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Home > Products > Systems > Britannia > Success Stories: Jackson Data

Success Story

Jackson Data: Successfully Competing with the Big Boxes Using Britannia Ecommerce

Ask Charlie Walley what he sees as the most serious threat to his business and the answer comes back almost before the question is finished. “If we don’t have an online presence that’s as good as our big box competitors, then we’re going to have a big problem on our hands,” he says bluntly. “More and more buyers view ordering online as just a routine part of the business and we have to offer them a Web storefront that’s just as good as any of the big boxes if we’re going to continue to compete.”

The good news for Charlie and his team at Jackson Data in Ridgeland, Mississippi, is that their Britannia system gives them all that and more.

“We looked at a number of different industry software programs when we were getting ready to go online and Britannia’s storefront was friendlier for our customers and easier to use,” he says. “Britannia gives you a ready-made platform to market online to customers who would otherwise be doing business with the Office Depots and the Staples of this world and that’s very important, particularly at a time when the industry is changing so dramatically.”

Responding to dramatic change is nothing new to Charlie and his team; when he and his wife, Linda, founded their dealership back in 1988, it operated primarily as a business forms distributor.

Charlie had started out on that side of the industry and when the opportunity came up to run his own company, he seized with both hands. Back then, business forms was a growing, profitable part of the market, but when laser printers came along, all that changed.

“We realized very quickly that the advent of laser printing meant that sooner or later the forms business was going to go away,” Charlie recalls. “Office supplies represented a natural direction for us to take. There was a lot of crossover in terms of products, as traditional office products manufacturers moved into areas like computer supplies and toner, and we had a solid base of customers and contacts from our forms business who were solid prospects for office supplies.”

Today, office supplies represent about half of Jackson Data’s total volume. Printing, once close to 100% of the business, is now down to around 30%, with data processing supplies and accessories accounting for 15% and promotional products—the dealership’s latest addition—just 5%, but growing.

It’s a diverse product mix, by any measure, but one, says Charlie, that the Britannia system is well able to handle.

“A diverse product mix is one of the keys to our future growth and Britannia helps us manage it just fine,” he contends.

Britannia has proven equally adept at managing large, multi-location accounts, Charlie reports. The dealership’s Ridgeland headquarters are about 10 miles north of Jackson but its trading area reaches much further than that today.

“We started out just in Central Mississippi but over the years, we’ve expanded to cover pretty much the entire state and we also service several large accounts with multiple locations across the country,” Charlie reports.

Driving much of that expansion over the years has been a hard-working team of industry professionals that’s committed to service excellence and doing whatever it takes to keep customers happy.

Whether it’s setting up invoicing to meet the requirements of a particular customer’s accounting system or making deliveries at 6 a.m. to banks in Jackson’s downtown business district, Charlie and his team have long provided a level of service that, he says proudly, simply can’t be matched by their big box competition.

“Any time there’s a problem, our customers know who to contact and how to get them hold of them quickly if they need to,” he says. “We strongly encourage all our salespeople to give customers their home phone numbers and they know they can call me evenings or on the weekend.”

Superior service, though, is just one element of the overall value proposition at Jackson Data. Technology, in many ways, is just as important and as more and more of the overall market moves online, the role that Britannia plays for Jackson Data will become increasingly critical.

“We’re just a small office supplies dealer, but technology can make a huge difference and, thanks to Britannia, we can look just as large and offer just as much online as companies that are much bigger than we are,” Charlie says.

Put all the elements of the Jackson Data business model together—superior service, an increasingly diverse product mix and a powerful, user-friendly technology base—and Charlie’s overall assessment for the business he and his wife started over 20 years ago comes as no great surprise.

“This is a time of great opportunity for independents like us,” Charlie maintains. “Staples and Office Depot may have big marketing budgets, but we’ve found we can compete effectively with them on price and we’re certainly far ahead of them when it comes to service. At Jackson Data, we’re optimistic about the future and as long as we continue to do an effective sales job and keep raising the bar on e-commerce, we’ll be well set for many years to come!”

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