I was approached by Marshall Home in July of 2020. At the time, they were hosting all 6 of their companies/product lines on separate B2B websites (no DTC presence) hosted by a local designer.
Marshall Home & Garden, Banyan Designs, Paige Danielle, Alexandria Lamps, Annaleece, & PatioLite
Their admin team was 5 people, managing 6 separate websites, admin hubs, and product bases that were all configured into 5 different databases in their ERP (SAGE 100c).
Below are "before" snapshots of the individual websites on the day I took them on:
The worst offender being these 3, one page sites that simply listed a downloadable PDF catalog and told customers to call.
STARTING WITH SOME INFRASTRUCTURE
The first step in making something like this make sense, especially for such a small team, is streamlining infrastructure. The companies Controller/Business Admin was currently managing Local Workstations (Basic User Setup, Software Installation), Email Accounts (Backend Management through an Indie Company in Texas), Website Updates & Web Inventory, Answering Phone Calls, and providing HR support for the entire company (including the 15-20 warehouse employees).
Step One was removing a lot of this responsibility from her shoulders so she can focus on Accounting, Incoming Inventory, and Bank Transactions.
I took over local IT Server and Workstation management, migrated their email into Microsoft 365 for easy remote user management and access to full versions of Microsoft Office Applications. This both drove their cost down, their time spent dealing with tech became non-existent, and I began stripping the number of inboxes being managed down to the bare minimum.
I created generic inboxes for things like "orders" and "support" that multiple people could monitor, all through a single generic company email domain we purchased (mhcorp.co) instead of relying on inboxes from each company domain (marshallhomeandgarden.com, banyandesignslimited.com, etc).
Now each employee has a single personal inbox, and access to the necessary shared inboxes that service all 6 companies.
BRANDING & SIMPLIFICATION
Now that we have communication a bit more streamlined, let's make it make more sense to the outside eye. After some conversation with the owner - he made the decision to "sell" all of the companies to his most successful company, Marshall Home Corporation (an umbrella that already hosted Marshall Home & Garden and Banyan Designs). With this move, we can start branding the companies together, and we can move forward with new plans for the new website.
New logo for "Marshall Home Corporation" to signify the existence of all the sub-brands, and show unity.
A UNIFIED SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
Time to build a new website! Goals for the project include:
- Unified shopping experience and storefront
- One customer approval process for all companies
- One admin area to manage customers, products, and orders
- Easy navigation between companies that doesn't leave customers lost or confused, but still clearly defines the product lines.
- A modern eCommerce experience to that of working with other familiar DTC sites, but for B2B shopping
- One customer approval process for all companies
- One admin area to manage customers, products, and orders
- Easy navigation between companies that doesn't leave customers lost or confused, but still clearly defines the product lines.
- A modern eCommerce experience to that of working with other familiar DTC sites, but for B2B shopping
Introducing, the new Marshall Home Website
At the Top, you'll notice my favorite part - the company selector. Each Company under Marshall Home has it's own Home Page and Navigation. So, if you type in "BanyanDesignsLimited.com" it takes you to the Banyan Home Page, but it's still a part of the same website.
A large, bold header pushes the primary collection for each Company to romance the customer on landing.
The "New Arrivals" Section automatically updates itself with the newest products that are added to the website.
The promotional tabs are updated when new promotions come around.
All in all, a much brighter, modern, and unique feeling landing page from anything they were working with before.
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As the whole thing is built within Shopify, it's incredibly easy to create and assign user logins - so each employee has their own login to the admin panel, with custom permissions so they can't change anything they're not supposed to. Each employee's actions are also tracked for quality control.
Products, Customers, Orders and Shipping can all be handled directly in Shopify - but we're also working with a 3rd party parter to Integrate the orders and Inventory into their ERP (SAGE 100c). Meaning, when customers place orders on the website - they're written directly into SAGE for accounting, order tracking, pick, and fulfillment.
Quickly walking through the shop admin.
On the left you can see where employees can access Orders, Products (if they have access), Customers, and several other tools for managing your online business.
There's a "heads up" message for orders that need fulfilled, and if you're an admin, on the right you can see some quick analytics on how your business is doing today (the information in this screen shot is blurred for privacy)
The black bar on the far left are features available to Shopify Plus stores.
THE ACTUAL SHOP
A simple collection page shows a cleaner, more organized selection of items. In this screenshot, we are logged out - so pricing is hidden.
Potential customers can apply, using the button on the top left, to become a dealer. Once approved (a process easily done via email) they are able to log in and see all of the specifics to pricing.
Along with a store this size (almost 3,000 SKU's) product management can become an issue. So we went through and categorized all of the items, and tagged them with relevant features. Meaning, if you hit the "filter" button in the top left, you can filter these paintings by style, frame color, size, or even the subject of the photo. This makes it incredibly easy for customers to find what they are looking for.
The text is clean, and easy to read. The website colors used are neutral as to keep text readable and not distract from the products or company colors.
*everything is marked sold out because of the inventory integration being in progress.
So, what's next?
Well, along the way we've been finding product photo like this that..badly needs corrected. While for new products I can easily generate new photography, for older pre-existing things it becomes a bit more tasking.
That said, though, the result is undeniable. The new photo is properly colored, the frame is straight, the "bow" in the edges is gone, and it looks like a piece of art someone may actually purchase!
