Success Stories

Activant B2B Seller Web Site Draws Customers in First Month

C.W. Hayden Company was founded in 1948, when C.W. "Win" Hayden began selling a limited number of items, such as Kraft paper, twine, wood bobbins, gummed tape and envelopes, to the Maine textile industry. A few years later, a sales representative from the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, otherwise known as 3M, approached Win about adding their 3M-gummed tape to his product line. The business grew as word spread about the company's service ethic and technical "know-how". With this growth came a demand for a greater variety of products, so Win and his son, George, looked to 3M for support. This relationship helped to foster continued growth during the 70s, 80s and 90s as the company expanded to serve a more diverse customer base, including the papermaking, shipbuilding, woodworking, metal fabrication and healthcare industries.

Today the company is run by the third generation of Win Hayden's family. One of 3M's largest distributors, representing seven 3M divisions, the company continues to maintain a solutions-based service team and supply basic paper products. The company ships products from its Auburn, ME, location to customers throughout the United States, Europe, and the Pacific Rim.

Better Service

To better serve its customers around the world, the company introduced a Activant created and supported B2B Seller site, www.cwhayden.com. As service of ActivantTrading Partner Connect, an Internet trading network, B2B Seller provides distributors with fully hosted and integrated Web-based storefront solutions that service their existing and prospective customers, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"October was the first month that the site was live," said Jeff Brackett, general manager at C.W. Hayden. "During that month, 3.5 percent of our total sales were placed over the Web. We average four to six orders per day from the site." By February, 6.2 percent of C.W. Hayden's total sales were over the Web.

The reason for C.W. Hayden's rapid success in the world of e-commerce has much to do with the design and functionality of the site. Easy to navigate, the site features access to the company's entire catalog and password-protected ordering for registered customers. Registered customers can also view account information in a secure environment 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Encouraging Use

Of course, when it comes to e-commerce, the "if you build it, they will come" mentality does not ensure success. That is why C.W. Hayden sales staff receives special incentives to introduce customers to the site. Within the first six weeks, they registered 80 customers.

The company also runs monthly promotions for customers. Every page contains a link to the promotions, so customers don't have to search to find it.

"We have been changing the promotions monthly and plan to get more aggressive with it as time moves on," explains Brackett. "In addition, we're offering 2 percent rebates in the form of merchandise vouchers to customers who make their purchases on-line. We had three customers earn more than $100.00 dollars in merchandise vouchers."

Activant Trading Partner Connect streamlines the commerce process between distributors, their manufacturers/suppliers, and customers, thereby increasing sales and improving customer service while reducing operating costs. Distributors benefit from dead stock reduction, lower EDI/VAN costs, and access to millions of items, enabling them to compete on a larger scale and improve customer service. Manufacturers/suppliers benefit as well, by improving their ability to interact with distributors and more accurately predict consumer usage of their products.

More than 100 distributors are currently benefiting from Trading Partner Connect and B2B Seller.

For more information on Activant's enterprise software solutions, please fill out our Web Contact Form.

Back to Top

Back to Top