Maui Jim Inc., a manufacturer of fashion and sport sunglasses, is growing sales to optometrists and other professionals through a new business-to-business portal, the company says.
The portal, at Trade.MauiJim.com, was redesigned last year and caters to optometrists and ophthalmologists who sell eyewear through their practices. The portal also provides market that helps Maui Jim’s reps sell to eyewear professionals as well as to large retailers like Tommy Bahama, Nordstrom and Macy’s, says Jim Ferolo, Maui Jim’s vice president of digital marketing and technologies.
“Sales through the portal have been growing at a double-digit rate,” Ferolo says. He addressed the portal’s growth during a discussion on sales channel conflicts experienced by manufacturers at a forum earlier this month hosted by Forrester Research Inc. The discussion was moderated by Andy Hoar, Forrester vice president and principal analyst for B2B commerce.
Ferolo adds that Maui Jim’s B2B portal, at Trade.MauiJim.com, was also seeing larger average order size and more consistent engagement with buyers than before the site redesign.
Maui Jim launched the portal last year on e-commerce technology from SAP Hybris, a unit of business software company SAP SE. The manufacturer also uses SAP software for its enterprise resource planning, or ERP, software for managing inventory, financial accounting and other operations.
An important feature of the redesigned site enables business customers to place an order within 30 seconds, Ferolo says. To assist newcomers in using the portal, the site also features a video that provides a step-by-step demonstration of how to find and purchase products.
Maui Jim shares sales information from the portal with its sales reps and large retailer accounts to reveal trends in eyewear styles. “We’re sharing as much data as we can, and we’ve been able to grow sales across every channel,” Ferolo says.
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