(Video) How Outdoor Living Products Retailer Thos. Baker Drives Customer Engagement

September 17, 2015

Posted by Barney Beal(opens in new tab), Content Director, NetSuite

For Thos. Baker(opens in new tab), a retailer of premium outdoor living products, the principle of an integrated suite doesn’t just apply to the design aesthetics of an outdoor space. It’s central to how Thos. Baker has run its business for the past 10 years.

The company has taken a similar approach to its ecommerce(opens in new tab) and catalog business, with NetSuite supplying an integrated business system enabling exceptional efficiency, visibility and growth. Watch the video below to get a close and personal glimpse into Thos. Baker’s success with NetSuite.

 

When it launched, the Bainbridge Island, Washington-based company deployed QuickBooks and homegrown applications for ecommerce, order processing and inventory. The limitations of siloed systems became quickly apparent. The company wrestled with manual data work, lacked visibility across processes and was not well positioned for growth.

Creating a Lean, Customer-Centric Business

Going live on NetSuite in 2005, Thos. Baker has realized outstanding success with a lean and customer-centric business model. Revenue and orders have soared 10-fold over the last 10 years. The company has grown its inventory to 25,000 SKUs while streamlining transactions with more than 130 manufacturers and suppliers.

Despite its rapid growth, Thos. Baker maintains a lean staff thanks to the efficiency and automation possible with NetSuite’s integrated solution.

A key advantage of NetSuite, Baker said, is how it enables the company to manage complex business processes without impacting the customer experience. For instance, Thos. Baker routinely handles complex orders that may involve pieces from multiple suppliers, with both drop-shipping and fulfillment through distribution partners, as well as customer-specified configurations of materials, colors, design and fabrics.

Improving Customer Engagement

In a recent enhancement to its NetSuite solution, Thos. Baker upgraded its www.thosbaker.com(opens in new tab) website to SuiteCommerce(opens in new tab) to increase immersion and customer engagement. That’s particularly important for Thos. Baker’s high-consideration business, as customers often visit the site numerous times before investing thousands of dollars in a set of products.

Thos. Baker’s new mobile-friendly site effectively communicates the brand and showcases products with rich imagery and videos. That’s driving improvements in critical engagement metrics such as time on site and pages viewed.



NetSuite has packaged the experience gained from tens of thousands of worldwide deployments over two decades into a set of leading practices that pave a clear path to success and are proven to deliver rapid business value. With NetSuite, you go live in a predictable timeframe — smart, stepped implementations begin with sales and span the entire customer lifecycle, so there's continuity from sales to services to support.