Digital Transformation is No Game for Toy Distributor Irish Creative Stamping

Written by Lyndsey Turner (Marketing Executive) 24 Aug 2018 in Customer Stories

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“We’ve gone from wheeling around vast amounts of catalogues in large briefcases, to walking into a customer with our entire catalogue on an iPad. That along with live ordering straight into our back end systems. It’s 100% better.”

Once upon a time, Irish Creative Stamping Ltd. was spending most of their days dealing with constant calls and emails back and forth to the warehouse, from customers and their own reps taking and placing orders and dealing with queries on stock levels and customer-specific pricing.

Now with the guidance of Aphix Software, they have become entirely more efficient by implementing digital ordering for their customers and sales reps alike and all synced live with their stock management system from Intact Software.

Director John Cunningham believes his business is at least 30% more efficient thanks to both the WebShop and SalesRep solutions from Aphix Software.

“Irish Creative Stamping Ltd, was established over 25 years ago. We are a B2B distribution company based in Leixlip. We sell a quality range of toys and gifts to independent retailers throughout Ireland.

Prior to implementing the Aphix Software suite of products, we were taking all orders manually. This was done over the phone, by email or via our sales reps. This was very time consuming with constant calls and emails back and forth checking stock levels and customer-specific pricing.

We tried an alternative online ordering platform but it was not very user-friendly and was too cumbersome. Frankly, it was unworkable. Our customers and our own sales team weren’t comfortable and didn’t have any confidence in using it.

I quickly realised that my competitors were ahead of me in embracing technology and by doing so were cutting down on these resource-intensive manual processes.

We use Intact Software to manage our stock control and customer accounts and having a digital ordering solution that connected seamlessly to this system was essential, which is the reason we chose Aphix Software.

We implemented the Aphix Software eCommerce Solution, WebShop in October 2013 and then their mobile ordering app, SalesRep went live on the road with our field sales team, in November 2014.

Having live stock information when a customer is either ordering online themselves or with the rep is a game-changer. This was previously an extremely time-consuming process involving endless phone calls from customers or the rep to check stock levels and then checking catalogues for alternative items and then more time checking stock levels on that item and confirming the price for that particular customer, or else calls confirming when an item would be in stock to see if they could place back orders and so forth.

Now a customer can see live stock levels, see alternative items, pricing and stock levels or place back orders for an item that will soon be in stock should they want to, so there is no reason for them to not order, which may have happened in the past.

All the product details, pricing and stock levels are live on both the online shop and the mobile apps the sales reps use. It’s all fed in from our back end systems along with customer-specific pricing and account details. The order is then placed directly into the customer’s account on our systems and is ready for picking and shipping the same day.

For the sales reps particularly it was a major change. But one they welcomed with open arms. It made their lives a lot easier.

And overall implementing both the WebShop and the SalesRep products has cut down on admin by half and made the running of the company a lot more efficient.

Previously we relied on printed catalogues and lots of them. The catalogues were from various suppliers and we didn’t always stock all the items in them, which could lead to a lot of errors.

The reps had to carry all the catalogues around in a huge briefcase on wheels now they walk in with an iPad. It’s 100% better. The customer and the rep has access to the right products at the right price with live stock levels. It removes the risk of human error.

Basically everything just works better and the Aphix products are growing and improving all the time. It gives our customers access to our live info 24/7.

Once we had the website finished, to come in on a Monday morning and find customers had put in orders over the weekend was the most satisfying part.

It was also really refreshing how easy it was to work with the software without previous technical qualifications. It’s very user-friendly. Any problems are always resolved by the customer success team promptly. Not that there’s many!

I would estimate that the combination of our WebShop and the SalesRep app have made our company 30% more efficient. It was a substantial investment that has more than paid for itself.

I would have no hesitations in recommending the Aphix platform to others and have done so many times.”

John Cunningham, Director, Irish Creative Stamping Ltd.