Today Toktumi launched its first distribution deal, on Staples.com. We wanted to start with Staples because its such a perfect fit for Toktumi. First, they are extremely effective at reaching the millions of very small businesses that will find Toktumi useful. Second, their focus on making things easy aligned perfectly with Toktumi's philosophy of making business phone service easy.
Staples invented the office superstore category in 1986 and today has more than 74,000 employees and 2000 stores worldwide. Their total sales in 2007 exceeded $18 billion. They are the clear leader in their category and set a high standard of excellence. It has been humbling to work with such an impressive company.
There is a tremendous amount of work that goes into launching in a channel like Staples. We are starting first with their website, and hope to be distributed in their stores later in the year. Even with that, there was a lot to do. We had to provision product to 6 different fulfillment centers around the country so that they can ship to customers within a day from any center. There were banners to be created for the website, and cross-selling plans that had to be put into place. We also learned from Staples that having a flash demo on the product page dramatically increases sales, so we hired an excellent firm, Sellpoint. to create one for us. Then there was getting the press release approved, including a quote from Staples Senior Vice President Pete Howard. As the launch date approached, all of this had to be coordinated and synchronized like a dance. It wasn't without the occasional hitch, but we pulled it off, and much of the credit goes to the amazing team at Staples, whose dedication to excellence and personal attention to our product meant putting in long hours despite many competing obligations. Thanks, Staples!
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Posted by: Franchise Whale | May 26, 2008 at 10:51 AM