Syntech channels R500k potential business to resellers in first month

Ryan Martyn

Picture: LinkedIn

“This is only the beginning. We are excited about increasing market awareness and availability of our products through our reseller network,” said Ryan Martyn, sales and marketing director of Syntech. “Online retail is one of our main business drivers for the future.”

The Syntech e-commerce site was designed to empower its resellers by giving them access to buy all products online and enabling them to effortlessly replicate the products on their own e-commerce sites. Recently it extended the service to include an easy-to-use shopping platform for end users.

This unique feature allows end users browsing the site to buy products via reseller stores through the company’s ‘Buy Now’ functionality. End users are directed to the online store of one of the resellers, participating in the programme, to complete their order.

“The ‘Buy Now’ feature is pivotal to driving end users onto our resellers and therefore boosting their sales, a feature we believe is unique in the industry. We have already developed plugins for most major e-commerce platforms to assist resellers with integration into this system. We anticipate that at least 100 resellers will be benefiting through this service over the next 12 months.”

Portal features

The portal provides resellers with several functions to help empower them and make it easier for them to deal with Syntech, which include:

• Full stock catalogue, detailing every product it distributes, with pictures, descriptions and technical specifications that allow products to be easily compared

• Live pricing, stock levels and the ability for customers to place orders online and supporting multiple payment methods

• Full product listing in XML or CSV format, with current stock availability and prices for customers to import into their websites

• Powerful tools to assist with specifications including a memory configurator that shows the compatible crucial memory and SSDs for almost every computer ever manufactured

• Free marketing collateral for all major brands, including email marketing templates, web banners, posters and case studies

The company offers its registered resellers a secure online purchasing process, via EFT, credit card or via the reseller’s account. Its store is available 24x7 and, besides the online ordering process, its resellers will receive after sales and customer service. This means the personal touch remains as if each reseller had its own dedicated account manager.

Detailed product information, case studies and marketing material are compiled and shared freely with resellers in order to add value to the channel. Syntech product specialists work closely with resellers to develop solutions that assist with the sales process.

Ongoing investment in online portal

“We do not see our online platform as a once off investment and we allocate several hundred thousand rand to our annual online budget for ongoing development. We have several new exciting tools that we are busy with and will continue to refine our online user experience through feedback from our customers.”

With regard to Syntech’s ‘Buy Online’ service, the aim is to synchronise with all of its resellers that have e-commerce stores. The prerequisites to participate in this program are simple. Firstly, the reseller must be registered with Syntech and have an online store with a range of products that Syntech supplies available for resale. Secondly, the reseller store must be able to provide a live stock feed to Syntech, so that its system can accurately display the available stock and pricing.

“Since our establishment in 2002, we have continually been refining the company, its services and its overall operations. The company has over 2,000 active registered resellers and, although our sales team is growing, we have simply not been able to offer exceptional service to all of our registered customers. We see the online portal as an opportunity to appeal to more resellers, re-engage with our dormant registered customers and ultimately grow the number of active resellers,” concludes Martyn.

Syntech’s online portal is available to all resellers but currently only supports the rand. The majority of its business takes place in South Africa but the company has customers in Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Swaziland Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.