You’ve heard about the concept of online stores here and there, but haven’t taken the step (okay, feels more like a giant leap) to develop an online company store for your promotional products. Your marketing and sales teams  have all been independently ordering based on their promotional needs, and that’s worked out just fine, right? Well, except that one time an account manager used an old logo for his last order of mugs, in the wrong color. Come to think of it, you don’t really have a good way of tracking who is ordering what and how often. For these reasons (and many more), let us talk you through the 4 most valuable reasons to think about starting an online store:

Brand Management: Your organization has spent countless hours developing brand guidelines for many reasons. In its simplest form, you want to deliver a consistent brand experience to your target audience. An online company store ensures your branding will be consistent across a wide range of promotional products. With 24/7 access, your team can efficiently order brand compliant products for their events. This is the marketing and creative team’s dream — a centralized location with pre-approved promotions that effectively deliver your brand’s message.

Reporting: Any online store built around B2B best practices should provide you with everything you would ever want to know about the purchases made and information about the buyers. Expect information on inventory performance (products with highest turns and slow movers), fill rates, and order statistics (average order sizes, etc). Online store reporting helps determine which branded products should stay, which should be discontinued, and can help you determine what approach to take for reorder timing, communications, and budgeting.

Marketing: Even your most basic online company store setup should include a marketing element to help drive awareness and usage of the program. Many include email communication packages to help promote new products in the store, seasonal updates, and special promotions. Products and content should be updated seasonally to keep it fresh for users. Marketing from your online store provider as well as internally within your own company are important for program success.

Ease of Ordering: An online store done right will allow your teams to place orders from the road or at their computer with the click of a few buttons. An ideal solution will be mobile friendly site with a clean look and incorporate online retail best practices. Now ordering trade show giveaways for next week’s event is quick and easy!

What other benefits might you expect from an experienced online store provider? Check out our Platform. Added benefits of our Promo Savvy solution include no inventory commitment, mobile friendly site access, quick 2 week set up time, and a partner with over 60 years of experience in the promotional industry.