Using Strategic Retail Partnerships, Enhanced Product Data to Jumpstart An Ecommerce Business
Since 1938, AFX has led the fluorescent lighting space with a commercial and residential collection that embodies industrial design with artistic flair. The company’s commitment to using the latest technology has built a product catalog that is both environmentally smart and sleekly designed.
When AFX partnered with BrandJump in 2018, the company was seeking a more well-rounded strategy to grow its ecommerce business. To help the company maximize online sales, BrandJump worked to enhance and add new retailer partnerships, facilitate promotional opportunities and strengthen product data to help increase the company’s speed to market.
Category: Lighting, Contemporary
Key services: Partner Management, Product Data Enhancement
The Challenge
After decades of impressive commercial performance, AFX was ready to expand that success to ecommerce. But in the early stages of their online business, they quickly realized the tall task they were faced with in migrating their business to a digital space.
The company saw the potential ecommerce expansion had to offer. But they sought to understand the unique needs of each channel—as well as each retailer—to drive sales, keep a healthy inventory position and develop products that would excite residential customers.
AFX needed to make connections with retail partners and better understand marketing and promotional opportunities that would let them gain a stronger foothold within the market. They were also ready to up their speed to market but were held back by trying to manage varying requirements among retailers for large swaths of product data.
Strategy + Approach
Working with an ecommerce partner like BrandJump was part of their strategy—AFX knew they needed help to achieve their ecommerce goals. BrandJump was there to provide the resources and industry expertise to get them there by focusing on two key areas:
Identifying key retailers and building connections. AFX’s history of sustained success showed the value of their award-winning designs, but they needed more support to build strong retailer partnerships that would maximize sales online. The BrandJump team’s expansive relationships across home furnishings retailers helped identify retail partners that fit with their product type, price point and that had access to their target market.
“We used to just focus on getting products live and hoping they would sell,” said Greg Weiss, AFX Director of Product Development and Marketing. “But having a partner that understands that world and who the big players are has made a huge difference.”
After helping forge those retailer connections, the BrandJump team quickly set the stage for promotional participation. After analyzing factors like seasonality, U.S. holidays and the promotional schedules of new partners, BrandJump proposed 4-5 brand wide promotions with key retailers, as well as opting into retailer driven activities like WayDay with Wayfair, email campaigns and social posting. These efforts, combined with a few MAP free periods were key to both early and sustained levels of growth.
Streamlining and managing product data for each retailer. Being brand new to the ecommerce space, the company wasn’t familiar with the different data requirements of each retailer. The BrandJump team’s understanding of each unique set of standards along with the ability to organize large quantities of data led to speedier, more strategic merchandising. In turn, AFX was able to increase the number of new product releases over the last two years and vastly improve their speed to market.
All along the way, BrandJump and AFX have forged a communication strategy that has kept momentum strong. Frequent touch bases have helped create an actionable feedback loop that consistently builds on effective strategies—and therefore growth.
“Steady dialogue and the implementation of feedback from both parties is a testament to the power of a truly invested partnership,” said Christie Lomanov, BrandJump Brand Manager. “The communication and trust between the brand and us have been integral in helping us identify what’s working, how we can steadily improve and ultimately drive success with them.”
“We used to just focus on getting products live and hoping they would sell. But having a partner that understands that world and who the big players are has made a huge difference.”
Greg Weiss, AFX Director of Product Development and Marketing
Results
In 2021, AFX sales online climbed compared to the prior year. AFX saw 79% year-over-year growth, with key retailers also clocking in year-over-year growth at 70% and above. Plus, streamlined data management with the BrandJump team helped get new products to market sooner, and the brand was able to double the number of releases it introduced in the last two years, from two releases each year to four.
“Early on, we didn’t know what we didn’t know,” said Weiss. “But luckily, we didn’t have to learn on our own. BrandJump helped us so much through the learning process and it turned into a zero-to-hero situation very quickly.”
