Westcoast Ecommerce Case Study

Enterprise class B2B ecommerce for the UK's Leading Hardware & IT distributor.

Westcoast Ltd was founded in 1984 and has grown to become the number one UK hardware distributor for many vendors. Westcoast's evolution has led them to become a leader in services and support for the IT and hardware supplies industry with a turnover in excess of £3.2 billion. Consistently ranked in the Sunday Times Top Track of the 100 largest, privately-owned companies in the UK, they have also been ranked 10th in a list of the fastest-growing private companies in Europe according to Europe 500.

“The main benefit of the site over our previous site is speed. As an additional benefit, when we migrate the rest of the group over to tradeit, we will have a single platform on which to manage our sites. We've been working with Red for a few years now launching a couple of sites, they've been good to work with and always delivered to meet our requirements.”

Senior Developer, Westcoast

Project Highlights

Complex integrations
Complex integration with primary business systems (8 flat file integrations, 21 API integrations, 4 specialist configurators and pricing tool integrations & 6 external system integrations)
Quote management
Quote handling through call centre tools enables sales staff to raise quotes for their customers, adjust pricing, set expiry date, add notes, and push via email and to customer's my account for converting to order online
Product configurators
Integration with over twenty internal and third-party product configurators, selectors and tools across a large number of different brands and product types
Global ecommerce
Global B2B ecommerce supporting multiple currencies, warehousing, shipping and payment methods with international sites for the UK, France & Poland
PIM
Integration with third-party PIM, managing over 500,000 SKUs and over 5 million price variations
Enhanced My Account
Enhanced customer 'My Account' area with rich B2B functionality like master and sub accounts for procurement, credit limits, managing orders, reporting and much more
Enriched data
Integration with Icecat structured and rich product content from hundreds of different brands, enriches content and ensures accuracy & consistency
Multiple sites
Management of all sites, both brand and international, from a single installation of tradeit
Sophisticated faceted navigation
Sophisticated faceted navigation to aid product retrieval

Project Integrations

Project Overview

Working with Westcoast, leading ecommerce and content management system provider, Red Technology, has defined and delivered an end-to-end B2B ecommerce solution based on Red's own ecommerce software, tradeit, integrated with their primary AS400 based ERP system and a number of internal and external specialist systems to facilitate a fast moving and complex business & client base in a highly competitive arena. Integration with their primary business systems includes; 8 flat file integrations, 21 APIs, 4 specialist configurators and pricing tool integrations, and 6 external system integrations.

Westcoast ecommerce site on a mobile phone

Management of over 500,000 SKUs

The tradeit ecommerce platform provides Westcoast with a centralised suite of management tools, including their integrated PIM, to administer their rapidly growing catalogue of 500,000+ products and over 5 million price variations.

Integrations cover everything from product, stock, pricing, orders, returns, invoices/payments of invoices, user specialist reports, quotes/estimates, user multi-account management and more.

With sites for both the UK and France, and a separate site for their Data Select business, running from a single installation of tradeit content can be shared whilst still allowing for unique requirements such as translations to easily be catered for.

Advanced B2B My Account

One of the main benefits for Westcoast has been providing their customers with a sophisticated 'My Account' area to enhance their own ordering and order management capabilities. This rich functionality includes:

Master and sub account management (so central offices can control purchasing of branch/regional offices on an individual basis).
Setting credit limits.
Managing orders (including previous orders, back orders, saved orders, approving orders and invoices).
Managing accounts, members, their access rights and permissions.
Addresses management.
Complex reporting and more.

It also gives them access to a host of configuration tools and selectors they can use to help them spec out their new equipment.