Alko: From brick-and-mortar to online success

Big results

without growing the team

ERP:

Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Industry:

Retail

The challenge

Engaging more customers

For over 40 years, Alko Distributors has been selling high-quality clothing for prices that are consistently the lowest anywhere from their brick-and-mortar stores.

They were looking for a way to engage customers that they simply couldn’t reach with their physical stores. A web store seemed like a logical choice, but Alko had some reservations.

The solution

Leveraging Alko’s existing tech stack

The key to creating an e-commerce presence that would tick all the boxes without being a drain on Alko’s precious resources was smart use of their existing IT landscape.

The company had implemented Dynamics NAV as their ERP system back in 2005, in combination with the LS Retail POS system. This setup allowed them to accurately see what was selling in which stores on an hourly basis. It also helped them make time-sensitive decisions to reorder stock or quickly move inventory. But above all, their new setup was reliable. “After all, if your POS goes down, you risk lost sales and lost customers,” says Kozlowski.

It was essential that Alko’s new e-commerce software be a perfect fit with their strong setup. That made Sana the ideal solution.

“Sana Commerce was an easy choice because of the full integration with our existing platform. The feature that was most influential was the integration with Microsoft Dynamics NAV.”

“We wanted something that wouldn’t have to be too hands-on in order to be able to achieve our goals. With Sana, building out the e-commerce platform was significantly easier than I thought it was going to be,” says Kozlowski.

Sana Commerce is designed and developed with the ERP in mind. Sana software is Certified for Microsoft Dynamics (CfMD) for Dynamics NAV, and has been since 2010. This means that both Sana software and Sana product experts are tried and tested — and trusted by companies across the globe.

“The team at Sana were very easy to deal with and very responsive to both our concerns and our overall vision for what we were trying to achieve during the development process,” explains Kozlowski.

We visited multiple online retailers and saw that they had very labor-intensive processes. That’s something a company our size just couldn’t handle. I didn’t believe that we would be able to accomplish our goal without a larger staff.

Barry Kozlowski | Vice President at Alko Distributors

The results

Achieving big results with a small team

With their new web store, Alko Distributors have the tool they need to reach more clients and grow their business — without growing their sales force. The new web store provides a clear overview of all brick-and-mortar store locations, details on the company’s customer service, and of course an easy-to-navigate online catalog of their products.

Faceted search makes it easy for clients to find the garment they need based on jobs, collections, and brands. And multiple zoomable product images ensure that web store visitors can thoroughly assess their purchase, even without being able to try it on in-store.

Thanks to their smart approach to online sales, Alko Distributors has been able to bring successful sales formula online. But the team at Alko Distributors had a clear vision for their e-commerce web presence.

Was Sana Commerce able to live up to it?

“What surprised me about the project was the final product,” says Kozlowski.

“I didn’t believe we would be able to accomplish the things we’ve accomplished without a larger staff to implement it. Our goal was to provide services at a value to our customer, and the platform has been created for us to be able to do that.

“We’re very satisfied with Sana, both as a product and with the customer service staff. And we’re very excited about using this platform to reach out to customers we can’t currently reach.”