Nobody sells anything sitting around waiting for customers to give them a call. To be successful in sales you have to be aggressive, you need to present, ask for the order and keep calling. A successful online B2B site is no different, you need to reach out to your buyers, draw them in and ask for the order.

You might get a few sales with your line sheets on a website somewhere waiting for buyers to log in and place an order, but only a few.

Threadvine enables salespeople to instantly put recommended styles right into their buyers email. It allows them to actively present collections online. Buyers can view those styles and quickly confirm an order. This active model of selling is far more effective than a passive B2B site.

The iPad was made to run Threadvine.  It’s touch screen and you feel is as if you’re selecting garments by hand. The screen is gorgeous, bright and crisp and shows details beautifully.Images are from our client Leg Resource makers of tights and hosiery for Betsey Johnson, Anne Klein and Nicole Miller.

Threadvine on Smart Phones

Because Threadvine is cloud based it runs in any browser on any device; Droid, Windows 7, Blackberry, iPhone, iPad – whatever mobile device you use to access the web can now access your product line.

Imagine how much more effective you and your reps can be answering availability and status questions directly from your Smart Phone.

Emails with images attached don’t work.  Buyers do not want to figure out what attachment goes with which style.  And they don’t want your images filling up their hard drive or tripping their firewalls or waiting for a giant PDF of your entire collection to download either.

Email Style Info With Images

Your buyers want to see style images with price and delivery all together on one screen in their email.  Now they can – with Threadvine. Click here to see how a Visual Email looks in Microsoft Outlook.

Threadvine enables you to combine style information with images in regular email, we call it “Visual Email”.  Images open fast and it works with any email program.   Best of all – when a buyer opens your email our return receipt system instantly alerts you – you’ll know exactly who to call and when to close!

Want to see a demo? Click here.

How are styles set up on Threadvine? What is the process workflow?

Threadvine is a sales tool designed to make it very easy for reps to send images and line presentations to their buyers.  How styles get setup on your Threadvine site is up to you but generally you don’t want reps spending their time setting up styles and images.  Here are some options.

Use Our Setup Service

We can provide setup as a service and for many companies this is the best option. Email us your line sheet and digital images and we do the initial set up your line for a reasonable fee.  After that you can make changes as necessary for cancelled or changed styles.

Interface to Your Information Systems

If you use PDM and/or ERP for management of  your line and can output style information in a specific format, or if you have styles information in a spreadsheet then you can use our upload tools.  Upload tools allow you to transfer style information directly to your Threadvine site.  And if your style images follow a consistent naming convention (for example STYLE-COLOR.jpg) a batch process allows you to quickly upload to all your style images too.

When first setting up a brand on threadvine by default it will have a web address (URL) of http://yourbrand.threadvine.com, where ‘yourbrand’ is your brand name.  You can use that URL but you can also use your own unique domain name.  You can do it in two ways:

1. Assigning a Unique Domain to resolve to your brand on threadvine.  If your brand is “yourbrand” you might use a domain like “http://www.yourbrand-wholesale.com”.
2. Assign a Sub-Domain to resolve to threadvine.  If you already have a website like  “http://www.yourbrand.com” you can use a sub-domain like “http://wholesale.yourbrand.com” where “wholesale” can be any term you like, i.e. “B2B”, “trade”, “dealers” etc.

How to Use a Unique Domain Name

If you don’t already own the domain name you will need to register it using one of the many available domain registrars.  Once you own the domain name, assign the “A record” in your DNS to resolve to: yourbrand.threadvine.com where “yourbrand” is your brand name on threadvine.

How to Use a Sub Domain

If you have an existing site you can assign a sub domain from that site to be hosted by threadvine using a CNAME record.  For example, you have a public site for your brand like “http://www.yourbrand.com” you can have a site for wholesale hosted by threadvine as “http://wholesale.yourbrand.com”.  To do this assign “wholesale” as a CNAME record in your DNS to resolve to yourbrand.threadvine.com where “yourbrand is your brand name on threadvine.

That’s it!

• Instantly Follow Up! – Right after your buyer leaves the booth send an email thanking them for their time and order (if they placed an order).  If they didn’t commit include highlighted styles from your line sheet (like this).  They are still at the show and you want to keep top of mind.
• After the Show – Follow Up! – For every buyer follow up with a handwritten thank you note and an email of your Line Sheet.  If the buyer didn’t write send an email with highlighted styles your buyer showed interest in with a suggested order.
• Follow Up Again! – Give a call and another email again with suggested styles and highlighting your best sellers or styles that match their market.  Make it easy for your buyer to respond and commit, ideally with a link to place an order online.
• Follow Up Again! – Recurring theme. Don’t be obnoxious, but do be ready to respond.

Best shows to you all!

But put aside mechanics for a moment and consider this: buyers are not “shopping”. Most retail e-commerce solutions provide a shopping experience. Your wholesale buyer is making a business decision to invest in your product. Buyers need to know your merchandise will sell well in their stores, what collections create add-on sales and what trends you are forecasting. They will not just wade through a list of styles to put together an order. In the real world reps present buyers a merchandising plan and make a case to increase their OTB. No website is going to do that.

Our strategy is to build something different than an order entry solution. We’re building a new method for reps to interact with buyers. It connects with a secure site but empowers the rep to make a case for their merchandise in a powerful way using simple emails of assortments that a buyer can instantly commit to.

1. Pricing.  New technology costs less. It takes far less time & money to develop with rails frameworks & open source technology.  We’re not stuck maintaining expensive legacy systems so we can price aggressively.
2. Site Interaction:  AJAX (asynchronous javascript and extensible markup language) and jQuery (a javascript library) allow us to make your web pages engaging and interactive.
3. Integration: By using Web Services and XML we’re able to easily share data with other sites and systems.  Information like ATS (available to sell), order status, shipping and payment history are easily brought into threadvine from your ERP (enterprise resource planning) accounting and warehouse management systems.
4. Branding & Presentation:  You want your site to look like your brand.  Threadvine uses CSS (cascading style sheets) that you control so functionality is separate from presentation.  You brand your site with your colors, imagery, fonts, look and feel.
5. Market Perception.  You will be judged by your site’s functionality.  Have a clunky old website?  Then you’ll be judged a clunky old company.

Screen Capture of Samples by Email

In the real world people buy from people. Buyers don’t go to a B2B website and just place an order. Buyers talk to their rep and their rep suggests an assortment of styles that meet their needs. Threadvine allows reps to send those suggested assortments with images of the styles by email to their buyers. And their buyers can click on them to place an order – an instant sale.

But, what do you call it? Hey – maybe we call it “Instant Sale”…

Nothing more fun than creating a new product. We have our business plan, target market, feature set and funding ready. Getting busy on code and expect our first release sometime in the 2nd quarter of 2010.

Threadvine is the natural evolution for Apropos, Showcase and Virtual Showroom. Today’s reality is reps and buyers are doing business using email. But email doesn’t do well with many large attached images and sales orders – it’s not interactive.

Threadvine will combine email with a secure hosting environment to support online wholesale transactions. Reps, brand managers, marketing directors and customer service will soon have a fast and simple means to use regular email to send assortment plans and suggested orders with images to their buyers. And their buyers can review the styles, make changes, then place a confirmed order online. An instant and secure sales transaction!

If you’re on the wholesale side of apparel and footwear shoot us an email, we’d love to talk to you. Our goal is to build a sales tool you will love to use for line presentations and closing deals online. You can help us make it just what you want by taking our survey click here.