Home › News › Press releases › Kis Photo-Me gets ITS b-to-b e-commerce platform

Press releases

21 November 2011 Kis Photo-Me gets ITS b-to-b e-commerce platform

KIS-Boutique: a Magento e-commerce website built by SQLI in less than 3 months

KIS, which is part of the Photo-Me group, and a major player in the professional photographic equipment sector, has awarded the contract for designing a B-to-B e-Commerce site to SQLI Group’s Lyon agency, thus offering its customers a new interface for ordering consumables and enabling its sales staff to spend less time on the repetitive process of dealing with customer orders; whilst at the same time increasing its sales turnover through the distribution of new products and services.

A sound business strategy using a new sales channel
In a market environment which is highly competitive, KIS – a world leader in the design, production and distribution of professional photographic equipment – wanted to set up a BtoB e-Commerce platform with a twin objective:

• To modernise and strengthen the KIS brand image through a site that would be user-friendly, efficient, as well as totally integrated within its IT System, and offer a wide range of consumable products to photographers/distributors, thereby showcasing the brand’s focus on innovation (KIS is the R&D centre for the Photo-Me Group);
• To develop a new business dynamic by offering brand new products and services to existing and prospective customers through this sales channel and by enabling sales staff to spend less time on managing repetitive processes so that they can focus on high added-value activities.

This was the background then for the SQLI Group being awarded the contract for building the BtoB platform www.kis-boutique.com.

“From the different options before us, we chose SQLI’s solution because of their expertise in major e-Commerce projects which was evident from their numerous prestigious references in this field and above all because of the perfect understanding they demonstrated of the issues in our business and their ability to build a solid platform totally integrated in our ERP “, explained François Ottmann, Information Systems Director at KIS

A BtoB e-Commerce platform built in 3 months
Aided by its expertise in the field of e-Commerce and associated technologies, with a track-record of numerous projects of all sizes developed notably around Magento, SQLI designed the “Packgento” – a solution making it possible to implement e-Commerce projects with Magento more rapidly – and used this packaged solution as well as a dedicated project management methodology as a basis for building this B-to-B e-Commerce platform in 3 months.

The result is www.kis-boutique.com, a fast and easy-to-use website which has been online since June 2011, and which all the brand’s customers and distributors can now use for browsing or ordering online:

• It features “Creative”, modern and innovative products: frames, customized goodies, calendars, albums, etc.
• And also “Photo” products: paper and chemical supplies for minilabs, films, batteries, disposable cameras, etc.

There is a “Quick order” facility for users who are perfectly familiar with the brand’s products and their product codes to save even more time on order processing.
Interfacing with the ERP MFGPRO, the site provides users with access to their own personal area, which contains their personal details along with their order history and special rates.

The result: genuine satisfaction for the KIS teams and end users

Four months after its launch, SQLI is proud to have built an efficient and professional e-Commerce platform in record time, and one which dovetails perfectly with the strategic issues facing KIS, while winning over its distributors. The first results that have come in are indeed very promising:

• Almost all customers have started using it (80% of customers have gone over to using the website);
• A significant increase in the sales of consumables with extra sales amounting to several thousand euros recorded in the first few days;
• End users see that they save a considerable amount of time when ordering consumables;
• Greatly increased productivity for the KIS teams who can now concentrate on activities that create more value;
• A way of attracting new customers

“Up until now, our customers would use the traditional method of placing their orders (catalogue / telephone / post); established habits which were hard to break, as every customer knew exactly who he or she would be dealing with and vice-versa. Despite an environment seemingly resistant to change, our new sales channel has been an undeniable success and today the majority of our customers have made the switch and our sales are up sharply. So what do we put this success down to? Well, it’s quite simply a website that works well, is reliable and easy to use. What’s more, the project we’ve been working on with SQLI has proved to be extremely beneficial in so far as it has encouraged us to ask ourselves the right questions, and to review and optimise our organisation and the way we work. So in this sense, it’s been very constructive for us.” adds François Ottmann.

As part of its drive to consolidate its position as an innovative player, KIS had its very own stand at the Photo Show in October 2011 dedicated to the www.kis-boutique.com.website. Visitors were therefore able to access the platform using the iPads provided and already KIS has started looking at the changes it can make in the future…

Crédits Informations légales Site map

Copyright SQLI 2009 | Powered by eZPublish