Tonnex builds Web shops for resellers
- 22 October, 2009 17:38
- Comments 2
Tech distributor, Tonnex International, has launched an online shopfront service for resellers.
Reseller Webstore Service will let resellers set-up retail stores with 128-bit SSL security, online purchasing and delivery facilities as well as highly customised settings for $149 per month.
Tonnex national marketing manager, James Rendell, said the initiative came about thanks to customer consultations and strong demand.
“We sent out a survey to customers in October last year gauging how they feel about this type of solution,” he said. “Quite a large number of customers indicated this would be great for their business so we got to work.
“It’s available to all Tonnex customers and there’s no bias as to how much they need to be spending. We have in excess of 1500 customers. Any new customers that would like to buy from us and give themselves access to the program, we will welcome.”
Rendell acknowledged some resellers would dislike the idea of his company creating the solution and fear a loss of customers, but said Tonnex would not sell products directly to end-users.
“A common misconception with this type of service is that the orders come straight through Tonnex,” he said. “Although the service is provided by Tonnex, it is 100 per cent controlled and operated by the reseller.
“It’s basically a template. They come into the site and it’s pre-configured. They go through and they determine what settings they’d like to have. It’s all driven off the Tonnex price at the back end. So they can go in and set their markups as a percentage or a dollar amount.”
All customers will be given a 7-day free trial to test the solution. Resellers can choose their own Web domains to host an e-tailing shop front before facilitation, administration and support is entirely handed over to Tonnex and products from other distributors can be added to the online store.
“It’s got full web-selling capabilities, online shopping carts, it can be integrated with PayPal and a whole range of different online merchants,” he said.
As new product cost lists are sent out, the Web store prices are automatically changed and take into account any mark ups set by the reseller.
“We’ve developed this, in essence, for anyone that doesn’t have an online Web shop. We’ve even been speaking with some that do have one, but due to the amount of administration that’s required they’re looking at coming across,” Rendell said.
“I’d be hoping we’d get hundreds on-board within the first few months and then as resellers see the value in it, I’d like to see the vast majority of customers get on-board this service.”
Nominations for the 2012 ARN IT Industry Awards open on Tuesday, June 12.
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Comments
Nadia Cameron
better marketing
This is the second story we've had this week looking at new initiatives that help smaller resellers "sell" themselves more effectively online. ARN also ran a story about a new start-up called Tech Services Guide, which is providing an online portal to link resellers with potential customers, and vice versa. The company said one of its main objectives is to help resellers better market themselves to a broader audience.
Tonnex's Web services initiative is of a similar vein, in that it's providing smaller resellers with the tools to better service customers online. Ingram Micro launched a similar offering a couple of years back, allowing resellers to buy a pre-package website and online ordering facilities, where it would drop-ship product directly from the Ingram warehouse.
While there are some legitimate concerns about providing so much customer data to a distie, I can imagine these types of offerings are going to resonate well with smaller resellers who don't have the skills or marketing nous to be successful online. The only concern is whether things will end up looking rather cookie-cutter.
Leonard123
Highly priced crap webstore. If you want your business to have any credibility at all, i wouldnt recommend the Tonnex Webstore.
Search feature is totally lacking in ability to find products.
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