B2B & B2C Food and Beverage
Prime Distributors runs a thriving, multi-faceted operation, but the global pandemic brought its in-person operations to a near halt.
erpCommerce™, Sage X3, Magento, Boomi
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PRIME DISTRIBUTORS is the largest and most established food distributor in the Caribbean Islands, headquartered on the beautiful island of St. Martin. The company has a thriving operation that includes wholesale food service, cash and carry and a club store. When Prime Distributors sought to quickly expand its offering to include an online shopping platform, one solution rose to the top — erpCommerce™ from Pixafy.
“We were planning to launch an eCommerce initiative later in 2020, but the pandemic changed everything,” explains Jared Ramkellowan, eCommerce/IT Manager for Prime Distributors. “Instantly tourism stopped, drying up our wholesale and food service operations, and in person shopping dropped off, threatening our cash and carry and club businesses. We needed a robust eCommerce solution we could get up and running in a very short period of time.”
Prime Distributors relies on Sage X3 as its ERP solution and sought an eCommerce solution that would deliver integration. “We wanted Sage X3 to be our single source of the truth,”says Ramkellowan. “It holds all of our customer and all of our inventory information. We didn’t want to have to duplicate that information in an eCommerce application and then work to keep the two systems in sync. That’s one of the main reasons we selected erpCommerce™.”
The solution’s tight integration with Sage X3 proves its value in multiple ways. erpCommerce™ facilitates bi-directional synchronization of the data between the store site and Sage X3. For example, as new customers visit the online store and place orders, the solution creates the orders in Sage X3 automatically. As inventory SKUs are added or changed in Sage X3, the item information, including pricing and availability is passed through to erpCommerce™ in real time.
“As customers shop through erpCommerce™, we know their shipping and billing addresses, their credit terms, their customer-specific pricing and how many of each item we have available — all from Sage X3,” explains Ramkellowan. “Once the order is placed, it passes automatically into Sage X3 for fulfillment, and upon shipment, erpCommerce™ is updated with the details.”
Working closely with the Pixafy team, Prime Distributors was able to go live with erpCommerce™ in under 100 days. “It was an impressive accomplishment, especially considering all the complexities in our operation,” notes Ramkellowan.
Now, Prime Distributors is busy promoting its new eCommerce site to customers and prospects. “Ultimately we want to move at least 10% of our food service sales and 5% of our club sales business online. We expect the site to generate nearly $5 million in sales the first year and grow from there.” With the confidence that erpCommerce™ can handle multinational transactions, Prime Distributors plans to expand its online reach to additional neighboring islands and countries.
“We made the best decision selecting erpCommerce™, concludes Ramkellowan. We got the best solution and had it live in the shortest amount of time. With erpCommerce™ we were able to pivot quickly and execute at pace, capturing revenue we might otherwise have missed and setting the business up for the future.”
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