With 260 stores in 39 states and Puerto Rico, Batteries Plus took the slow, careful road to e-commerce—It launched its first retail web site this week.
The company, which opened its first store in 1988 and began planning its e-commerce site five years ago, wanted to make sure it would integrate with its network of stores, 244 of which are independently owned franchises, CEO Russ Reynolds says. “We’re late, and we wished we had this site up a couple of years ago,” Reynolds tells InternetRetailer.com. “But we like to believe that online customers are going to see the value in having a brick-and-mortar retailer in their neighborhood.”
The Hartland, WI-based company has been growing at an annual rate of 12-15% over the last five years, and did $165 million in total sales over the last 12 months, up from $150 million in the prior 12 months, Reynolds says. The web site, BatteriesPlus.com, is expected to bring in an incremental 10% in sales in the near term while helping to expand the company’s market nationwide, he adds.
One of the main issues Batteries Plus had to address in building its e-commerce site was sharing credit for sales with its stores. So it customized its site’s order management system to allocate credit for online sales by ZIP Code to stores located within the local market of an online buyer. It also lets online customers pick up their orders in a store. The company built its site with Microsoft Corp.’s Great Plains Commerce Server, which is integrated with its Great Plains ERP system.
The company also plans to open 115 more stores at a rate of about 35 per year, Reynolds says.
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