Latest / Red Truck Radio / Red Truck Radio Episode 11: How Ecommerce Drives Growth
Transcript
- 0:03SPEAKER_01: You've probably placed an order online and never thought twice about it.
- 0:06SPEAKER_01: Click, confirm, done.
- 0:08SPEAKER_01: But behind that, there's a whole system of people, technology, and problem solving making it happen.
- 0:14SPEAKER_01: Today on Red Truck Radio, we're pulling back the curtain on e-commerce at Lawsaw Supply.
- 0:18SPEAKER_01: What it actually takes to build it, run it, and keep making it better.
- 0:23SPEAKER_01: Karina is our guest and she knows the platform inside and out.
- 0:26SPEAKER_01: Let's dig in.
- 0:27SPEAKER_01: Karina, how are you doing?
- 0:29SPEAKER_00: I'm doing well.
- 0:29SPEAKER_00: How are you, Adam?
- 0:30SPEAKER_01: Very good.
- 0:31SPEAKER_01: Glad to have you here.
- 0:32SPEAKER_01: This has been one of the hotly anticipated episodes.
- 0:35SPEAKER_01: E-commerce.
- 0:37unknown: Woo!
- 0:38SPEAKER_01: Yikes.
- 0:38SPEAKER_00: Are very exciting over here.
- 0:40SPEAKER_01: We are.
- 0:40SPEAKER_01: We are.
- 0:41SPEAKER_01: You know, we continue Wasall Supply under your leadership as e-commerce manager is uh uh not only keeping us ahead of the pack, but really bringing a lot of uh solutions to our customers, our dealers, and even our sales team.
- 0:54SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna talk a little bit about that today.
- 0:56SPEAKER_01: So um just in general, I mean, we're all used to e-commerce.
- 0:59SPEAKER_01: I think uh every one of us every day is engaging with e-commerce, but building material industries may be a little bit different.
- 1:06SPEAKER_01: But you know, in a in an essence, what what is the problem that e-commerce is trying to solve?
- 1:12SPEAKER_00: E-commerce is trying to help us be the easiest place to do business with.
- 1:17SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 1:18SPEAKER_00: I know that's one of our CEO's mantras is make us easy to do business with.
- 1:22SPEAKER_00: So we want to support the customer and whatever channel they choose to interact with us, whether they want to call in to one of our awesome customer service people or they want to go online 24-7 and order the things they need.
- 1:34SPEAKER_00: I want them to be able to find it.
- 1:36SPEAKER_00: I want them to be able to check out quickly, and I want it to be a positive experience at the end of the day.
- 1:41SPEAKER_00: So, what problem are we solving?
- 1:43SPEAKER_00: We are trying to get them the product as quickly and as easily as possible with the least amount of friction points.
- 1:50SPEAKER_01: 100%.
- 1:50SPEAKER_01: I love it.
- 1:51SPEAKER_01: Very uh, very concise.
- 1:52SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, I think the thing as technology evolves, customers' expectations also change.
- 1:59SPEAKER_01: So, uh, from your lens, how have customers' expect expectations changed over the last couple of years?
- 2:06SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
- 2:07SPEAKER_00: And it's a complicated answer.
- 2:10SPEAKER_00: And it changes with each consumer that you deal with, right?
- 2:13SPEAKER_00: You have the early adopters who are they see technology, they take a huge piece of it and they're off and running.
- 2:19SPEAKER_00: You have those that come a few years behind, and then those that are behind them.
- 2:23SPEAKER_00: And so everybody's at kind of a different stage of technological development, and half-life of technology is like a nanosecond.
- 2:31SPEAKER_00: Whereas it used to be this slow evolution, it's now like an explosion.
- 2:36SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 2:36SPEAKER_00: Like, just for example, Facebook took two and a half years to get to 10 million users.
- 2:42SPEAKER_00: Well, Chat GPT took five days to get to one million users and two months to get to a hundred million users.
- 2:52SPEAKER_00: Well, that level of adoption for technology is like nothing we've ever seen.
- 2:56SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 2:57SPEAKER_00: And maybe some of our customers aren't there, but already a consumer expectation is changing.
- 3:03SPEAKER_00: We want our experiences online to be or personalized, to be frictionless, the ease of use to be there, to have AI help us buy and thickness.
- 3:14SPEAKER_00: And so one of the recent changes we had is product recommendations.
- 3:18SPEAKER_00: That's now driven by an AI tool.
- 3:20SPEAKER_00: So the more you shop the site and the more you check out with certain products, the more the system will learn with you.
- 3:27SPEAKER_00: So your next best recommendation will be coming from your own order history as well as information we'd entered that says, hey, here's your next best thing.
- 3:36SPEAKER_01: Is that even down to the individual user or to the organization?
- 3:40SPEAKER_00: It's down to the individual user.
- 3:42SPEAKER_01: Wow.
- 3:43SPEAKER_00: Which is one of the benefits.
- 3:44SPEAKER_00: I know some customers don't like logging in, right?
- 3:46SPEAKER_00: You have to log in and see your pricing and real-time inventory, but that way we can really create personalization around each individual user.
- 3:54SPEAKER_01: Well, and I think if people know that that's the end result that they're going to get from logging in, I think that may kind of solve that uh that old age old uh difficulty of getting them to want to sign in.
- 4:05SPEAKER_01: So that's awesome.
- 4:05SPEAKER_01: So, how does e comm support our dealers and our sales team, not replace them?
- 4:11SPEAKER_01: So if it's another tool, so how is it helping our dealers?
- 4:14SPEAKER_01: How is it helping our salespeople?
- 4:16SPEAKER_00: Well, like I said, the technology is changing really fast, and so is this business.
- 4:21SPEAKER_00: So when someone logs in, e-comm can support them by telling them, where is the product?
- 4:26SPEAKER_00: How much is in stock?
- 4:28SPEAKER_00: Well, what is my real-time pricing?
- 4:30SPEAKER_00: So every time you go to put something in the cart or you look at it, if there's a little bit of a lag time in that, it's because the system is going back to our ERP system and saying, How much is here?
- 4:41SPEAKER_00: What is this person's individual pricing and pulling all that data in real time?
- 4:46SPEAKER_00: Well, so you were getting the most accurate information we have at our disposal logged into e-comm.
- 4:51SPEAKER_00: Right?
- 4:52SPEAKER_00: It's unreal.
- 4:52SPEAKER_00: So it come so it becomes a real tool for both our customer service team as well as our sales team.
- 4:58SPEAKER_00: And the sales teams are some of the biggest advocates I have in improvements we can make on the e-commerce platform.
- 5:06SPEAKER_00: So if any customers are out here listening, know that your sales reps are fighting for you constantly and what can make your life easier.
- 5:13SPEAKER_01: That is awesome.
- 5:13SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
- 5:14SPEAKER_01: I know you're heading the team, but I know it's uh it's uh it's a team effort.
- 5:18SPEAKER_01: So what what groups are all working to make e-commerce circles successful?
- 5:25SPEAKER_00: Pretty much everyone in the company.
- 5:26SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I really work a lot with the sales teams.
- 5:29SPEAKER_00: They are huge customer advocates.
- 5:32SPEAKER_00: They recently pitched me an idea of a lot having a tool that allows our customers to quote items to their own customers.
- 5:42SPEAKER_00: And they gave me the requirements based on their own customers' feedback.
- 5:46SPEAKER_00: We brought it to the development team, and now we have a customer quoting tool for our own customers available under their login, which so far has been very positively received.
- 5:56SPEAKER_01: So they can set the that our dealer can go into our e-commerce platform, uh, build a quote for their customer, and then set the sell price based on their margin expectation.
- 6:08SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
- 6:09SPEAKER_01: Wow, what a phenomenal tool.
- 6:11SPEAKER_00: So they can enter your global margin, they can enter a margin by item.
- 6:15SPEAKER_00: Okay, some items have higher margins.
- 6:17SPEAKER_00: They can add their own sales tax based on where they're shipping the product to, they can add their shipping costs as well as ours onto it and really give the customer a full body quote with very minimal effort on their ads.
- 6:30SPEAKER_01: So what a versatile tool.
- 6:31SPEAKER_01: And then I think uh there's another uh feature on there that I think would pair very well with that because it's all again about bringing efficiency to our dealer.
- 6:38SPEAKER_01: So you what you just described there, how does that work with uh we have project builder, right?
- 6:44SPEAKER_01: Yes, so with that, that I think would work hand in hand, right?
- 6:46SPEAKER_01: Because what does project builder do?
- 6:48SPEAKER_00: So project builder uh really allows the customer to shop by job lot by color.
- 6:54SPEAKER_00: So obviously So like Diamond Co, for example.
- 6:57SPEAKER_00: Diamond Co has 30 different colors, right?
- 6:59SPEAKER_00: And we have all these parts and pieces.
- 7:01SPEAKER_00: So if you go into Midnight, one of our beautiful colors, and you want to shop by that color family, you'll find what type of siding you want.
- 7:11SPEAKER_00: So you have to kind of go in the do I want Bridget Sick?
- 7:14SPEAKER_00: Do I want flat lap?
- 7:15SPEAKER_00: Do I want boring batten?
- 7:17SPEAKER_00: Once you pick that and choose your color, you can have all those parts and pieces in one place.
- 7:22SPEAKER_01: Wow.
- 7:22SPEAKER_01: That's a big difference because I know uh from previous versions, you know, you really kind of had to peck around there, and it would take quite a while to build that quote.
- 7:30SPEAKER_01: So this sounds like this is shaving quite a bit of that time off, making this a pretty efficient process.
- 7:36SPEAKER_00: It shouldn't be.
- 7:36SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it should.
- 7:37SPEAKER_00: That's what we're hoping.
- 7:38SPEAKER_00: That we are we try to be easier to do business with.
- 7:41SPEAKER_00: And not everybody uses that method.
- 7:43SPEAKER_00: A lot of people use search, which we're we are really trying to improve.
- 7:47SPEAKER_00: Our sales teams have been telling me for the past year our search leaves a lot to be desired.
- 7:51SPEAKER_00: And I I have experienced that myself.
- 7:53SPEAKER_00: So we are working on a it's a Google product and it's powered by AI, and it will learn the customer's behavior and what they search for the most, as well as pick up all the different attributes that we have assigned because we try to do a good job of putting in length, height, width, coverage, all these different attributes that will allow people to buy the right thing.
- 8:16SPEAKER_00: And this AI tool should really help.
- 8:18SPEAKER_00: And we've been working on this for the last several months.
- 8:21SPEAKER_00: I want to apologize for any customers who've experienced some site, some weird site issue that's like I've heard nothing but positive feedback.
- 8:37SPEAKER_00: So I'm dropping a teaser.
- 8:39SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the always more to come.
- 8:41SPEAKER_01: So it's coming.
- 8:42SPEAKER_01: Yes, love it, love it, love it.
- 8:43SPEAKER_01: Well, just hearing that, uh, I'm sure whether it's customers or our sales team, I'm sure you are inundated with ideas uh for improvements or add-ons.
- 8:54SPEAKER_01: How do you uh prioritize or determine what's what we're gonna work on, what's gonna be the next thing?
- 8:59SPEAKER_01: Because we can't do everything all at once.
- 9:01SPEAKER_01: So how do you make those decisions?
- 9:03SPEAKER_00: That's a great question, too.
- 9:05SPEAKER_00: So I don't try not to do anything in a vacuum.
- 9:07SPEAKER_00: I know there's so many more people smarter than me in this company.
- 9:10SPEAKER_00: So I get all the brains in a room.
- 9:13SPEAKER_00: And so when we prioritized the roadmap for this year, I asked the sales teams, what are the biggest brick should be points?
- 9:21SPEAKER_00: And the customer service teams.
- 9:23SPEAKER_00: I don't want to leave them out.
- 9:23SPEAKER_00: They've also been very helpful and very big advocates for our customers.
- 9:28SPEAKER_00: So, what are the biggest pain points your customers are experiencing, or what are the biggest things that they're asking for?
- 9:34SPEAKER_00: One was improve our search functionality.
- 9:37SPEAKER_00: Another one was to get the customers a quoting tool that they could utilize quickly and easily to quote for their own customers.
- 9:43SPEAKER_00: And the third one was to keep improving project builder because there are a certain stubb segment of our customers that really enjoy using that tool.
- 9:53SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
- 9:53SPEAKER_01: You know, I think you know what I'm hearing data is very important.
- 9:58SPEAKER_01: And I know, you know, a couple of years uh ago we went through our ER ERP upgrade, which has been a phenomenal uh evolution for our company.
- 10:05SPEAKER_01: We're really seeing the fruits of of that uh conversion and what it can deliver to our customers.
- 10:11SPEAKER_01: Um, but it all comes back to data.
- 10:13SPEAKER_01: Um, how are how do you work with data?
- 10:15SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's a great point.
- 10:17SPEAKER_00: Yes, is data-driven decisions.
- 10:20SPEAKER_00: And uh so a lot of we have so many different regions and so many different areas of company as well.
- 10:25SPEAKER_00: So we took all that information and we compiled it and we sent them out a survey.
- 10:29SPEAKER_00: And I let them force rank what they thought was the most important.
- 10:33SPEAKER_00: And then once we did that, we pulled actual data on like what are our top-selling items, how are people getting there, where do they seem to be stopped in the process, and then trying to pinpoint each of those friction points and address them as we go.
- 10:47SPEAKER_00: Well, so one of the things we figured out was returns weren't the smoothest process on my.
- 10:53SPEAKER_00: We didn't know, we didn't have anything labeled whether it could be returned or not.
- 10:57SPEAKER_00: We didn't have a good process for letting people know where the product was.
- 11:01SPEAKER_00: So that became an enhancement, and that was very well received by the customers.
- 11:05SPEAKER_00: And they bent us for hey, Mal really know what I can return, what I can't return, or where it's gonna be.
- 11:12SPEAKER_00: So that was one of the things that came about because of this data.
- 11:15SPEAKER_01: That is awesome.
- 11:16SPEAKER_01: You know, and I think it's a testament to the work that you're doing with all the uh uh collaborative teams at Waffle Supply.
- 11:21SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I keep hearing some of these metrics, and you can correct me, but I think I'm pretty close.
- 11:25SPEAKER_01: But on any given month, uh, right around 45% of eligible orders that could be placed at Wallsaw Supply.
- 11:33SPEAKER_01: So that's not custom diamond coat orders or like direct shipments from a vendor, but the vast majority of our orders, so 45% of those today are coming through our e-commerce site.
- 11:44SPEAKER_01: Is that accurate?
- 11:44SPEAKER_00: That is accurate.
- 11:45SPEAKER_01: That is crazy.
- 11:46SPEAKER_01: That that is a testament to bringing value.
- 11:48SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna kind of name off some things that I know that the e-commerce site you can do there.
- 11:52SPEAKER_01: Uh add in where I'm missing, but you can place orders, correct?
- 11:55SPEAKER_00: You can place orders.
- 11:56SPEAKER_01: Check your own custom pricing.
- 11:58SPEAKER_00: You can check your custom pricing, yep.
- 12:00SPEAKER_01: Build quotes with the uh uh project builder.
- 12:03SPEAKER_00: Uh, with the quoting tool.
- 12:05SPEAKER_01: Quoting tool, yes.
- 12:06SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
- 12:06SPEAKER_01: You can also go on and see your past invoices, correct?
- 12:10SPEAKER_00: You can see invoices as well as order history.
- 12:12SPEAKER_01: Ah, check inventory.
- 12:14SPEAKER_01: I think you mentioned that earlier.
- 12:16SPEAKER_00: Yep.
- 12:16SPEAKER_00: So if you go on and you put in your quantity, you'll see that there's 300 pieces available right now and another 400 coming to this whereabouts on this state.
- 12:25SPEAKER_00: So that is to I've heard from customers when I've done I've done focus groups.
- 12:30SPEAKER_00: I've also gone to visit customers, and they've told me that is one of the most valuable things that we have on this site is allowing them to build orders and knowing that things are coming in real time.
- 12:40SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's phenomenal.
- 12:41SPEAKER_01: You know, I was at an industry event recently and got to sit down with uh quite a few of uh uh of our peers and competitors, and uh one of the hottest topics there, and the one that I got the most questions on was how we are moving uh so quickly with e-commerce.
- 12:56SPEAKER_01: So, again, that's a testament to you and your team, Karina.
- 12:58SPEAKER_01: But um, what's something that people might be surprised about learning about maintenance of an e-commerce site?
- 13:05SPEAKER_01: And you know, the behind the scenes work.
- 13:07SPEAKER_01: I think it's all you know, it's really pretty and easy to use and everything, but it's gotta be uh a big chore to keep that mate maintained.
- 13:14SPEAKER_01: What's maybe something people don't think about that really is a pain or laborious to keep keep updated?
- 13:21SPEAKER_00: Okay, a lot of growth.
- 13:23SPEAKER_00: Question.
- 13:23SPEAKER_00: That's a good question, Adam.
- 13:25SPEAKER_00: So I spent quite a few years for retail commerce, so direct to consumer.
- 13:33SPEAKER_00: Business to business e-commerce is so much different and so much more complicated, especially with the business that we're in.
- 13:40SPEAKER_00: Yes, because there's a lot of product data that has to be out there, there's a lot of different warehouses, systems, where's products stocked?
- 13:48SPEAKER_00: All of that involves extensive coding on the back end and APIs that are built into multiple systems.
- 13:54SPEAKER_00: So we have an excellent development team as well as a very good partner with our website hosts, which is Optimizely.
- 14:02SPEAKER_00: And all of those parts and pieces trying to fit those together is a really complicated process.
- 14:08SPEAKER_00: And I think people would be surprised, so Mern how much testing we do before we go live with something.
- 14:15SPEAKER_00: And it's still you never the things that you you tested for a million times, suddenly in production, they'll get kind of squirrely because now there's all these people on the site and it might behave a little bit differently, and everybody has custom pricing and different in-stock positions based on their warehouse.
- 14:32SPEAKER_00: So it's so many moving parts to keep healthy and keep functioning correctly, and so it's constant maintenance.
- 14:38SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
- 14:39SPEAKER_01: Well, you do a phenomenal job and all the teams that you work with.
- 14:42SPEAKER_01: And I know sometimes I can cause a little problems, you know, working with vendors and we take on a new product that maybe we don't have it across our entire footprint.
- 14:49SPEAKER_01: So, how critical is that for you to know that?
- 14:52SPEAKER_01: So when a customer is looking, they're not seeing products that are or aren't available where they're at.
- 14:57SPEAKER_01: So I play a part in that too.
- 15:00SPEAKER_01: Always try to be helpful.
- 15:01SPEAKER_01: Sometimes uh I let some things slip, but uh, we end up with a great result.
- 15:05SPEAKER_01: So, what what excites you the most when you look to the future?
- 15:09SPEAKER_01: What excites you the most about where e-commerce can go?
- 15:13SPEAKER_00: It's so dynamic, and technology is changing so fast that the potential is what I think uh excites me the most.
- 15:23SPEAKER_00: I mean, AI is being incredibly disruptive right now.
- 15:26SPEAKER_00: It comes with both fear and excitement.
- 15:29SPEAKER_00: Because it's changing the industry so fast across the board.
- 15:33SPEAKER_00: I mean, digital experiences have a completely different expectation from the customer lens than they did even a year ago.
- 15:39SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 15:39SPEAKER_00: And so what you put in place right now might not work six months from now.
- 15:44SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 15:45SPEAKER_00: And while that brings its own challenges, it's also very, very exciting.
- 15:50SPEAKER_00: It's it's always dynamic, it's always changing, we're always evolving, and we want to stay competitive.
- 15:55SPEAKER_00: We want to be the leader in this space in our industry.
- 15:59SPEAKER_01: For sure, for sure.
- 16:00SPEAKER_01: I think we're well on that path.
- 16:01SPEAKER_01: So I've got a couple quick questions for you.
- 16:04SPEAKER_01: One word that describes e-commerce today.
- 16:07SPEAKER_00: I would say relentless.
- 16:10SPEAKER_01: There you go.
- 16:11SPEAKER_00: We are relentless in trying to keep it up to date.
- 16:14SPEAKER_00: We are relentless in trying to stay ahead of the pack.
- 16:17SPEAKER_00: And we are relentless in our desire to keep up with the local, the latest technology that's providing ease of use and better customer experiences.
- 16:26SPEAKER_00: 100%.
- 16:27SPEAKER_00: With more personalization.
- 16:28SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
- 16:29SPEAKER_00: You asked me about how important is it when we introduce a new product to know where it is.
- 16:35SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 16:35SPEAKER_00: It's really important because we don't have access all over.
- 16:38SPEAKER_00: So AI in the future, I'd really hope it helps us give more personalization for our customers and to have each region only see what's available.
- 16:47SPEAKER_00: Yes.
- 16:48SPEAKER_00: And really have an individualized user experience, which is what all AI is really about.
- 16:54SPEAKER_00: It's providing you the best experience that you can have online.
- 16:57SPEAKER_00: That is awesome.
- 16:58SPEAKER_00: So we're really relentless and trying to keep up with that.
- 17:01SPEAKER_01: Love it.
- 17:02SPEAKER_01: Love the word.
- 17:02SPEAKER_01: Uh, what's the most common misconception about e-commerce internally?
- 17:07SPEAKER_00: I think maybe that it's not as big as it is.
- 17:11unknown: Okay.
- 17:11SPEAKER_00: That it's not as widely used as it is.
- 17:14SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 17:14SPEAKER_00: Because we have, like you said, um 40% of our volume coming through that channel.
- 17:19SPEAKER_01: Yes.
- 17:20SPEAKER_00: And that we can't leave it, right?
- 17:23SPEAKER_00: We have to pay attention to it.
- 17:24SPEAKER_00: We have to put enough resources toward it.
- 17:26SPEAKER_00: And it's uh definitely a strategic driver going forward for both our customers and our salespeople.
- 17:33SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think uh from all the enhancements that you've been making, and uh um, you know, as we continue to expand our geography and and go into new uh new markets, uh, I think this technology is going to be something that really differentiates Waffle Supply and it makes that introduction as a new distributor into a market, when you have a tool that's as useful as e-commerce is, it makes those introductions a little easier because uh uh a lot of people out uh outside of the Midwest really don't know who Waffsaw Supply is.
- 18:01SPEAKER_01: So when we enter that new market and we come to them with all these features and benefits through the technology tools, uh just makes the job of the sales guys a little bit easier.
- 18:08SPEAKER_01: And girls.
- 18:10SPEAKER_01: So we got one last one coffee or energy drink.
- 18:14SPEAKER_00: I'm a coffee girl.
- 18:15SPEAKER_00: All right, coffee snob though.
- 18:17SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just guys stop.
- 18:18SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
- 18:19SPEAKER_01: Well, keep that in mind.
- 18:20SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yes.
- 18:21SPEAKER_01: Well, it's been great having you here.
- 18:23SPEAKER_01: Everything that you're doing with e-commerce really is distinguishing and differentiating while so bringing tremendous value to our dealers, contractors, and our sales teams alike.
- 18:32SPEAKER_01: So I can't thank you enough.
- 18:34SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us, Karina.
- 18:36SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Al.
- 18:38SPEAKER_01: Karina, thanks for walking us through all of it.
- 18:40SPEAKER_01: The clicks, the coordination, and everything in between.
- 18:43SPEAKER_01: What I take away from this conversation is pretty simple.
- 18:45SPEAKER_01: E commerce isn't a website, it's a commitment to making it easier for customers to do business with us.
- 18:50SPEAKER_01: And that takes real people doing real work every single day.
- 18:54SPEAKER_01: That's the show.
- 18:55SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to Red Truck Radio.
- 18:57SPEAKER_01: We'll catch you next time.