Staples is using a new e-commerce platform to promote its products

With a multi-channel online sales strategy, Staples Promotional Products today relies on an e-commerce platform and integrated product configurator to crack sales operations that were once hindered by traditional technology platforms .

Staples Promotional Products, a business unit of office supply company Staples, is now selling personalized products, from apparel and handbags to pens and coffee mugs, to corporate customers through three channels, on the company's B2B e-commerce website to individual or corporate buyers .

there are occasional pop-up online stores and opportunities for clients’ special events , such as Nurses Week for healthcare organizations ; and the 300 online stores it custom designs and develops for corporate clients, including healthcare organizations, manufacturers and retailers.

Until last year, Staples Promotional Products had operated these online channels on three separate traditional e-commerce platforms that were primarily designed and built in-house using some commercial software. Building new features for each platform required using separate architecture and software code, and each modification required significant time and resources.

But over the years, Staples has found that customers expect a more user-friendly online purchasing experience, including an easier and faster way to select promotional products with customized logos and messaging. Recently, Staples realized it was time for a major technology upgrade.

Staples has already started to make some progress, with a focus on improvements to StaplesPromo.com. “ We ’re getting closer to the user experience, but the burden has become too great to maintain the updates, the speed of the customer experience, the uptime of site performance,” Kroymann said.

In parallel, however, Kroymann ’s team was also deploying the Artifi product configurator from Artifi Labs, a subsidiary of Amla Commerce.

Built with an extensive API for integration with product databases and e-commerce platforms, the configurator has proven to be a useful application that works well.

As an e-commerce platform , Znode also offers a large number of APIs that connect its e-commerce engine with various customer-facing interfaces. That’s when Staples realized it had found a highly customizable alternative to its old platform, Kroymann said.

It decided to deploy an instance of the Znode software for three of its online channels : StaplesPromo.com, its pop-up online store, and 300 custom online stores for enterprise clients.

“The business case we wanted to get across was an e-commerce platform with newer technology and also an integrated configurator,” Kroymann said.

That flexibility has helped Staples make up for business lost to the coronavirus as companies cut back on business travel and trade shows that typically drive demand for promotional products. “PPE sales have helped us, and customers are happy with that , ” Kroymann said.

Staples

E-commerce platform

North America