Conversations with Customers: Chef’n
It’s time once again for another post in our “Conversations with Customers” blog series. This time I had the honor of speaking with Jessica Ahlering, Marketing Manager for Chef’n. The interview below details how Jessica and the team at Chef’n are using Onehub as a retailer and distributor extranet.
Kurt Ricketts (Onehub): Can you tell us a little about what Chef’n does, and what role you play in the company?
Jessica Ahlering: We are a house wares company; we design kitchen gadgets, utensils, and other things for cooking. We also have a few other brands in the lifestyle and entertainment category, as well as cleaning products. I am the Marketing Manager so I handle all of the PR, trade shows, packaging, websites, etc.
Kurt Ricketts (Onehub): How did you hear about Onehub?
Jessica Ahlering: Oddly enough, I heard about Onehub through our website developer. We were looking for something that was much prettier than standard FTP sites of today, and our website developer uses Onehub with the company he works for and recommended it to us.
Kurt Ricketts (Onehub): And how is Chef’n using Onehub today?
Jessica Ahlering: We use it as an FTP replacement for hosting all of our product photography, which is one of the largest components of our selling approach. Onehub provides the perfect alternative where if we don’t have the product in hand to sell, at least we have an easy way to share and view product photos. We’re also providing hi-res images for our distributors so they can print them out for their catalogs or our retailers can print them out for store signage and other things.
A lot of our photos can be up to 12mb in size, and the Chef’n line alone has over 80 products, and when you include all of the colors that are involved you end up in the hundreds of products, there was really no source available to provide all of that without either slowing down people’s computers or being too complicated to understand. We were also really concerned with making sure it was brand specific. We didn’t want to create an FTP site that we had to manage, maintain, and host, because that was more than we wanted to handle in-house.
We currently have hubs where we host photography and videos. We also have hubs used domestically for our retailers, and others used internationally for our distributors, where I can give them collateral, advertisement and marketing ideas, PR samples, all in a very clean and presentable package.
Kurt Ricketts (Onehub): When you were evaluating various services, what led you to choose Onehub?
Jessica Ahlering: I did a ton of research on FTP sites, and other options and possibilities. We needed a solution that was easy for our retailers and distributors to access, so they see all of our products and easily download the photos to choose what they want. Some services in my search just became too complicated to do this. Also, I love how you can view the photos nicely and easily, which helps to create an environment where it feels like our retailers are purchasing the products in the store.
The second thing which is a huge bonus is the customization and branding. We have added our logo, and we can choose a color scheme that is specific to our brand. Not only are we a design forward company but we are very color conscience and very well known for that in our industry, so being able to provide a really bright and colorful online location was an added benefit. I think it’s just easier, I mean, all of the other FTP sites that
I looked at kind of looked like a Microsoft folder, and some of them were just way too difficult to understand and had no personality. One of our core values is that we are design oriented so speaking to our retailers and distributors through something with no personality wasn’t going to work for us.
Kurt Ricketts (Onehub): What benefits are you seeing from your use of Onehub?
Jessica Ahlering: A lot of the people and industries we interact with don’t have a lot of experience with computers, so Onehub has helped us to provide information to our retailers and distributors in an easy to understand format. FTP was simply too complicated for most users, and it would have been too costly to try and develop and manage something on our own.
Kurt Ricketts (Onehub): What is your favorite feature in Onehub, and why?
Jessica Ahlering: I would have to say the customization potential, I spent a lot of time customizing and tailoring Onehub to fit our specific needs, from the color scheme, to the layout, and adding the right features for each hub’s purpose. The hubs are friendly, welcoming, and interesting. I feel that our site will inspire them to want more.