Welcome to our overview of the new grainger.com platform. By going through this course, you will have a foundational understanding of the enhancements that have been put in place, as well as what is coming in the next few months. You will have an understanding of how the new grainger.com platform supports our go-to-market strategy and improves your ability to help solve customer problems. You will learn about the improvements we have made, where we are going and ultimately you will have tools that will prepare you to support the customer migration to the new grainger.com platform and help position you to recognize opportunities to grow your sales faster than you could without ecommerce.
We know that all customers have goals and needs around money, time, and productivity. All of these represent some form of cost. And if there is one thing we know all customers definitely want to do, it is take cost out of their operations. That is what our core value proposition is all about. And to you, this is how you are going to increase your odds of becoming your customer s first choice. Grainger shines by taking costs out better than anyone else in our industry. We do this by helping customers improve the way they purchase supplies, manage inventory, manage safety and operate sustainably. Helping customers take costs out is what Grainger does best and it is what sets us apart from the competition. This has to be the mindset we have. It is how we think about our customer s business and it is what we tell customers we do - it is our job.
We have solutions for a wide range of needs from the simplest to the most complex and we can tailor these solutions to meet your customer s specific business needs. Before we go there, we have to understand the processes customers go through. So let s walk through the typical purchasing process. We can break it down into 3 phases: Identify, Purchase and Pay or Find, Buy and Manage. Whatever you want to call it. Customers have to find the items, get them and then pay for them. It is just three steps - it seems easy, right? Let s talk about what we know from our Consulting Services team The cost to process a purchase order is typically more than $75 - often more than the cost of the item itself. Part of the reason it costs so much to process an order is the amount of time it takes to shop or find the item. Our research indicates that more than 40% of the time needed to process an order is due to these shopping activities. A typical infrequent purchase involves 40 distinct steps, 8 handoffs and 3 approvals often triggered by a lack of buying authority, the amount of the order or simply a desire for greater control and visibility.
Over the last year, our ecommerce team has focused on delivering enhancements to our current platform that drive value for our customers in their purchasing process and how they maintain inventory. We have implemented new solutions such as auto-reorder, improvements to search, dramatically improved the speed of the website and launched industry leading mobile platforms including a new mobile site and new mobile apps for the iphone and Android. In addition to these solutions that are available today, we have been developing a new web platform that gives us the flexibility to quickly respond to changing market needs by rapidly building new solutions. This new web platform uniquely positions Grainger to give customers anytime, anywhere access by combining the mobile, online, catalog and physical branch shopping experiences. Why? In an increasingly connected world, Grainger customers purchasing needs are evolving. They are demanding the best-of-breed B2C buying experience that is delivered via multiple digital touch points and fulfills their needs around immediacy and convenience.
Why is this important for you? Puts more money in your pocket Gives you time back Customers who use ecommerce grow faster We need to focus on leveraging ecommerce as it is a differentiator and our solutions enable us to become our customer s first choice. You can also leverage ecommerce to accelerate your revenue as online customers grow 5x faster than customers that do not use ecommerce. And it does not have to be complicated. The starting point for getting your customers online is collecting their email address. By getting their email address, we can help you drive your customer online to buy, then it is about showing them the tools that are available such as personal lists, order history, helping them use the advance features of approvals, spend limits and customizing grainger.com to meet their purchasing needs. All of this helps them and helps you make more money, save you time and grow your overall account sales. Multi-channel integration enables our customers to gain a more consistent and integrated purchase experience as they interact with Grainger. For example, customers that are purchasing at a branch can access order status and history online. Through the Grainger mobile site and app, customers can experience full ecommerce functionality. They can conduct a full product search, view cart, check order status or find a local branch on their mobile devices. Customers can also determine the real-time availability status of products on the website or on their mobile devices to schedule order pick-up or delivery. Customers can efficiently manage their inventory as KeepStock orders can now be placed and tracked online. Simply put, the new platform empowers us to expand, embed and say YES to our customers.
The new web platform launch has been strategically segmented into various phases of implementation. The roll-out and customer migration strategy has been aligned to these development cycles so that critical user feedback can be acquired and incorporated to make improvements. In line with this strategy, we launched the new Grainger website in December 2011 and already have 43,000 customers using this site. Beginning April 19, 2013, we will migrate all US employee to the new platform. This is an important step as you are getting advanced exposure to the new Grainger.com to provide us feedback and help ensure a smooth transition for your customers later this year. We highly encourage Grainger employees to provide their valuable input so it can be leveraged to create an exceptional customer experience.
Enough set-up - let s look at the new site. You will notice right away that the new grainger.com platform is streamlined, more visually appealing and easy-to-use. Site search improvements such as parent-child enhancements and repair parts search integration enables customers to find relevant products faster. Fast and simple is the key with a great web experience. We know that time is critical in business and that the experience on our website needs to allow them to find what they need quickly and easily place an order and get on with their day. One of the first things you notice is that our Account Ribbon is the same. We added this to improve the navigation on our site and it worked. The most commonly used features such as approving orders, order history, account preferences and personal lists are on every page. By using features like the ability to search order history, customers can easily find items they have purchased before - making reordering fast and easy. We also provide the ability to create lists of items that are bought frequently using our personal list feature. Customers can use this to create favorites that that can be shared with others on the account. This valued feature will remain the same and serve as a constant experience between the old and new version of Grainger.com
My Account Dashboard is a new feature that displays the most pertinent information and administration features including my orders and my lists. All of the information can be displayed and updated including setting Express Checkout Defaults. When you have a customer that has a preferred pick-up or shipping location and payment method, you can share the express checkout functionality to allow them to take even more steps out of their purchasing process. By doing this once, they have the opportunity to click the express checkout button directly from the cart page and complete their purchase saving them time and effort, allowing them to focus on other important tasks. 8
Guided by a progress bar, the checkout experience is more intuitive and easier to navigate. Compared to the current website, checkout on the new Grainger.com site separates order details on individual pages hence checkout may feel longer. 9
I am sure you have customers that comment about our search capabilities. Well it is time for you to clearly see the improvements that we have made so that they can easily navigate from our broad assortment of products down to the one item that they truly need. Customers will be able to find products more easily due to enhanced search, so let s talk about the Key Search Features that are Global Search Bar, Type Ahead, Search Result Filtering, Search Within, Product Category Browse, See All Global Search Bar is present on all Grainger.com pages. The Grainger.com search engine searches through product data associated with all items on Grainger.com and returns any matches for the term you have entered. It is best used when you search for an item by: keyword, brand name, manufacturer part #, item # or competitor cross reference #.
Let s talk about Search Results Filtering that is located in the Left Navigation. It allows you to refine your search by category/subcategory, product attribute, brand and price. It is best used when you further refine a search, browsing results by product category, select specific product attribute values, brand or price. Brand and price are considered global attributes that can always be selected. You can also filter a set of search results in order to show only items that were previously purchased online. When you log-in, you check the View Previously Purchased Items Only box. Fun Fact: Search sessions that use this feature convert to cart 62% of the time and convert to order 42% of the time
The Search Within feature allows you to search within the category and it is best used when narrowing your results based on a specific value or term. For example, by entering alkaline into the search within the bar, you will only see results that match battery and alkaline.
The Type Ahead feature suggests categories and brands based on what letters/words are entered in the search bar. The matching categories and brands are displayed. It is best used to: Narrow your search to a specific category Display all items in a category See all products by a specific brand
The See All feature is another useful search that is located in the listing for each item. By clicking the link next to See All, you will see the search results and the technical attributes for the entire category that the item resides in. It is a great feature to use when you locate an item that is close to the one that you are looking for and you want to see more like it.
When you select the Products Tab on the Grainger.com navigation bar, you are able to browse the Grainger.com product hierarchy. It allows you to view all subcategories within the 32 major categories on Grainger.com with visual representations of each subcategory. A great use is if you know the category, but do not know the subcategory or the Grainger terminology for a given product.
Personal lists on Grainger.com lets you quickly and easily save, manage and share lists so you can simplify and take control of what you buy. This is an important feature for customers as it gives them the ability to find an item once and have access to it throughout their grainger.com experience. Customers can create a list of safety items for all employees to use, organize items by department or building. The lists feature can solve their needs allowing them to save time and money in their purchasing process. With our new web platform, there is a more integrated and consistent experience for personal and inventory lists that will help customers manage their lists more easily. They will also be able to create folders at the user level and copy a personal list to inventory list and vice versa to efficiently manage them.
Customers will have an improved experience as they add products to their cart. They will also be able to print the cart and view key information such as estimated shipping costs, taxes and accurate service level options (ex. ordering hazardous products) much earlier in the purchase process. This saves customers time when gathering information for purchase orders.
Customers have probably told you they want to see their total order history online, including orders they placed at a branch or on other channels. With the new platform, customers will now be able to view both offline and online orders placed with Grainger as well as find necessary information regarding past orders on their own. This feature does not apply to employees, but will be a valuable tool for our customers. This creates a better multi-channel experience for them. 18
Now with the addition of our mobile web experience they have access to the entire catalog in the palm of their hand no matter where they are. This works on any smartphone and allows you to search, check real time availability and buy without having to find a computer. Did you know that 1 in 5 grainger.com searches begins on a mobile device? Customers will experience faster browsing speed and checkout on the new mobile site and application. Moreover, improved search, browsing with product category images and intelligent geo-location mobile capabilities will shape more relevant product browsing and purchasing at a given location. Account management and personal list editing capabilities are currently not available on the new mobile site and application.
What if I told you that there are tools that are free, can be accessed today and could help you drive an increase in sales of 35%+? Would you like to grow your sales at 35% year over year? A revamped Order Management System (OMS) empowers businesses with disparate organizational needs to intuitively configure workflow and easily find and approve orders. Our workflow, spend and approval management capabilities are a great way to simplify the purchasing process and still provide the control customers need to manage it effectively. If our customer s goal is to automate the approval processes that they use internally and to better control the spending of folks across the organization, we have a great set of features that will allow them to do this and it doe not cost a thing. Customers can set individual spending limits, an approval flow with up to 4 levels of approvers and have the ability to add company data to every order. Luckily, Grainger.com leads the way in taking complication, time and pain out of order management while reducing frustration at almost every turn, ensuring your customers get what they need, when they need it. Allowing them to: Automate the repetitive parts of your work Manage efficiency and maintaining transparency Deliver convenience at every step of the process
We also have a new OMS dashboard, improved workflow, intuitive user-interface and better approval notification system. Customers can now approve all KeepStock orders on new Grainger.com platform through Grainger s Order Management System. KeepStock order numbers will be consistent across ClearSpider, Grainger.com & SAP. It will be easier for CSAs to research any issues related to a particular order. Customers with different types of organizational needs will have the option to configure their workflow through an Express set-up option or those with unique organizational needs can define multiple spend limits and approval levels through a custom set-up. Similar to the current website, the OMS functionality will continue to be hidden for employee accounts. Did I mention this is free, requires no software and is accessible through grainger.com?
We talked about search earlier and although it has gotten better, we are not done yet. There are some additional features that will be available before your customers go live in August. The additional features that include Visual Attributes, Parent-Child and Auto- Reorder will improve our search capabilities and help customers navigate to the item they need. The Visual Attributes feature allows customers to filter search results based on a visual representation of distinguishing product attributes.
The Parent-Child feature has been a great addition to the current site, but it is getting better too. You will have a chance to see the improved experience before your customers do that includes a new look and feel with the ability to add multiple items to the shopping cart all at the same time.
The Auto-Reorder feature allows your customers to schedule recurring orders of commonly used items and those required for maintenance activities - saving them time and taking the worry out of the job. 24
Let s talk about next steps. So you have already migrated to the new grainger.com platform and completed the GEN083 course. Now you need to register on the new grainger.com platform and download the Grainger Mobile App. If you do not have a Grainger.com account, then you need to complete the user registration and include the employee purchase account # 111111118. After you have your Grainger.com account created or if you already have an existing account, you will automatically be redirected to the new Grainger.com platform and will log in with your RACIF ID. If you do not have a RACF ID, the checkbox I do not have a RACF ID will allow you to enter a unique User ID and complete the registration. Registrations with a RACF ID are automatically processed and it is validated against SAP. Registrations without a RACF ID will go to Customer Care for manual processing. So from this moment, every time you open your internet browser and type in Grainger.com, you will migrate to the new Grainger.com platform. It is important that you become acquainted and use the new grainger.com platform to search, find and buy. This will enable you to become familiar with the new website and act as change agent for your customers.
In order to access both the new and current platforms, copy this link and bookmark it in your browser. This is the link that you will use to access both versions of grainger.com. For your browsing and purchasing on your employee account, always go to the new grainger.com platform. Remember that for all customer account activity and demonstrations, you will continue to go to the current platform.
Visit the ecommerce intranet site for tools & resources If you need help with registration, placing your order on the new Grainger.com platform or require general Grainger.com support, please contact Customer Care at 847-793-6266.
Now that you have all migrated and are receiving advanced exposure to the new Grainger.com, we need your feedback. This feedback will help ensure a smooth transition for your customers later this year. We highly encourage you to provide your valuable input so it can be leveraged to create an exceptional customer experience. So, if you notice a functionality not working properly on the site, share your feedback immediately to improve the user experience on the new Grainger.com platform. Complete a brief survey directly from the new Grainger.com or email us at YourVoice@Grainger.com