Reinventing Bicycle Recycling - A Retail Case Study
The Client is one of the largest marketplaces for used bicycles in the United States. Their business focus was on accurately valuing used bikes and providing a safe and efficient marketplace to buy and sell the bicycles through multiple distribution channels.
The high level of competition in the retail industry requires retailers to provide best-in-class customer experiences to ensure that customers don’t stray. Since today’s customer is far more informed and evolved, they expect the service, sales and support teams to service their needs anytime and from anywhere in the world.
It is thus essential for businesses to implement a CRM solution allows total control over order processing, inventory management and after sales service to ensure a smooth end-to-end customer experience.
The major hurdle experienced by the client was multiple distribution channels that were not integrated. This often resulted in loss of information particularly the inventory status. The listing process for the bikes required 6-8 hours. Another concern was that the bikes were not properly catalogued and tagged, and were therefore difficult for buyers to find. Also, shipped orders were tracked through a different system and had to be monitored separately which increased effort to manage and sell the bicycles.
The Conam team implemented Salesforce CRM with inventory management, product evaluation and order tracking independent of the distribution channel. Salesforce was integrated with different marketplaces and the entire inventory was posted from within Salesforce. Inventory control and tracking was centralised for all channels.
The client was satisfied with the result. Real-time inventory was available across channel partners. Bike check-in time was reduced from an average of 6 hours to 30 minutes. The Advanced Analytics allowed the client team to improve sales, revenue and customer experience in stores and online. Sales revenue increased by 28% and customer satisfaction by 67%.