Canada
It was opened in 1998 evolt.ca:
2019 launched an online store based on X-Cart
5000+ SKUs in the online store
~600 regular customers – electrical contractors in Canada
1998 launched their first offline store
~$4.5 million processed in sales through X-Cart
100% positive reviews on Google
E-Volt is a Canada-based electrical wholesale marketplace serving licensed electricians and contractors in Canada and the United States. The market represents the leading manufacturers and distributors of power supplies and follows the latest technological trends, being one of the first to offer them on the market.
Challenge
E-Volt started as an offline supplier back in 1998 and eventually expanded its store online. They had an in-house developer who managed their entire e-commerce site, but as it grew, it became more and more difficult to maintain the website without assistance. Additionally, the platform they were using at the time did not meet all of their business needs. That’s why E-Volt started looking for an e-commerce solution that provided both software and services and chose X-Cart (and we’re glad they did!!) in 2019.
In the past, we had one developer responsible for our entire eCommerce site. When we compared this to X-Cart’s developer talent pool, we saw a great opportunity for change.
The business features required extensive functionality in addition to the capabilities that almost all shopping cart programs have.
First and foremost, they needed a marketplace solution with the ability to offer wholesale pricing. Since E-Volt caters to licensed electricians and contractors, their second “must have” was the ability to only show prices to registered users, while leaving other content visible to potential customers and crawlable by search engines.
With two types of customers shopping at E-Volt: electricians and builders, pricing, shipping and ordering conditions are slightly different for each type. All registered users should be given the opportunity to place an open bid on items, similar to a classic English auction where the highest bidder gets to buy the item when the auction closes. Naturally, the site administrator should be able to set the initial price, the minimum price increase and the duration of the auction and monitor each lot in one place.
E-Volt also wanted to give its customers the convenience of shopping with the brand. Traditionally, many elements of electronic accessories are often purchased together, and based on this, E-Volt wanted to offer its customers special packages at more advantageous prices.
Finally, the product features on offer required a fast and efficient search function and, more importantly, the ability to filter products in real-time based on various criteria.
Solution
E-Volt worked with X-Cart to achieve their goals.
The default functionality of X-Cart Multi-Vendor combined with a dedicated server, a few plugins and the CloudSearch and Filters service covered most business needs.
E-Volt worked closely with X-Cart’s own Solution Services team to ensure that the built-in functionality and add-ons work properly for the company’s needs and are seamlessly integrated into business processes.
It is especially important to ensure that multiple customers can shop from E-Volt without interruption even during busy seasons, where the extra capacity of a dedicated server comes in handy. In addition, there is also a team of professionals who monitor the server performance 24/7. E-Volt rightly prides itself on excellent customer service, and a superior website user experience is a small but important part of that. .
Normally the Solution Services team works on Time and Material contracts, but since the software function covered most of E-Volt’s business needs with only minor customization, it made more sense in this case to stick to a standard fixed price contract.
We don’t often get to work with auction model businesses and it was nice to do the original business analysis and monitor the execution of the project to the extent that it is working as the business owner intended. My personal favorite thing about my job is getting to work with different types of businesses each time.
Result:
E-Volt is now a thriving power supply wholesaler with over 5,000 SKUs serving over 600 electricians across Canada. They have processed over $4.5 million in sales through the platform alone at the time of publishing this case study, with an exclusive 5-star rating on Google.
Our X-Cart system supports over 5,000 SKUs serving approximately 600 electrical contractors across Canada. We’ve processed over 4.5 million sales through the platform with very few issues.
With its daily capacity, the website proved to be powerful as well as efficient and user-friendly, offering buyers;
- powerful real-time search and filtering capabilities
- seamless path to payment
- entertainment and educational blog section
- Lots of intelligently categorized products
The product base is huge, which is why X-Cart provides an individual dedicated server to expand its bandwidth and capacity at any time, as needed. To ensure that the site runs smoothly and maintains the highest possible speed and security parameters, a team of experts is available 24/7. To be able to fix any problems that may occur without losing any data or a single sale, there are frequent automated backups that are kept separately for security reasons.
Want a similar positive experience for your very unique online store?
Contact X-Cart to discuss your project.
Anastasia Zhavoronkova Lead Marketing Coordinator at Seller Labs and X-Cart
Anastasia has more than 8 years of experience in the field of e-commerce. As a former Customer Service Agent, she knows exactly what the needs of e-commerce merchants are and uses her marketing knowledge to bring value to the community by sharing her thoughts on relevant topics.