Success Story Retail & Hospitality

Linc Systems - An Industrial Distributor - Leads With Digital Commerce

Linc Systems, a leading distributor of fastening, supply and packaging solutions, serves a broad range of markets including furniture, agricultural manufacturing, automotive, housing, construction and industrial.

The business combines an extensive catalog of products and services with personalized recommendations and consultation. It strives to deliver custom, operationally-specific solutions for each customer’s unique objectives and budget.

As late as 2019, the company did not have an eCommerce presence and that began to impact its customer’s view of the company as a long-term preferred supplier. It needed to change that so it engaged with Apexon.

  • Founded in 1995

    Founded in 1995

  • Thousands of SKU's sourced and warehoused

    Thousands of SKU’s sourced and warehoused

  • Ten distribution centers across the U.S

    Ten distribution centers across the U.S

The customer
journey

2019

2020

2022

2019
  • Website launch with catalog features

2020
  • eCommerce capability

2022
  • API Integration with ERP for real-time information including pricing, inventory, order & invoices

The challenge

ALIGNING COMMERCE CAPABILITIES WITH A DIGITALLYINCLINED CUSTOMER BASE

Linc Systems has solutions for all of its customer’s business needs — from market leading products such as fasteners and tools, packaging supplies/equipment, automated packaging, industrial supply, and marking, labeling and coding supplies — to best-in-class services such as tool repair, productivity and operational efficiency improvement, employee safety, and streamlined supply chain management.

However, its website did not properly reflect that. There was limited product information available, no eCommerce capability, limited SEO and search, resulting in poor customer experience.

The Solution

ALIGNING COMMERCE CAPABILITIES WITH A DIGITALLYINCLINED CUSTOMER BASE

Apexon started by working with Linc Systems to fully understand their business and commerce requirements. With that knowledge, our team detailed a solution and implementation approach to address those needs without disrupting the business.

The engagement included complete design, development and QA testing followed by User Acceptance Testing (UAT) by the client before Apexon deployed to production.

KEY FUNCTIONALITY AND CAPABILITIES INCLUDE:

Creating an information relay between the Optimizely B2B Cloud Commerce platform

Incorporating the company’s full product and service catalog for digital commerce

Building a recommendation engine

The ability for customers to quickly view last purchased items for easy reference when ordering

Defining a ShipTo-centric customer flow

Secure API integration with the client’s Sage ERP system providing seamless connection to order management and accounting. Previously all orders were entered manually by sales teams. The integration also eliminated the need for nightly troubleshooting by the IT team.

Training the client's staff to handle live customizations

Google universal analytics to help the client better understand website traffic and customer’s commerce experience

Deploying a personalized display

A digital commerce foundation for future growth

Outcomes

Since launching its revamped website in 2019 and ecommerce capabilities in late 2020, Linc Systems has seen a significant shift from offline to online activity. Linc Systems has also made several acquisitions and has been able to easily integrate the acquired products and services into its ecommerce experience. The new platform has enabled Linc Systems for paid ad marketing efforts as well.

Key metrics include

Streamlined order processing and fulfilment

A 101% increase in online revenue between 2021 and 2022

A 62% increase in online order volume from existing customers

A 62% increase in online order volume from existing customers

A 125% increase in website traffic

A 125% increase in website traffic

Streamlined order processing and fulfilment

A 200% increase in webpage views

Reduced staffing requirements in customer service

Reduced staffing requirements in customer service due to increased online customer ordering

Linc Systems has also seen improved new customer activity on the site as measured by blog views, google analytics and keyword search, engagement with static page product content and information.