content set in CXH, with the ability to add or update content globally. It has become a huge timesaver, which enables him to get more things done.
I can change one thing in Syndigo… and within 3 minutes, I’m done publishing upwards of thousands of items, to all of our different vendors.”
– Michael Bailey, Prime-Line Products
“With Syndigo, I spend less time trying to get the same information to all of the online entities we do business with,” said Bailey. “I can change one thing in Syndigo… and within 3 minutes, I’m done publishing upwards of thousands of items, to all of our different vendors. As a result, I have more time to make the content the best we can for all involved.”
Looking Ahead
Prime-Line, like many suppliers, is also focused on 2021 and how to share their content with more retailers and vendors which adds efficiency. Even if the vendor is not a current Syndigo partner, the capabilities Prime-Line has through CXH to enables custom information to be published directly there to their retailer
“Extending the aisle” is another objective for Prime-Line, according to Tony Meirovitz, VP Marketing, eCommerce and Customer Experience. Through this year the company has seen a strong increase in demand for their products, due to the increasing numbers of stay-at-home consumers who may have home repairs or upgrades on their minds.
The challenge, however, is that no physical store can allocate space for all their items. “It’s a very SKU intensive business…inevitably, you have something that you need to replace… and you talk to the associate, and sometimes they [have it] and sometimes they don’t,” commented Meirovitz. “And when they don’t, that’s where we come in from an eCommerce standpoint, because we want to make sure our entire catalog is available on our b-to-b customers’ website,” in order to enable that complete experience.
Content is king with a SKU-intensive business, especially when many items may look identical online. Meirovitz noted that having accurate and complete item details is critical for ordering supplemental parts online, both to give confidence and reduce returns. In addition, the company found that it helped their b-to-b customers by providing simple line diagrams for every item, which helped to increase the response and viewing by consumers.
Take a look at our discussion with Tony, to learn the other elements of successful product listings, including photography and video capabilities.
Syndigo has become an integral part of Prime-Line’s digital commerce programs, helping both to increase efficiencies, deliver more engaging information and raise the quality of shopper interactions on their retailer partner pages. All in all, these improved content processes help Prime-Line’s business partners by delivering a better content experience for the end consumer.
Be on the lookout for more client discussions in the future!
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