Imperial Supplies improved their customer’s fleet maintenance product purchase experience with Scandit-powered barcode scanning in their order app. With the ability to make purchases on the go, in real-time from smartphones or tablets, customer satisfaction with the app is high – resulting in a YOY (year over year) increase in purchases through the app.
Challenge
A national US distributor of quality fleet maintenance products servicing, Imperial Supplies services customers through a nationwide network of regional distribution centers. The company has a reputation for providing customers with innovative processes for ordering and tracking purchases. They partner with the top nine common carriers and the top four truck leasing companies in the United States.
Address the changing needs of B2B wholesale customers
Imperial Supplies was the first national fleet parts distributor to automate order entry using barcode technology. With the rise of mobile technologies, Imperial Supplies’ B2B customers began to demand B2C-like experiences. To address these new trends and omnichannel demand, the company developed a mobile order entry app that would allow customers to place orders in real-time while they were up and about in their fleet maintenance shops. With access to Imperial’s complete product catalog, customers can easily create and submit orders in minutes, from a smartphone or tablet.
Offer mobile order management on-the-go
Imperial Supplies envisioned a user-friendly, branded mobile app that put the entire product catalog at their customers’ fingertips for easy ordering. Since their clients traditionally relied on barcode scanners to improve order entry efficiency, Imperial Supplies needed the mobile app to incorporate scanning functionality, so that customers could add items to their orders. The goal was to provide customers an option to place orders while walking through the maintenance shop – freeing them from having to submit orders from a desktop computer.
Solution
Integrate smart data capture enterprise-grade scanning technology for easy order entry
Imperial Supplies realized that they would need a barcode scanning feature that offered equivalent performance to a dedicated scanner. Their customers frequently scan a variety of barcodes – on product labels, product bins and Order catalogues. They often do this in poorly lit areas of shops, meaning the barcode scanning solution would have to perform accurately across various lighting scenarios in order to meet customer needs.
With support for over 20,000 devices and the ability to scan poorly lit, damaged, and blurry barcodes, Scandit provided the enterprise-grade performance required to meet the environmental challenges facing customers.
Results
New mobile channel increased order frequency and improved customer experience
Imperial Supplies’ easy-to-use, reliable mobile scanning feature saves fleet maintenance customers time in the order process – allowing them to better manage stock inventory levels, with the option to purchase 25,000 plus fleet maintenance products on their smartphones. The app’s scanning feature complements the product search, browsing lists and quick add order features, enabling customers to find products in a way that works best for them.
This instantaneous scanning translated into greater customer satisfaction and enormous year-over-year growth in mobile purchasing, up 84.9% in 2014 across both iOS and Android devices. Imperial Supplies attributes much of this growth to the ease with which customers are now able to place orders quickly on the go utilizing smart data capture technology with Scandit.