Delivering ‘The Right Products, Right Away’ with Atwix’s Expertise

With over sixty years of experience, Graphic Solutions Group Inc. (GSG) is one of America’s largest wholesale distributors to the graphic markets industry (commercial signage and apparel decorating . They supply the equipment and materials to companies who embroider custom baseball caps, print t-shirts, and build electrical signs for restaurants. 

They have multiple locations across the country from Texas up through Minnesota, where they ship adhesive vinyl, ink, and digital displays across the United States. GSG stocks over tens of thousands of SKUs and has a company motto that promises: “The Right Products, Right Away!” 

But in 2023, they realized that their eCommerce platform was making it a challenge for GSG to deliver that goal to its growing customer base. 

Recognizing the Need for Change

George Temple

Director of Customer Experience at GSG

We realized we needed a faster and more consistent site. Our customers are everything to us and we respect their time. A lot of them are small business owners, so we need our site to move as fast as they need it to.

GSG knew that their customers also shop on Amazon, and a clunky, slow webstore could turn them away. “In our industry we could get left behind,” Temple says. GSG’s previous platform had served well but was struggling to hold up to growing demand, and they decided to replatform to Adobe Commerce. 

Like many businesses, GSG feared that a major eCommerce rehaul could be stressful, and that downtime could cost them.

George Temple

Director of Customer Experience at GSG

Online sales account for a large percentage of the company’s orders and It’s pretty high for B2B. Our goal was to retain that growing audience.

Finding the Right Partner

GSG started looking for the perfect solution partner, but didn’t want to do telephone or Zoom interviews. 

“I think this is a little bit unorthodox but we asked several integration partners to solve problem examples on the fly,” Temple explains. “We presented them with complexities in our customization, and asked them to talk it out. We wanted to see them perform.”

 It didn’t take long for Atwix to prove why they’re a Gold solution partner for Adobe Commerce. After Atwix aced the test, Temple announced: “They’re going to be our partner.” 

Implementing a Seamless Solution

Atwix wasted no time in rebuilding the GSG site with the company’s motto in mind. How do you ensure customers can find “The Right Products, Right Away?” They started with search, implementing an AI-powered solution from ElasticSuite. Next they added real-time price updates with multiple price options and customer-specific pricing. Real-time inventory updates connected GSG’s multiple warehouses, to let customers know if their ink cartridges or heat transfer vinyls are available. On the back-end, Atwix reduced requests to the ERP system, saving costs and boosting the site’s performance. And by optimizing GSG’s Middleware API, they prevented system overload and unnecessary calls, which also lowered infrastructure costs. 

Overcoming Integration Challenges

One of the biggest challenges was integrating GSG’s Infor CSD (CloudSuite Distribution) with their Kodaris supply chain solution. GSG encouraged Kodaris and Atwix to collaborate and discover the best way for their data to flow, and how to best align it with the customer’s journey. “The engineering team at Atwix was actually excited to try something new,” Temple recalls. “Their approach was, maybe we should do it a different way.” The Atwix solution was to seamlessly integrate the whole eCommerce site with Kodaris in such a way that it never needs to call Infor CSD’s APIs directly. Then they optimized the API calls to only call Kodaris APIs when necessary. 

George Temple

Director of Customer Experience at GSG

The time it took was worth it because it delivered what we were looking for.

Delivering Mind-Blowing Results

Atwix completed the entire project in 13 months. “We finished right on time,” says Temple, adding that there was zero downtime and no negative impact on sales. “If you looked at the numbers and growth in our first month and compared them to other months, you wouldn’t know we replatformed. That’s exactly what we wanted,” he says.

Atwix significantly improved page load times and response times, and boosted the overall site performance. “The speed has been tremendous,” says Temple. “The second best thing is search. It’s blowing people away.” “I’ve heard customers talk about how it’s just easier to navigate around. Those are the things you want to hear. That tells us they’re less likely to abandon our site,” says Temple.

Most importantly, the project didn’t cause any sleepless nights. “It’s fun to work with Atwix,” he says. “Once you have trust with your development team and your partner, it really is fun. Our CEO actually said that this is one of the smoothest projects we’ve ever done.” 

A Future Built on Trust and Innovation

Now GSG is already looking to the future. 

George Temple

Director of Customer Experience at GSG

We’re building our 2025 roadmap. Having a successful go-live event has really put us in a position where we can attack phase two faster.

In partnership with Atwix, GSG not only achieved a seamless replatform but elevated their customer experience, ensuring their site is faster, more efficient, and easier to navigate. We didn’t just stop at eCommerce though; Atwix experts also flew out to conduct an on-site AI workshop for GSG’s team, demonstrating our commitment to being a true, digital transformation partner.

By going above and beyond, we ensured their site is faster, more efficient, and easier to navigate, while also positioning GSG ahead in digital innovation. With these improvements, Atwix brought ‘The Right Products, Right Away,’ and GSG is now well-equipped to continue delivering on their promise as they look ahead to future growth.