Olam Nuts, a division of Singapore-based Olam International Group, has chosen a digital path in trying to offer smaller volumes of its product to small manufacturers and businesses like bakeries, caterers, and restaurants in the US and Canada by joining hands with US multinational software firm Adobe Inc.

According to Nikhil Tandon, Senior Director of Trading, OlamNuts.com, the firm has chosen Abode’s cloud system Magento Commerce to host its OlamNuts.com website for business-to-business transactions, roping in e-commerce web designing firm Redstage to develop the website. 

Adding liquidity

Olam, which has been mainly catering to bulk and wholesale quantities from huge manufacturers in truckloads, looked at opening up its offerings to small businesses to add liquidity and tap new markets. 

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The challenge, Tandon said, for Olam Nuts was increasing sales when it was cutting the quantity of its product without affecting its profitability. The firm decided to choose a new path since it was not possible to do this through its traditional offline business model, where its sales team had to manage it in person. 

At the same time, the US-based firm, one of the largest suppliers of bulk nuts and seeds across 60 countries, also had to overcome the challenge of shifting its existing customers to the online platform, besides winning new customers’ trust. 

Thus, Olam Nuts introduced e-commerce and developed an online store. It chose Magento Commerce as it was found to be robust in business-to-business functionality with scalability.

Paying rich dividends

Tandon said the move has paid rich dividends with Olam Nuts witnessing a 470 per cent increase in new customers per month. It also achieved a 1.5 per cent conversion rate and cut support calls by 500 per cent. 

“Thanks to the online experience delivered with Magento Commerce, we’re enjoying higher liquidity, serving more customers from more verticals, and operating more efficiently,” the Olam Nuts official said. 

The company has automated its process and it will help smaller businesses to deal directly and buy bulk nuts and seeds straight from the source. This offers better price transparency, quality product, and fast delivery, he said.

Online ordering helps to provide 24X7 service by the sales staff, while orders are shipped and executed seamlessly through integration with ShipperHQ. 

To expand beyond N. America

Backed by the scalability driven by its online solution, OlamNuts.com now plans to expand beyond North America, Tandon said. 

“ By embracing the power of Adobe’s Magento Commerce, Olam Nuts has effectively innovated itself on e-commerce led growth path, enabling them to strengthen their market position. Our goal is to continue being a strategic digital transformation partner to businesses like Olam Nuts, helping them swiftly go online, scale up, and optimize multi-channel e-commerce operations on a single integrated platform,”, said Nitin Singhal, Managing Director, Digital Experiences, Adobe India.

Olam Nuts new website will offer nuts and seeds — from organic almonds to tricolour quinoa — on a wholesale basis for up to 35,000 pounds (15,875 kg) with an easy navigation experience.

The website also allows customers to see live prices of nuts and seeds and the availability of stocks before placing online orders. It also allows customers to open accounts online which will help the sales team to manage clients in a better way, the Olam Nuts official said.

There is also integration between Magento Commerce and OlamNuts.com’s customer relationship management system for analysing customer behaviour and improving service delivery, he added.

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