Managing Suppliers, Customers, Catalogs, Client Company Stores, And Pricing In One Convenient Interface

Founded in 1988, Corporate Images has grown to be one of the top, highly awarded promotional products companies in the nation. Recognized in 2008 in the Inc 5000 and recipient of several Gold Pyramid awards from the prestigious Promotional Products Association International, Corporate Images is recognized for innovative, highly effective, and creative promotional campaigns. They design, manufacture, and distribute over 300,000 promotional product SKUs for large corporations nationwide.

As the company grew and the industry expanded, Corporate Images found a challenge in managing the custom needs of their clients. They needed an ecommerce solution that was flexible, scalable, and repeatable. In addition, the system needed to allow custom modifications as needed for their clients. Faced also with an always increasing need to streamline operations and cut costs, designing an internal system to suit their needs was not justifiable.

Channel Driver™, a simple yet powerful way to manage suppliers, customers, catalogs, client company stores, and pricing in one convenient interface, became the solution that Corporate Images implemented. 

“Corexpand is at the forefront of company store technology,” says Rick Palmer, Vice President of Sales for Corporate Images. “With the modular system, it is very easy to develop and create exactly what your client is looking for. The flexibility of the Corexpand system really gives you a tremendous ability to flow with what the client needs and with how the client’s needs change.”

Revenue Growth & Operational Cost Savings

Since 2002, Corporate Images has been creating and developing company stores for top clients such as THX, AAA Travel, and HealthNet. With multiple highly effective storefronts that produce over $500,000 annually, Corporate Images has used the Corexpand system to help the company revenue growth and has implemented strategies with the system to streamline operations and reduce costs. “We’ve saved a tremendous amount of time and effort, says Palmer, the AAA Travel company storefront saved over 25% of personnel time and eliminated human error in order entries after integrating the Corexpand order downloads into our internal operating system.”

Flexibility to Adapt & Personalize a Solution

With the flexibility that the Corexpand eCommerce solution provides, Corporate Images has been able to tackle very complex client requirements quickly and efficiently. They’re also able to design and implement custom solutions for key accounts. “One of the major things is the flexibility and the ability to create a store that functions the way the client wants it to function. Whether that is within the flexibility of the various modules or whether it’s the bringing on customer software or custom programming for a specific client, explains Rick Palmer. For example, the storefront for one of our top clients required an extremely complex array of login procedures and Corexpand created a perfect streamlined solution.“

Client Solutions & Customer Satisfaction

On multiple levels, Corporate Images has been able to serve the needs of their clients utilizing Corexpand solutions. Each client is unique in its individual needs. Here are a few examples of solutions implemented using the Channel Driver system:

Oaks Christian School

Oaks Christian School approached Corporate Images with the need for a solution to manage their storage and growth challenges. The school had a small on-campus store where the student body could purchase PE uniforms, customized merchandise, and special events attire. As the student body grew, it became a challenge to manage selling the uniforms in the allotted space and capacity on campus. With the Corexpand solution, Corporate Images created a store stocked with campus store inventory and moved the fulfillment of the products to the Corporate Image warehouse facility. For on-site purchases, the campus maintains a manageable amount of inventory in the campus store. Because of the efficiency of the eCommerce store provided by Corexpand, Corporate Images can receive and fulfill orders directly on the same day. Oaks Christian School storage needs were cut more than 50% and they no longer have out-of-stock inventory concerns. In addition, the student body is able to organize events with custom merchandise and have the orders processed quickly and efficiently online.

A National Fruit Grower and Distributor

A national fruit grower and distributor needed a solution that could handle a complex purchase order approval flow procedure. Their system required handling a multi-verification processes and based on the login criteria serve up products and pricing based on the user access rights. A company store was created using the Corexpand Channel Driver system and some simple protocols were set up to handle the complex login procedures. The solution resulted in a streamlined order process, resolved accounting discrepancies, and eliminated lost order concerns.

THX

THX wanted a company store that based on the user credentials provided merchandise, uniforms, and employee incentive rewards. The project required several layers of entry filters and payment methods including Purchase Order, Invoice, Credit card payments, Pcards, Points Incentives, and gift certificates.

“The flexibility and all the features of the Corexpand solution made it a success for the client,” says Rick Palmer, “Obviously, the product works and the client is happy with it. As the client’s business model changes, we can just easily update the stores.”

Security, Reporting, and Uptime. Plus all the Features

Security, reporting, and uptime were essential requirements of Corporate Images. Using a PCI compliant, cloud-based SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) solution provided Corporate Images the ability to have all these important features without having to invest in an IT infrastructure to support it. 

“In over 8 years of doing business with Corexpand, we’ve never had any problems with down time,” affirms Rick Palmer, “The design and reporting modules and how the system is continually being updated are also great benefits. We can go into the Store Manager and look at the overview reports, try to get trends via product, via store product and function, even the login history.”

Into the Future: New Horizons

In a time where companies are focusing on new technologies to lower operating costs and access new channels of revenue through ecommerce, Corporate Images is leading the pack with Corexpand solutions as a solid foundation that has proven to lower operating costs for themselves as well as their clients and adapt quickly to the changing custom needs of their clients. New stores are continuing to grow rapidly and can adapt quickly. Working with Corexpand, Corporate Images is continuing to grow in existing markets and expand daily into new markets.