When GlassCraft Door Company set out to transition its product line of doors to an online platform, the challenge was immense. Traditional eCommerce solutions simply couldn’t accommodate the vast array of options available.
In an interview with PYMNTS, Donald Polansky, senior manager of corporate systems development at GlassCraft Door Company, explained the dilemma.
“This could have resulted in an overwhelming and cumbersome experience for customers,” he said. “The traditional eCommerce model was not feasible, as it would have required over 200,000 individual product listings.”
To address this issue, GlassCraft partnered with EYStudios, a design agency specializing in user-centric solutions, and developed a unique new tool: the DoorCrafter. Instead of a conventional shopping interface, the DoorCrafter features a highly customized configurator that allows users to navigate their choices seamlessly.
“The intuitive nature of the application style process allows customers new to our products the ability to craft a door with little to no advanced product knowledge,” Polansky said. “Our traditional business model as a manufacturer relies on dealers or distribution partners. With hundreds of dealers across the nation we needed our platform to simplify the sales process.
“To address this, we integrated with B2B Edition and a set of advanced custom dealer tools within the DoorCrafter platform, providing distributors multi-user accounts with customizable access levels and enhanced features like order history tracking, a robust quote system and seamless reordering of pre-configured lists,” he added. “This has allowed our distributors to operate more efficiently, reducing their administrative workload and improving order accuracy and fulfillment speed.”
As a result, Polansky noted: “This is allowing us to create a nested system where our dealers can give their own customers access to the tools and in just a few clicks transform their customers quote into an order directly to us. The best part about the system is that our customers themselves can manage who inside their organization has access and the level of access each person has. Their sales staff or customers can create quotes and their purchasing department can instantly transform those quotes into orders.”
In recognition of its efforts in redefining the customer and user experience, GlassCraft Door Company, whose platform is powered by BigCommerce, received a 2024 BigCommerce Customer Award in the Shopper Experience category last month.
“The feedback from our users has been phenomenal,” Polansky said. “While our data confirms the significant accomplishments we’ve achieved since launch, it is the personal interactions with our customers that truly drives our passion for this project. At trade shows, through emails, and even direct messages on LinkedIn, users of our platform have repeatedly expressed their love for the system we are developing and their excitement about the continuous addition of new features and enhancements. Many have shared that our online system is unrivaled compared to our competitors and even other industry-related platforms. We are even drawing on inspiration from our customers as they have requested additional features and enhancements, which we have added to our roadmap.”
As a B2B manufacturer, officials at GlassCraft Door Company don’t get the chance to connect with end consumers often.
“We rely on our partners in the distribution chain, and many of those relationships have been fostered for decades,” Polansky said. “The platform we have begun to create here seeks to continue that chain, but at the same time creating a key relationship not only with our direct dealers, but all members in the chain. Our vision with The DoorCrafter is to create a single platform that all parties in the process can use. We strive to build a program that is not simply a B2B relationship, but a B2B2C.”
Polansky, who said the company is “days away from releasing our mobile application on iOS and Android,” talked about what’s next.
“Following this, we’ll introduce ‘Doorothy,’ an AI assistant built on GPT-4, Whisper and Babbage,” he said. “Doorothy, initially launching on mobile, will eventually replace our existing website chat program, Live Caller. Trained with our comprehensive company documentation, literature and CRM data, Doorothy will efficiently and accurately assist customers, including with technical product specifications. Integrated with our Dynamics365 CRM and Microsoft Teams, she will seamlessly connect customers with live representatives.”
Looking ahead, Polansky noted the company plans to utilize custom APIs and integrate with third-party enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, automating the quote-to-order process and simplifying data management with import/export capabilities in CSV or XML formats.
“Our wishlist for 2025/2026 includes enhancing the DoorCrafter product images, dynamically updating visuals based on configuration options and adding AR tools to our mobile app to visualize custom-configured doors on customers’ homes before purchase,” Polansky added.
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