KRM Building Supplies Ecommerce Case Study

Omni-Channel Ecommerce for leading Builder's Merchant.

Established in 1989, KRM Building Supplies has been providing building materials, landscaping supplies and timber supplies to local DIY and professional tradespeople in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire for over 35 years.

"We were impressed by the professional approach and understanding of our needs to enable us to trade online. Red have also been flexible in helping to develop particular functionality to suit some of our ‘more quirky’ product offerings which aren’t sold as ‘each’ in single units."

Ecommerce Manager, KRM Building Supplies

Project Highlights

Collect Later
Collect Later allowing customers to buy online and collect at their convenience
Integration
Two-way integration with Kerridge K8 including additional calculations for outputting pricing and stock
Product area coverage
Allow users to put in the total area coverage required for purchases such as paving stones or artificial grass
Diverse product set
Diverse product set includes standard products, product variations, and products sold to cover an area
Fulfilment
Multiple fulfilment zones based on proximity to merchant, with costs calculated accordingly
Quick re-ordering
Number of tools to aid quick ordering and re-ordering including saved baskets, quick order forms and saved quick order forms
Advanced search
Advanced on-site search capabilities including suggested search terms & categories, content & product search, fuzzy search, boosted & weighted searches and much more
My Account
B2C enables customers to see their orders and order history with wishlist and updatable contact details
Call centre
Built-in call centre allows admin users to setup/view customer accounts and process orders on their behalf as well as aiding customer service to provide support

Project Integrations

Project Overview

KRM Building Supplies previously had an ecommerce site with data coming from an old character-based system. However, when they changed business systems to Kerridge K8 it involved adopting a whole new angle for getting data out of it, both in terms of format, and the data set. This meant having to rely on a catalogue/reference site for a period of time and although this site was integrated with their business system, it was unable to display and calculate prices according to the customary units of measure required for the merchant industry so couldn't be adapted for ecommerce properly.

KRM Building Supplies website on phone and laptop

KRM Building Supplies ecommerce website on phone

Ecommerce

They knew their customers were interested in purchasing online and had many enquiries from customers who were already using the catalogue site to quote product codes when ordering offline. They needed to make it easier for customers to see product details and then follow this through by adding them to the basket before confirming their order. In short, they needed a new ecommerce platform that could seamlessly integrate with their Kerridge ERP and deliver accurate and real-time pricing across their entire product range.

Kerridge K8 integration

Back end integration was less straightforward than for most businesses due to the nature of the products they sell and how they are priced. Normally when retrieving stock and pricing via an API it's a simple unit, however the integration with Kerridge K8 required additional calculations. For example, bricks are priced per 1000 in Kerridge but can be sold individually online. That means the website has to take the price per 1000 and divide it into a unit price to sell online, whilst also monitoring the stock level.

Diverse product set

This diverse range of products also required other calculations to deliver a nicer user experience. Whilst some items are standard units (like a tin of paint or a bag of screws), many of the aforementioned products aren't so straightforward. For example, people don't usually buy a single brick or paving block, so functionality was delivered in tradeit to enable customers to select an area of coverage with pricing calculated automatically for them based on their requirements, rather than them guessing how many bricks, or paving blocks, they would need. This extends to timber and artificial grass too where coverage is more relevant and useful than a single unit. It also helps internal staff when quoting for a customer's requirements.

Evolution

As the new website beds in, KRM are hoping to significantly increase their product offering by introducing products that they can get "to order" alongside expanding their standard range. They are also looking to increase the delivery areas they serve by adopting a courier to fulfil orders beyond their existing regional area. They are hoping this will significantly increase their online revenue.