In a recent phone call with a potential partner, I was asked to talk about how Zoey came to be. The person said that many times you can get a better understanding of how something came to be by learning what led to their development, which helps evaluate if they’re succeeding in their potential. As such, in today’s post we’ll take a look at some of the aspects of Zoey that makes it unique in today’s marketplace.
Ease of Use for Site Owners
Zoey’s original founding came out of a professional services agency. During that time, we saw a dichotomy developing that created challenges. On one side were SaaS platforms that were easy to use but very limiting, requiring compromises that could slow down a business’s momentum or be much more time consuming to manage to work around those limitations, but allowed customers to make easy edits to basic elements of their site. On the other hand was open source platforms that could be molded in any way or form, but required developers on hand to maintain due to most things being baked into code and not easily editable.
One of Zoey’s earliest mantras, maintained today, is to strike a balance between ease of use and merchant control. Merchants are able to have much more access to aspects of their site like design (both template elements, like header and footer, and the page layouts themselves) without needing to know how to code or have access to a developer.
All of this is possible while taking advantage of a platform that’s hosted and updated automatically for our merchants. In recent years, Zoey has released more than 150 updates per year, featuring new features, security enhancements and bug fixes that site owners can take advantage of immediately and automatically. The management and development of these updates, from development to release, is managed by Zoey as part of the subscription costs.
Focused Primarily on B2B
Most Ecommerce platforms that tout B2B or wholesale capabilities aren’t primarily focused on B2B. As we discussed in a previous post, platforms that put B2C first aren’t likely to be investing the same level of energy and resources into building an optimal B2B or wholesale experience, and the data structure and design will be more likely to be B2C-focused instead of B2B.
As Zoey began to introduce B2B capabilities to its platform, capabilities that were requested by our merchants, we listened to our customers and made sure the core rule engines for each of our main features were flexible to accommodate various business logic scenarios so the solution wasn’t one-size-fits-all. While B2B and wholesale businesses generally require the same basic features, how they use them and leverage them can be critical to the proper implementation and performance of their website.
Award-Winning Customer Support
Our customers regularly tell us how our support far exceeds the support they receive from other solutions they use for their business, as well as ones they’ve used in the past.
You don’t have to take our word for it; awards from FeaturedCustomers and SoftwareReviews use our customers’ own feedback to highlight how Zoey is excelling in the B2B Ecommerce space.
And case studies published from Zoey’s customer base go into more depth on how various businesses have leveraged Zoey, and many cite the customer support before and after the launch of their business on Zoey as a key part of the success of using Zoey as a core business tool.
Not Required to Be Bundled With Other Solutions
Zoey has always aimed to maintain and expand options for merchants so they can manage their stores on their terms. Not all platforms take this approach.
Some of our B2B competitors sell their B2B Ecommerce service as an add-on to some other solution. That means if you want their B2B or wholesale Ecommerce capabilities, you must use their other services as well. If you already have such a solution in place, or prefer to work with another solution, you can’t leverage that B2B Ecommerce capability.
For example, Zoey works with many inventory management solutions thanks to our Apps & Integrations, as well as our publicly accessible APIs, ensuring you have more choice and control over your overall workflow. Our customers require the flexibility to work with existing solutions, and Zoey offers that readily.
Extensibility and Add-On Capability
Zoey has always been about ensuring our platform is able to be expanded upon if merchants need features that Zoey doesn’t directly offer. You’re not limited to just the features we opt to implement and support ourselves, and you’re not forced to work around those limitations.
That leads us directly to another major difference between us and our major competitors. We have a growing list of apps that allow Zoey to be extended to add capabilities not in the core platform, as well as an API system that allows for bridging technologies together. Any apps in our store can be activated with a single click, and then quickly and easily configured for use in your Zoey store. Zoey features powerful apps in areas such as shipping, marketing, inventory management and accounting.
We also put data accessibility at the forefront of what we do.
Design Control
Coming full circle, Zoey’s Visual Design Editor further empowers merchants with easy-to-use tools that provides more access to the theming of your store without needing to code. Many of our B2B-focused competitors go with a cookie-cutter or one-size-fits-all approach that may allow you to theme in terms of color schemes or fonts, but not truly have control over the look and feel of your site. In other cases, you can pick from a variety of themes, but most customizations must be done in code. Our latest edition of the Visual Design Editor strikes the perfect balance with a lot of components that allow you to set up your store visually quickly and easily, but allow you to put your own personal mark on it.
Our powerful CMS tools, with a newly-launched full-screen capability, also lets you make content edits without impacting the general look and feel of your store. Update your marketing assets or site copy without fear of breaking the design of your site!
4 Ways Zoey Makes a Business More Efficient
If you’re still sitting on the sidelines of the B2B commerce revolution, you’re missing out on a variety of benefits that come from leveraging an order portal, mobile app and web-based admin provided by solutions like Zoey.
But don’t take our word for it – in one of our case studies, Commonwealth Packaging Company shares four ways Zoey has helped them become more efficient:
- 80 percent less time spent managing data on the platform
- 50 percent less time collecting and processing orders
- 20 percent more orders from the same clients
- Quick support response time; less time waiting to solve issues
Let’s review why Zoey has helped them streamline their operations, better serve their customers and free up time for other tasks.
Less Time Spent Managing Data
When running a commerce platform, there’s a variety of data that’s required to be kept up to date, from the products being sold to the customers buying from you. The optimal solution should be able to empower sellers to quickly make updates without difficulty, so they can move on to the rest of their day more quickly.
Kris Cardene, a “jill of all trades” at Commonwealth Packaging Company, said Zoey does just this for their process. Their largest customer using Zoey will occasionally need to add a new location for ordering, something she can get done quite quickly.
“From the time I get the customer email asking if I can set this up, 2-3 minutes later I reply with the username and password,” Cardene said. “Before, with the previous system, it would take me hours, if I didn’t have to call someone to help me set it up.”
Product setup is equally simple for Cardene to get them added. “Two new products were added in recently, and it took me 5-10 minutes at most to do it.”
Quick updates means less time spent maintaining Zoey, and more time on other critical business tasks. Zoey has reduced the time managing this information by 80 percent over their previous solution.
Less Time Spent Collecting and Processing Orders
Zoey’s self-service order portal means orders can be captured by the system with minimal intervention by the Commonwealth Packaging team, and easier time managing processing and fulfillment, vs. other customers not using the portal today. Cardene said that she’s began to encourage other customers of theirs to consider leveraging Zoey for order capture and processing.
“I have another existing customer and when I get their orders today it’s an Excel sheet with thousands of lines filled out,” she said. “I educated them on the opportunity to use Zoey and let the stores order when they want to order. Right now it goes through one person and I get these orders twice a month because she wants to have control over it. I was able to show her in Zoey how that can be restricted. This store can have this many. They want their own storefront, and I know Zoey can do that.”
For their customers using Zoey, they spend half the time on order capture and processing, a huge time savings.
More Order Volume from the Same Customers Thanks to Zoey
Cardene noted that with one of their clients they have using Zoey, it’s been so successful it’s let them grow their business with those customers.
“They actually just placed a much larger order than they have in the past,” she said. “More of their products are coming through us than in the past because we have this. Zoey played heavily in our favor when deciding who they would give the new order.”
Being able to grow a book of business with existing clients can be a highly efficient way of growing overall volume, since you’re already working with the buyers and have a process in place.
Speedy Response Means No Waiting
Zoey’s average response time in the past two years has been one business hour – far ahead of the standard 24-hour SLAs many companies promise. Cardene says that ability to get an answer quickly means avoiding a disruption to the work she plans to get done in a day.
“I’d send in a ticket and nine times out of 10, within 15 minutes maximum, I had an answer to my ticket,” she said. “In a normal situation, when you get stuck, and you have to wait a day until someone gets back to you, it can blow your day’s plan out of the water. But with Zoey, within 15 minutes, I’d get an answer.”
Learn More About Zoey
Zoey is a powerful platform with lots of features, but sometimes seeing is believing. Schedule a demo with us to learn how Zoey can benefit your B2B or wholesale business!
