The Cleaning Collective

The Cleaning Collective started life as a small business. Initially operated from home, the company has since grown to become one of the North’s premier cleaning and hygiene suppliers.

Based out of a 5,000sqft warehouse and office space in Scarborough, the company distributes a range of around 2,500 products which includes everything from cloths, toilet rolls and cleaning chemicals, through to high-end machinery such as floor sweepers and dryers. Pallet quantities of products are purchased from across the UK and EU, before being sold to customers operating across a wide range of industries including healthcare, hospitality, facilities management and food production. Sales orders are received via telephone, email and their eCommerce website.

Having begun using OrderWise in early 2016, The Cleaning Collective has since introduced a new website for their business built on the OrderWise eCommerce platform. To find out more about The Cleaning Collective’s experience of implementing an OrderWise eCommerce Website, we spoke to their eCommerce Manager, Aaron Clark.

The Requirement

Previously, The Cleaning Collective’s eCommerce website was based on the OpenCart platform with Joomla CMS used to manage their product listings and pricing. However as online order volumes increased, The Cleaning Collective started to find a lot of time was being spent on website maintenance.

“We had duplicated workloads – we’d update descriptions or add new products in OrderWise, then have to do the same thing on Open Cart. On top of the extra work it was creating, we just felt like the site required modernising.”

With the need for a new website apparent, they began their search for a web platform that would help them to save time by synchronising orders, invoices, products and stock seamlessly with their OrderWise system. Once The Cleaning Collective team saw how a website built on the OrderWise eCommerce platform, multi-channel software, would facilitate this, the decision was made, and implementation began.

Implementing an OrderWise Online Store

One of the main benefits of an OrderWise Online Store to an existing OrderWise user is the short lead time from purchase to go live. With a lot of the necessary data already stored within their existing Open Cart website and OrderWise itself, for Aaron and the team it was just a case of getting this set up correctly within OrderWise. Working closely with their eCommerce Project Manager, they experienced no issues with the data build.

“It all went extremely smoothly – we were given a number of spreadsheets to ensure that we provided all the relevant information for the website, detailing the products we were listing, descriptions, images, etc. Once we had completed them, OrderWise stepped in to import the data so that it was all ready to go at launch.”

Before going live, Aaron and his team were also provided training on how to use the OrderWise Layout Editor so that they could easily adjust their website styling and functionality whenever required. Once the training and data build were completed, The Cleaning Collective went live with their new website and Aaron had nothing but praise for the support they received during implementation.

“The go live process was extremely efficient. We needed an easy-to-use content management system that would need minimal web design knowledge going forward, and OrderWise dealt with the technical side of the website in set up so no web experience was required.”

The OrderWise eCommerce Solution

One of the main reasons for The Cleaning Collective deciding to get a new Online Store was to streamline their online order processing through better integration to their back-end OrderWise Business Management Software. Aaron explained how the lack of third-party integration has enabled their daily operations to now run much more smoothly than they did previously.

“The biggest change has been the handling of data – since implementing an OrderWise website our administration tasks have decreased as we are able to share a large amount of information between the OrderWise software database and our website. This ensures that processes such as adding or updating product listings can be completed within our OrderWise itself, which makes things extremely efficient and easy-to-manage.”

“With everything now managed from one place (OrderWise), it also means it is no longer possible to input incorrect product codes on our website or to list products twice by mistake, as the data is synchronised directly from the back-end.”

However, it is not just the order processing and website maintenance on the back-end that The Cleaning Collective have been able to improve, but also the overall online shopping experience for their customers. With their website now having a more modern appearance and user-friendly interface, customer satisfaction levels have also increased for The Cleaning Collective.

Aaron explained how having an OrderWise Online Store seamlessly integrated to their OrderWise Business Management Software has given them the confidence to promote their online sales platform to their customer base.

“The order process on our previous site was difficult to use for our customers – their basket would clear or fill unexpectedly and each time a product was added to their cart the page would refresh and they would have to start again.”

“Now the system is fully integrated, it allows customers complete transparency with their ordering. For example, the customer can log in and see what has been ordered, not just online but by telephone and email as well, as this is synchronised from OrderWise. They can also download invoices, a task that was previously completed by administrators. Overall, we can just give the customer access to much more information than they had previously.”

With regards to the support for their new Online Store, Aaron explained how The Cleaning Collective have been able to experience the same level of service they have come to expect from the OrderWise team.

“The support has been very good. Fortunately, we’ve not had to log many errors, but our web account manager is always quick to respond to any questions.”

What’s Next?

So, with The Cleaning Collective now able to benefit from more automated online trading and deliver even better service to their growing customer base, what’s next for Aaron and his team?

“We’re placing more focus on the online side of the business, so the new website is pivotal for our success going forward. We will be driving more traffic and increasing our online presence, and we’re confident that with our integrated OrderWise Online Store and Software, we have the tools we need to ensure this is achieved.”

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