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Success Story: Solis

Success Story: Solis

Solis experienced a smooth integration with ChannelEngine, which impressed them with tailored support and open communication.

Results summary:

Solis experienced a smooth integration with ChannelEngine, which impressed them with tailored support and open communication. Unlike struggling to get assistance from marketplaces directly, ChannelEngine provides Solis with a direct line and quick issue resolution. With a dedicated account manager, ChannelEngine understands Solis's needs and offers both technical solutions and agency-like support. Since connecting with ChannelEngine, Solis has grown its business by over 20% through new channels and is now recognized as an essential seller on marketplaces like Bol.com and Mediamarkt.de. Solis sees ChannelEngine as a collaborative partner that helps them achieve their goal of connecting with quality-seeking customers on various marketplaces.

Company overview

Switzerland has a reputation for quality products. This reputation is no accident; it comes from Swiss companies like Solis, who have consistently designed and produced high-quality products for over 200 years.

Solis is now a 2nd-generation family business, but it has a long history of innovation that goes back even further to 1908 when the founder, Dr. W. Schaufelberger, created the first SOLIS heating pad. The Nauer family now runs the business with the same attention to detail and commitment to high quality. During the 20th century, the brand expanded to become a global leader in electrical appliances.

Solis only recently stepped into the world of e-commerce but has found that teaming up with ChannelEngine has made this as easy and successful as possible.

The situation

Just 3 years ago, Solis started a new challenge: expansion into online marketplaces.

Solis had already started testing the market by selling on Bol.com directly. Reflecting on this experience, Solis made a new plan for an extended marketplace rollout. However, Solis’ primary expertise is in producing great appliances. The company needed partners to provide technical solutions and a better overview of product content, smooth order flow, and data-based insights.

To start with, Solis used Bol.com as inventory management and stock solution. Every product, associated content, and pricing was done manually. However, successful expansion plans require automation to function. The Swiss company needed a system that would forward all information, including tracking, into one, easy system. After looking at other solution providers, Solis chose ChannelEngine.

The solution

From the beginning, ChannelEngine offered its expertise to assist in this expansion. As a technical partner, ChannelEngine helped overcome difficulties connecting their unique ERP to every marketplace.

With each new connection between an ERP and a marketplace (or another external system), you end up dealing with a whole new set of issues and problems. Using ChannelEngine’s API-driven system, only one connection is needed to make it work – the connection with ChannelEngine.

Within just a few years of starting with ChannelEngine, Solis grew sales from just one marketplace to selling across 24 online marketplaces. What made this possible was a single ‘hub’ from which all the elements could be managed and optimized.

When the company was only selling on Bol.com, it was simple enough to use the inventory management and the insights provided by the Bol.com dashboard. These were very useful; however, Solis needed a system that could be used for all channels and ideally managed them all from a single point of access.

Solis found ChannelEngine to be the perfect match. The ChannelEngine dashboard gives staff an overview of all channels and the ability to automatically re-allocate stock from one node to another to accommodate sales and ensure that stock-outs rarely occur.

This system allows Solis to offer a ‘hybrid delivery’ that leverages the ability to switch fulfillment solutions if stock runs out at the third-party provider. Using ChannelEngine, the correct VAT invoices are easily generated automatically, and taxes are calculated at the right rate each time. Using the repricer tool, Solis can ensure a constant sell-through of products. This tool contributes to the success of this market-leading brand.

Next steps

In the future, Solis plans to optimize processes for content to make it even easier to add new products and grow further with new sales channels. Naturally, Solis intends to grow our business in current channels and expand into new channels when the time is right.

Ultimately, by using the expertise of ChannelEngine the company intends on growing our online sales in the coming years to exceed the level of their current retail business.