Independent Office, Workwear, and Furniture Dealer Increases Average Order Value 182% on EvolutionX

Over 30 Years of Service

North Central has been in business for over 30 years, but they knew they needed to continue to evolve to better serve their customers.

Their goal was to simplify the ordering process for office supplies, workwear, and furniture. When it came time to review their eCommerce platform, Sales Director David Simpson said that EvolutionX was top of mind.

There was kind of only one natural choice for us. They are, by a long shot, the industry leaders."

North Central was off and running and since then, they've earned some impressive results.

The Results of Building for the Customer

Consistency is key for North Central. When creating their online channel, they didn't want to sacrifice the world-class service their patrons were accustomed to. Instead, they wanted to make it easy for customers to buy across different channels.

As a business owner, you always want your customers to have the same experience whether they're on the phone, in person, or online. And the EvolutionX platform allows us to actually deliver our excellent service levels online."

The outcome of this approach has seen staggering growth from North Central.

Just this year alone, we've seen an over 3,000% increase on our B2C sales. Our average order value since we joined the platform has gone up 182%. The figures behind it are seriously exciting."

Seriously exciting is an excellent way to describe the numbers. So is the reaction from those using the platform.

A Platform & A Partner

The new business coming through North Central's webstore indicates to their team that customers love to shop the site. With the change in buying habits, it's no surprise that an online channel is performing so well.

The customer base is getting younger. They expect to be able to order online. They maybe don't feel as comfortable picking up the phone. So having that data rich content on the website let's people find what they're after on their own time."

And if the customer does need to speak to someone, David notes that North Central's knowledgeable team is there on the other end of the line. Ultimately, the website is an excellent starting point on the customer's buying journey.

North Central is also pleased with the EvolutionX team and how they've guided their business along the eCommerce path.

By working collaboratively with EvolutionX, we understand the platform a bit better as well. So that let's us understand our business and what you guys have to offer - put the two together for the benefit of the customer."

That's always the goal at EvolutionX - to partner with customers so that we can continue to grow together.

Continuing to Enhance the Site

David and North Central have worked on some very exciting customizations to their current site, including a new homepage.

At one time, North Central had a marketing site, workwear site, and an eCommerce site. When they went live on EvolutionX, they consolidated everything into one, concise website. But they didn't stop improving there.

The customers want to see product. They want data rich information, good images, offers, stock levels, and all of that is now going to be featured on the [new] homepage."

This enhancement will help customers find products faster and place orders with ease. Creating an optimized conversion path like this is a beautiful thing to witness!

As North Central expanded its workwear offering, the team wanted to create a seamless shopping experience for that product vertical. The goal was to allow customers to pick their products, pick their branding, and easily place an order alongside their other office supplies.

We put the challenge to them. How can we put workwear online?"

Enter the EvolutionX Dev Team. A custom workwear configurator was built for North Central. David shared two of the biggest benefits of having this new tool on the website.

One is the customer experience is far better because they can do it all in one order. But secondly, it's more efficient for us. We're actually giving the workload to the customer. They're happy to do it because they can do it when the time suits them. That let's our team focus on the service side."

North Central has been able to keep service levels high. Putting forth the effort on the frontend of the site has yielded better internal efficiencies for David and his team.

The Platform Keeps Getting Better

David has been impressed with the service offered by the EvolutionX team, but he's also enjoyed the continuous improvement of the platform itself.

The ongoing development is really positive as well. It's not just an 'out of the box and off you go' product. It's something that's always evolving, pushing boundaries, and driving your business forward as well."

New features are released on EvolutionX nearly every month. But one stands as David's favorite.

As simple as it is, the blog feature is so basic but so good for SEO. It creates an organized way for you to put updated, unique information on your website regularly that Google is going to like, pickup, and drive traffic to your website in an organic fashion."

North Central has leveraged this feature to create a fantastic resource on their site. Click here to view their blog.

As wonderful as the EvolutionX features are, it's the people behind them that have made the greatest impact.

A Brilliant Customer Success Team

To David, the Customer Success Team at EvolutionX is so much more than just a web admin team. They're a group of industry experts that can guide North Central to making the right decisions.

The Customer Success Team at EvolutionX are really brilliant. Louise and the other team members, they understand what we're trying to do as a business. We're taking challenges to them and we trust them to make the right decisions to drive the business forward."

With the combination of a great platform and an amazing team, David believes EvolutionX is the obvious choice for B2B businesses searching for an eCommerce solution.

I genuinely believe that if you're not on the EvolutionX platform in our industry, you'll get left behind. It really is ticking all the boxes from the customer side, the dealer themselves, the team there, and working with suppliers as well - so it's got you totally covered."

We love to hear stories like David's. North Central is a wonderful partner and a fantastic example of a business who has fully adopted and leveraged the capabilities of EvolutionX. We're excited to watch their numbers continue to climb!