Sanmar

With Help From Peak Systems, SanMar Changes the Channel

Washington-based SanMar is the nation's premier supplier of customizable wholesale and corporate clothing and apparel. SanMar sells these products through a large national network of distributors in various businesses – embroiderers, screenprinters, athletic dealers, promotional product vendors and others. SanMar wanted a new way to showcase their products to customers and potential customers.

Since most of these products are meant to be customized, and SanMar's distribution channel precludes one unified website, an old-fashioned "one-size-fits-all approach" would not work. Peak Systems provided SanMar with a suite of robust, customizable web-based marketing tools. These tools allow a basic level of customization for non-technical users and additional customization options for more tech-savvy users.

Services Provided

Web Design, Application Development, Hosting

Solution

First, Peak created a custom website development tool. It allows a non-technical user to quickly assemble and customize a surprisingly functional website for free. A user can select different color palettes and layouts, choose which products to feature, adjust prices and add logos. More technically proficient users can utilize HTML editing tools and integrate a PayPal account to make the site fully functional.

Next, Peak created a catalog wizard, which allows any of SanMar’s distributors to create a customized catalog. Whole pages from the SanMar catalog may be included or, if a distributor prefers, they can use the drag and drop interface to import individual images or other page elements. Users can omit any products that they don’t carry and highlight any products that they particularly want to promote.

The third major marketing tool Peak designed for SanMar is a flyer wizard. It allows a distributor to write copy, edit prices, import product descriptions, add their logo and illustrate the flyer with a choice of thousands of photos from the SanMar image library. If a distributor is overwhelmed with such a high level of customizability, they can use SanMar’s collection of dozens of pre-built flyers (each of which was created by SanMar's designers within the wizard), and simply add their name, company information and logo. The flyers can be saved as PDF files or emailed directly to customers as HTML or attached PDF files.

Results

These tools became a competitive advantage because they provide such empowering, value-added support to SanMar's distributors. Since inception, SanMar's custom website and custom catalog programs have flourished, resulting in double digit annual growth. Additionally, on a daily basis SanMar customers use the flyer wizard to capture sales. In fact, if you printed out and stacked up all of the flyers that have been created since January 2004, the stack would over 9,661 feet high. If that were a mountain in Washington, it would be the fifth tallest peak.

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