Regina Andrew Design realized that shopper expectations don’t change based on whether they’re buying B2B or B2C. In response, the home décor company built a new website that has the rich imagery and modern design of most consumer-facing online stores even though it is strictly a B2B business.
The Regina Andrew website (opens in new tab) illustrates the company’s commitment to providing exceptional customer experiences and speaks to the evolution of B2B ecommerce. Today’s shoppers demand rich content, like a gallery of high-quality images, thorough product descriptions and full feature lists, according to Regina Andrew COO James Bonomo.
“Traditional B2B is not going backwards – it’s moving forward,” Bonomo said. “Your website has to be just as good as something Amazon has.”
Regina Andrew Design redesigned its website seeking to offer that Amazon-like experience and, since then, orders placed online have increased eight percent (to 36 percent of total sales), average session length has jumped by more than 30 seconds and bounce rate is down 2.55 percent.
With roots in Detroit, Michigan, Regina Andrew Design has designed, manufactured and sold home décor and home furnishings since 1998. Its one-of-a-kind products, which focus on lighting, are meant to “electrify a room.” It sells to more than 7,000 interior designers and small stores, as well as big-box retailers like Macy’s and Neiman Marcus. The company also has seven showrooms across the country, from Southern California to Atlanta.
To offer a customer experience similar to that of leading consumer brands, Regina Andrew focused on user experience when developing its new B2B online store. Its site needed to provide user-friendly site navigation and perform just as well on a desktop as on a smartphone.
The ecommerce website, launched at the beginning of 2017, checks those boxes and much more. After logging in, designers can mark favorites, create multiple projects and assign items to them and sort products by price, availability and more with faceted navigation. There is real-time availability on product pages and even future availability dates for furnishings that are not yet released (but can be pre-ordered). These pages have detailed specs and other product recommendations near the bottom of the page.
In addition, sales reps can take orders through a feature called the “market wizard” that Bonomo demonstrated during a recent presentation. This allows reps to easily place orders or prepare quotes on an iPad when attending markets (tradeshows for the furniture industry).
The website is built on NetSuite’s SuiteCommerce Advanced ecommerce software. The solution is natively integrated with NetSuite financials, CRM and order and inventory management to provide Regina Andrew Design with a single source of data updated in real-time. A change within any of those systems is immediately reflected across all of them.
“When your customer trusts you with the content you’re giving them, they’re more likely to convert and order more often,” Bonomo said.
The ability for customers to self-serve empowers the sales team to act as brand ambassadors who promote the manufacturer’s unique creations. And customer service reps no longer spend the bulk of their time transacting orders and answering basic questions about product dimensions, materials and other information that is now available online.
Regina Andrew Design’s ecommerce website is constantly evolving based on customer feedback and the latest online shopping trends. The web store is a key piece of the business that will only become more critical as an increasing number of customers start to shop online.
“Your website is so important because it’s forward-facing to all your customers,” Bonomo added. “The website helps build trust, and trust and time are today’s currency. You’re in competition not only for a consumer’s business, but also for their time because they’re constantly looking at emails, texts, Facebook, Instagram. We have to find a way to continually stay relevant.”
