How XFACTORY Built a B2B Sales Webstore from the Ground Up
XFACTORY is one of India’s biggest suppliers of building, construction, and industrial products and materials. From cement to steel, paint, tiles, and power tools, the company proudly sells all the top brands — supplying the Indian construction boom prompted by the Prime Minister’s new housing drive. According to Bloomberg, a $1.3 trillion wave of housing investment is expected in India over the next seven years, creating a potential gold rush for the country’s construction industry, and its suppliers.
To capitalize on this epic growth, XFACTORY needed to join India’s budding digital commerce movement. The brand had no eCommerce business platform operations at all, and without a webstore, XFACTORY was severely limited in their aim to reach every building contractor in India, a country that boasts nearly four times the population of the United States. Furthermore, the company had no tracking or recording system for their inventory, customers, orders or product data, and no facility to showcase their large range of products. Together with poor channels of internal and customer communication, the business was suffering with long order fulfillment times, and many lost opportunities.
In 2016, XFACTORY looked for an eCommerce platform that could handle the complexities of their business operations, while offering the detailed customizations they needed to dominate the Indian construction industry. They needed effortless communication between their business entities, improved connectivity with their channel partners including architects and contractors, and a state-of-the-art ordering system. When they landed on Magento Commerce, XFACTORY realized the platform offered the flexibility they needed to build a bespoke order workflow, delight their B2B customers, and bring their business into the 21st Century.
Magento Commerce is aligned to our brand offering. It showcases a new level of digital procurement which is quite unusual in the construction industry. We are very thankful to Team Krish for understanding our needs.
Lokendra Kaushik
eCommerce Manager, XFACTORY
Together with their Magento Solution Partner, Krish TechnoLabs, XFACTORY decided to launch their webstore on Magento Commerce 2. The B2B-ready platform easily integrated with XFACTORY’s newly-implemented Odoo ERP and their PIM system. First, Krish TechnoLabs built a customized order system to allow visitors to register with ease, using just a mobile phone number or a One Time Password. Then, the customer identifies himself or herself as an individual, house builder, or dealer, allowing the e-commerce website to tailor its content accordingly. XFACTORY implemented a ‘request for quote’ experience, coupled with online price negotiations that mirror the in-store sales experience their customers expect.
The Magento Commerce out-of-the-box search capability allows the customer to add products to their cart right from the search result box, and with custom catalogues and pricing, and a quick order tool that draws from the customers’ previous order data, the purchase process is both accurate and easier than ever. XFACTORY also added a credit-based purchase option for their B2B customers, allowing them to pay on account. Other third-party extensions selected from the vast Magento Marketplace allowed XFACTORY to optimize their tax reporting, create a sophisticated layered navigation, and revolutionize their customer service. Freshdesk Support gave XFACTORY a customer support and ticket system to keep ahead of customer issues.
XFACTORY celebrated the launch of their new webstore in May 2017. Their implementation time was just two months, including ideation, consulting, and development. Since its launch, the e-commerce website has increased the effectiveness of their business operations, and created a surge in the number of orders received. When the company enjoyed a 63 percent lift in ‘request for quote’ conversion, they described their new sales platform as a “game changer.”
More than 150 early-access users registered in the first month alone, as XFACTORY’s B2B customers quickly adapted to buying their cement and steel online. Using Magento Commerce, XFACTORY automated their traditionally retail-based eCommerce business and gained total control over their inventory and data, creating a flawless communication and fulfillment process. “Magento offered vast depth in terms of ready-built modules, flexibility, and customizations, to help XFACTORY achieve its goals,” said Justin Thomas, of Krish TechnoLabs. “All in all, this collection of features has enhanced the customer experience like never before and helped XFACTORY to a move closer to the company’s vision of becoming a leader in this space.”
We learned that Magento is the most robust, agile, and flexible platform when it comes to leveraging B2B capabilities. It allows us to present our complex product offering to customers in a friendly and easy-to-understand way.
Lokendra Kaushik
eCommerce Manager, XFACTORY
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Originally published at magento.com.