The Case of E-Commerce

Tricam Industries: The Gorilla in the Room
gorillaladders.net

Until a couple of years ago, Eden Prairie–based Tricam Industries’ only Web site was a simple piece of corporate brochureware—which is to say, it had practically no online presence at all. At the time, the company sold its popular multi-position Gorilla Ladders solely through The Home Depot.

But then, in 2006, the time came for a change. “Our market research was telling us that most people do research on line before making a purchase, whether they’re purchasing an item on line or at a home center—or anywhere else, for that matter,” says Jeff Skubic, Tricam’s vice president of marketing. “But when people went to do research on multi-position ladders, they really couldn’t find anything on Gorilla Ladders except what Home Depot had on its own Web site, which was pretty limited. We needed to provide product information and features, as well as customer service and support for customers who had bought Gorilla Ladders in the past.”

Selling the ladders on line wasn’t a major part of the initial concept. After all, the shipping on a ladder is significant, and it seemed like the sort of thing that was best purchased in person. But that turned out to be an incorrect assumption.

“[The demand] kind of surprised us,” Skubic confesses. “Initially, the e-commerce portion of our Web site was a secondary focus for us. We just knew that if you are going to be serious today at retail, you have to have information available on line. But we found that one of our competitors had been selling product on line and had established itself as a real destination. We were getting left behind.”

Tricam began to search for a full-service Internet solutions firm to bring its online presence up to speed. After interviewing several firms, its executive team selected Aware Web Solutions in Minneapolis.

The resulting site is mostly business-to-consumer, but Tricam also sells to a few small businesses on line. There was a moderate amount of back-end work that needed to be done before online selling could commence. Tricam provided Aware with the information needed to interface with its internal network and its product information databases. For the time being, however, Tricam decided not to tie the Web site directly to its inventory and sales databases. Orders would be generated on line, then manually filled and input into the company’s accounting and financial software.

The process is plenty efficient for Tricam now; orders usually ship within an hour of the time they are received. Still, will Web sales one day be fully automated? Probably, Skubic says.