Festo and KYKLO form ecommerce agreement
KYKLO and Festo, a global leader in the pneumatic and electrical automation industry, have jointly developed a plan to drive improved customer service through Festo’s North American distributor channel.
The agreement calls for KYKLO to provide enhanced offerings to Festo’s extensive network of knowledge-based technical distributors. This effort will give customers served by these distributors access to tens of thousands of Festo products via KYKLO’s ecommerce platform.
KYKLO will optimize customer communications by enabling better data sharing between customers and their local distributor. New and featured Festo products will receive priority consideration on the distributor’s eCommerce system. Using this feature, a new product will automatically appear in the Festo section of the distributor’s website early in its introduction phase. Additionally, entrance to the online Festo product configurator will feature special messaging from the company.
Festo recognizes the growing importance of getting detailed product information into the hands of customers. “I have visited the webstores of our distributors who have employed the KYKLO system and I am amazed at the quality and depth of their product data,” said Mark Snyder, Channel Director of Festo USA.
Customer behavior and the way potential buyers discover new products has made a dramatic shift over the past few years. Rather than rely on the salespeople to provide product data and technical details, buyers research via the internet. This means new potential customers are sometimes not clearly visible to the distributors. “We have seen a recent trend where distributors with digital presence are growing faster than distributors without. I believe this is at least in part due to their ability to attract and sell to customers who would normally not be visible through traditional sales methods,” Snyder said.
Prior to KYKLO most technology focused, and application skilled distributors could not support an effective web-shop. While the costs associated with building a platform have decreased in price, the cost of creating product data, constantly updating new products, and maintaining high search engine optimization (SEO) were outside their reach. Further, buyers contrast the quality of their experience against mega sized companies rather than a competitor across town. KYKLO levels the playing field. "Every distributor must be looking at ways to make themselves “Amazon Proof”. They need an easy to use webstore which is optimized for internet searches as well as their traditional technical support and customer backup,” said Snyder.
Headquartered in Buffalo, New York and Bangkok Thailand, KYKLO provides a state-of-the-technology solution to distributors via a cloud-based digital commerce platform.
INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY MAGAZINE
The March/April issue of Industrial Supply magazine features an in-depth cover story about Joyce Lansdale and Vallen. Plus, we're featuring articles by contributing writers Dirk Beveridge, Frank Hurtte, and David Kahle, as well as interviews with numerous product and distribution industry experts.
