Gallade Chemical is a distributor of chemicals and related items to manufacturers and labs. Although the company has been around since 1964, it didn’t make a strong web presence until 2003 when its purely informational web site was replaced with an e-commerce site. This move changed the business from one that only distributed to clients in California to one that now distributes its products throughout the continental United States. They are the perfect example of how an “old-world” business can be brought up-to-date and increase their business at the same time.
“When people know of a new company that they want to check out, they go to the web before they make a phone call to see what they have to offer,” says Dave O’Brien, the company’s manager of Information Systems and Marketing. “That’s why we had to change from a web site that offered only the company’s background and a listing of products to one that made doing business with us easier.”
“When we updated our web presence, we were able to expand our company in many ways,” says O’Brien. “Not only were we able to increase our product line, but the web has helped us increase our customer reach. We now have clients that we would never have come into contact with if it wasn’t for this web site.” Since going live with their web site three years ago, they have had a 60% increase in new customers who purchase from their company. “That is without cold-calling. This increase is due to people finding our web site through the online marketing that we do,” says O’Brien.
“When we made the change to an e-commerce site instead of just an informational site, we only knew of one other company in our field that did the same - and they were marketing the web site just to their current clients,” O'Brien explains. “We took our site one step further with professional search engine optimization and use of tools to analyze where we are getting web traffic from.”
Gallade Chemical has also been able to improve their company's customer service efficiency through the use of the form tool on the web site. “We used to have people calling to request different types of documents both before and after ordering products from us," O'Brien says. "This process is so easy now because our customers can simply fill out a form for the document they want and we can email it back to them.” They also use the form feature to gather sample testers for their suppliers. “The form tool is such a benefit. It not only makes us look more professional because it's better than just an email link, it makes us able to function in a more professional manner because the information we get from the customers is more defined. It helps us help them.”
The web site isn't geared solely to new customers either. Their clients previous to the web site have found the company's site to be useful as well. “Previous clients use the web site because they see that using an email request or finding a link on the site is much faster than making a phone call request for information or a specific document,” explains O'Brien. “Additionally, many chemicals sound the same, so telephone orders would occasionally have mistakes.” Because of this, the online order forms have cut down on order mistakes.
Gallade Chemical also likes that the web site can increase their customers' awareness of their products. “You can only put so much stuff in a printed catalog,” explains O'Brien. “Now we can feature new products on our home page.” They also utilize their web tools to keep in contact with their customers on a regular basis. They send newsletters to the thousands of people who have signed up on their web site. “We can keep our customers coming back to our web site by sending them updates to our products and featured items.”
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