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Toner Buzz is a one-stop shop for ink, toner, and printing supplies. The wholesaler's mission is to provide its customers (both B2B and D2C) with a cheaper alternative to big-box retailers like Staples and Office Depot.
But, with three websites to update, as well as the Capital One sales channel, keeping their products competitive with the bigger brands was hard. They’ve been Plytix clients since 2019, so we spoke to Yisroel, Director of Ecommerce at Toner Buzz, to find out how Plytix PIM has helped them manage their ecommerce channels.
Before Plytix, Toner Buzz’s ecommerce sites were infested with errors
“We started out with one website, but ended up with three to better cater to our different audience groups,” Yisroel told us. “With the first website, the products were neatly categorized, and we updated them pretty consistently. By the second, the listings were becoming stagnant because we didn’t have time to monitor when product information had changed and the website needed updating.”
By the time they launched their third website, their product list had grown to 3000 unique SKUs, and their product information had taken a backseat. “It was out of control,” Yisrael admitted. “The information we listed on our ecommerce platform was infested with errors and broken links—something we didn’t have the bandwidth to monitor.”
And it wasn’t only their website that was suffering. “We also sold our products through Capital One Shopping. When we started with this channel, they needed to know how much stock we had in order to push products to Amazon. But our product information had gotten so bad, we had no way of telling them.” The partnership looked in danger of fizzling out before it had even gotten off the ground.
Since adopting Plytix, Toner Buzz shares product information 2x as fast
“Since using Plytix, product management has been a day-to-night change. We finally have a place to find, create, and store complex information,” Yisroel explained.
“I love being able to change things in bulk and push things to our three websites and our sales channels at the same time. I can filter content and create custom completeness attributes (an easy way to see if a product has all the information it needs and, if not, what’s missing) to keep track of my progress. It’s 100% faster than updating our product listings manually!”
“Today, we don’t have to update anything manually; everything is automated from Plytix to Capital One Shopping.”
Toner Buzz has also been able to format its data to meet its websites and Capital One’s requirements using formulas (rules in Plytix that adjust data on export). “We’ve tackled many projects where Plytix PIM helped us match our data to the picky HTML format of our platform,” Yisroel told us. “For example, we created a format to rename titles, fix toner colors and details, and adjust the layout of the FAQs on our website. If we had done this manually, we would have completely messed up our data. There was no realistic way to get our products to look the way they do without Plytix.”
Choosing the right PIM system
“When I decided to search for a Product Information Management (PIM) solution, I was unsure we’d find one that was a good fit for us. Some of the providers I looked at had the features we wanted but were so dang expensive; it would have been cheaper to hire 10 people to do the task manually,” Yisroel told us.
“With Plytix PIM, we were 100% sold on the pricing. But also the fact that we're able to control product information our way. You gave us the tools we needed without telling us how to manage them, which we appreciated.”
Yisroel’s take: The best thing about Plytix
“Updating products on our ecommerce channels. To be honest, I used to dread making changes in our ecommerce platform—but now I only have to do it once. Not multiple times.”
Toner Buzz’s results with Plytix:
- A centralized place to manage their product information and share it to their three websites
- 2x faster product information sharing
- 100% faster product information updates
- The flexibility to manage product information, their way
