B2B customers of Republic National Distributing Co. are giving the company a reason to celebrate ecommerce.
Nick Mehall, president and CEO, Republic National Distributing Co.
“A large and growing number of our customers are now embracing B2B ecommerce as a complementary vehicle to engage with us,” says Nick Mehall, president and CEO. He notes that the distributor’s ecommerce site, eRNDC, “has demonstrated significant market adoption over the past twelve months.”
Mehall notes that 2023 sales transacted through the eRNDC ecommerce platform reached $800 million, spurred by a 32% year-over-year increase in the number of monthly active online customers.
RNDC says its online customers in 21 states can shop among 6,700 brands, using such features as AI-powered site search, product recommendations and product assortments curated for local markets.
And RNDC expects the good times to continue.
Emily Xu, senior vice president of ecommerce, Republic National Distributing Co.
“Looking ahead to 2024, we are anticipating more customers will leverage the platform to discover products and brands,” says Emily Xu, senior vice president of ecommerce. “We are also seeing more suppliers incorporate B2B platforms like eRNDC as building blocks of their commercial strategy.”
Republic National ecommerce investments pay off
Mehall says RNDC has invested in its proprietary ecommerce platform over the last few years to “meet the demands and the complexity of our industry, and our results indicate our strategy is firmly taking hold.”
He adds: “By directly providing 24/7 access and making product information easily accessible to customers and our sales reps, we are bringing brands closer to customers. By offering order dashboards, invoices, and online payments, we also free up our sales team from some of the administrative tasks and give them more time to spend with customers.”
RNDC says it is also using its ecommerce platform to better understand how different types of customers shop for products.
In the past year, the distributor analyzed shopping behavior data collected on eRNDC to learn that account customers tend to search by category, with top search terms of tequila, bourbon and champagne.
It also learned that other customers RNDC defines as “off-premise” tend to search first by brands.
Xu says RNDC expects more ecommerce improvements to come.
“With the fast development in AI and machine learning, we are very excited to partner with our sales team, our suppliers, and our customers to continue evolving our platform to be the best collaborative ecommerce platform that seamlessly connects three tiers of the beverage alcohol industry,” she says.
Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.
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