Tooltechnic Increases Online Sales 10X with Navision Solution   

International Power Tools Distributor Adds E-Commerce Solution That Pays For Itself in First Month’s Sales

Tooltechnic Systems, LLC, the U.S. distributor for FESTOOL power tools, recently added e-commerce to its Navision solution and has been breaking sales records ever since.

Tooltechnic is one of 24 divisions of Festool. Headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, Festool has been manufacturing high-quality, ergonomic tools that make the work experience faster, better and easier for craftsmen around the world since 1925. The innovation, quality and design of Festool’s power tools and accessories have propelled them to being the seventh largest in the world, and climbing!

Festool came to the U.S. as Tooltechnic Systems in the late 90s, and turned in their People’s Choice system to become a Navision customer several years ago. Navision was initially selected because of the system’s flexibility and scalability, which was desperately needed. “We have been doubling sales every year for the past two or three years,” stated Grant Jones. “Navision is the only reason we have been able to accomplish that without adding more staff,” he added. “We are handling our growth by using technology instead of hiring more people. It has really kept our costs down and improved our profitability by leaps and bounds.”

SCS recently completed an upgrade for Tooltechnic that, according to their IT Manager Grant Jones, “was managed with minimal downtime.” The upgrade was done in order to lay the groundwork for a new website, since their old website was cumbersome for both end-users to navigate and for Tooltechnic to manage and maintain.

The previous website was operated, in part, on a Linux server, with their catalog on a server in Germany. “It was difficult finding anyone who could deal with Linux, which put us in a bad position,” Grant commented. “Our old website was not scalable and became obsolete quickly,” he added. “People had problems creating orders. The ordering process just wasn’t smooth and the interface wasn’t user friendly.”

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The new e-commerce solution has allowed Tooltechnic to go paperless. Whereas before they used forms to process web orders, now everything is handled directly through Navision. “Orders are now processed in real-time,” said Lars. “All orders go straight into the Navision database and are sent in real-time to the warehouse for fulfillment,” he added. “When a price is changed in Navision, it is reflected immediately on the website. It’s all a very smooth process now.”

This has also streamlined and simplified the order and checkout process, which must be great for customers since Tooltechnic has seen a tenfold increase in online sales in the first month alone! “Essentially, the e-commerce solution paid for itself in the first month,” boasts Grant. “We are outperforming most Festool subsidiaries around the world as a result of our numbers.”

And improved customer and dealer service is really what it is all about for Tooltechnic. They use their website to provide detailed product and application information to customers and dealers. In the future, their dealers will be able to access the website, manage their customers, place orders directly through the website and even look up tracking numbers within the order history. “We’re in the high-end market,” stated Grant, “we have to have better customer and dealer service than anyone else. We have the best products in the market, now we have the best web-shopping experience to match.”

Grant summed up their tremendous success best; “We add the human element where it should be and let technology do the rest.”