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Allé Designs produces stylish, functional furniture for offices. They sell directly to businesses—either to retail partners who then sell their products on to consumers, or to companies who design and furnish office spaces. They’ve been Plytix clients since 2019.
Sandra Perry, Owner and VP of Marketing at Allé Design, sat down with us to talk about how Plytix helped them build a central source of truth for their product information, which allowed them to grow their sales by 45%.
Before Plytix, Allé Designs used printed catalogs as their source of truth for product information
“When I bought Allé Designs, I knew it was a fixer-upper, but I didn't know quite how much work I was in for. I literally bought a bunch of papers, and the challenge was to turn that into a flourishing online B2B furniture brand,” Sandra told us.
“Before Plytix, our printed catalogs were the source of truth for us as a company as well as for our clients. If something was wrong in one of those catalogs, finding the right information was almost impossible,” Sandra explained.
“That meant we were drowning in manual data entry for each and every order or request for information that was placed.” They had to search their catalogs to find the product information retail partners needed, and then either send it to them by email or design and print a data sheet to share with them. “It was unsustainable. I didn’t know how we were going to do it, but I knew I needed one place to collect all our product information.”
How Allé Designs grew sales by 45% by switching to Plytix
“Now, instead of flipping through piles of printed catalogs, I have all our product information in Plytix,” Sandra told us. “If I spot a mistake or need to add a new product, I can change it straight away.”
The transformation allowed Allé Designs to work in a far more agile way. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to bring out a range of personal protective equipment and design and set up hand sanitizing stations in offices,” Sandra told us. “We were only able to get these to market quickly enough to make money from them because preparing, optimizing, and sharing product information was so efficient with Plytix.”
“We now operate fully digitally! We’re working with brands like Disney, Lancôme, and L’Oréal, and sales are up 45%!”
But the most unexpected advantages for Allé Designs have been Brand Portals and Product Data Sheets. “With Plytix as our central source of truth, we knew our product information was good. But it also guaranteed the data we share is up-to-date, too.” Both Brand Portals and Product Data Sheets auto-populate with the latest product information from their Plytix account.
“In our industry, it’s all about presentation, and we’re beating out the competition. At one point, because I could create a Product Data Sheet for a client who wanted custom work, I got them our product details faster than our competitors, and it was better presented. That helped me land an $80,000 order.”
Choosing the right PIM system
“I ended up having a few conversations with the Plytix team before making the leap,” Sandra told us. “At first, I was really hesitant to spend the money. But Plytix was so curious about my business and great at talking me through the value they could bring. What really sold me in the end was actually the Brand Portals feature. When I remembered that I was spending around $6,000 for a graphic designer every time we needed a new catalog, and it still needed to be updated all the time, I realized it was far better to spend that money on bringing the company out of the dark ages and getting our information online.”
Sandra’s take: The best thing about Plytix
“Being able to present my products professionally has changed the way clients see us,” Sandra said. “We’ve saved up to $6,000 per catalog by cutting out design costs, we can respond to clients 10x faster, and we’ve increased sales by 45% in just one year!”
Allé designs’ results with Plytix
- Allé Designs have a (digital) central source of truth for their product information “which has taken the company out of the dark ages”
- Sales are up by 45% in just one year
- Allé Designs landed an $80,000 order thanks to Brand Portals
- Saved $6,000 per product catalog built
- Response time to clients has increased by 10x
