How Leading Brands Are Using MarketTime to Grow Their Specialty Retail

When Paris, France-based Djeco decided to expand into the United States, they knew that having a sophisticated but easy-to-use B2B omni-channel solution was key to their success.

Having segmented solutions for reps, warehouses, and vendors made it difficult to organize and properly present products and solutions to their reps and retail partners. So they turned to MarketTime, the industry leader in B2B order management software.

Having one software for the manufacturer, warehouse, reps, and vendors has simplified orders and relationships across the board. Reducing time spent on housekeeping has allowed reps and vendors to focus on sales. The end result? Business is thriving.

The Story of Djeco

Djeco is a children’s toy manufacturer based in Paris, France. A family-run business that has been around for over 60 years, Djeco focuses on creating children’s toys, puzzles, games, and more that are sold in specialty retailers around the globe. 

In 2019, Djeco decided to open their U.S. subsidiary and hired Julie Wells and Marena Drake to help run the team. Now, nearly 3 years into the venture, Djeco is seeing success with their reps, vendors, and at trade shows across the country. 

Focusing on products made with sustainable natural materials like wood and cardboard, Djeco is tapping into the desires of children and parents to provide fun, exciting toys that can provide hours of enjoyment time and time again.

The Challenge of Djeco’s New Market

The manufacturing business is notoriously difficult to manage. Dealing with factories, warehouses, sales reps, vendors, and more creates confusion that can often create duplicate processes that result in a lot of manual work. 

Djeco gets business through a variety of avenues. Trade shows are very common in the specialty retail market, especially for toys. Having a B2B order writing software that allows reps to make sales while on the floor of trade shows is a huge benefit for business. If a buyer sees an item they want, the order can be placed and completed in a matter of minutes.

Once these buyers become customers, having one centralized B2B management software keeps everything organized and simple. 

Previously, reps were all using their own order management software and had to manually keep track of all sales to share with Djeco.

Inventory management and warehouse integrations were another pain point. Marena was manually having to go into their system to update inventory on a daily basis to have the accurate numbers available for reps. Their systems weren’t connected to the warehouse directly, which created another added step in getting vendors their items. 

Julie and Marena saw the need for improvement and turned to their reps for suggestions before ultimately landing on MarketTime. As the most powerful B2B eCommerce platform on the market, MarketTime provided solutions for all of Djeco’s problems — and then some.

How MarketTime Solves the Needs of Djeco

MarketTime provides a great solution that integrates every aspect of the B2B process. From manufacturing and warehousing to sales and vendor management, MarketTime is a one-stop resource for all of a company’s B2B needs.

Getting started with MarketTime includes setting up the wholesale assets of your business. From pictures and descriptions of the items to pricing and promotions for certain products is handled. 

The input of the data is usually able to be done in less than a day. All it requires is basic knowledge of Excel. Input the data into a spreadsheet, load it into MarketTime, and our system automatically places the data into corresponding sections immediately.

What about the warehouses? MarketTime is made to be the ideal B2B wholesale software, and this includes connections between sales and the warehouse. 

From placing orders to updating shipping preferences and inventory management, everything can be done within MarketTime. Don’t worry about accidentally selling an item you no longer have in stock — MarketTime provides real-time updates on inventory to both reps and vendors.

When it comes to sales, MarketTime provides buyers and reps one place to find all available items, inventory, promotions, and more. Reps are now able to sell directly using the MarketTime apps available on Apple and Android devices such as iPhones, iPads and Samsung devices. Vendors can look at a beautiful catalog of all items available and select and item to order directly from there.

Best of all, the entire development team of MarketTime is in-house. Clients’ needs and requests are swiftly acted upon. We are constantly adding new features to make life easier for businesses, reps, and vendors.

How Our B2B Platform Helped Djeco

Julie and Marena use nearly all of the features available within MarketTime. Business is not only thriving, but they were able to drastically cut down the time they spent maintaining their data.

System setup and ease of use were of the utmost importance to Marena, the main user of MarketTime at Djeco. When it comes to maintaining the system and updating information on the products, Marena says she spends “30 minutes a week — that’s really all it takes.”

Djeco also takes full advantage of the interconnectivity between all lines of the business. The warehouse, reps, and vendors all have one system that updates live as stock is added or depleted. 

Marena used to have to go in and update inventory daily, but it is now done automatically through our B2B software. According to Marena, “It’s very nice to have everything updated in one location to be fed into all of the places we need it to go.”

The availability of all necessary product information and available stock has greatly improved the quality of orders that Djeco receives from reps. Regarding orders from reps, Julie explains that “giving them the opportunity to have the complete picture of what they have available to sell has definitely improved quality.”

Finally, Djeco and vendors alike have been impressed with the catalogs and ability to order directly on the MarketTime platform. According to Julie, “MarketTime is unique in the fact that you offer this option to vendors where in the past we haven’t had it before.”

Grow Your Business with MarketTime

MarketTime powers over 8,000 brands and facilitates over 3 million sales transactions annually. It provides everything you need to sell more successfully right at your fingertips.

 Learn more about how we can help grow your business by scheduling a demo today!