Most of you don’t realize this, but KYKLO and Santa Claus have a special relationship. Yep, the Red Suited Jolly One is our pal. We aren’t at liberty to go into all the details, but Santa probably leads up one of the most unique distribution businesses on the planet. Everyone realizes Santa’s delivery dilemma with packages millions of kids all required within a 24-hour period but think about the kids.

Santa discovered today’s little ones are computer savvy. For instance, Little Johnny (age 5) of Buffalo New York, has been watching his parents shop online since he learned to walk. By age three, he was browsing for toys on one of the big retail sites. For the past couple of years, his dad would print out the shopping cart and forward it to the North Pole along with Johnny’s hand-written note. Santa and his elves were looking for a better solution.

Because the KYKLO team wants to stay firmly planted on the “Nice” list, we decided to help our friends up at the North Pole. The rest is history, Santa loves us, Mrs. Claus thinks we’re swell and all the elves transposing those letters written in red crayon adore us. They say, “Who you know is every bit as important as what you know.” When Santa owes you a favor, magic happens. Here’s the story.

As part of our ongoing market research, we asked Santa what distributors were putting on their Christmas List. After some of Santa’s belly shaking Ho Ho Ho’s, a round of nose twitching and some beard scratching, Mr. Claus provided a thought-provoking answer:

“Rather than asking Santa for something selfish - like a nice vacation, a cool car or even a shinny vintage Fender P-bass, they’re thinking of others. We have big stacks of letters asking for better customer experience on their online stores. Some even included a copy of this post on the Digital Commerce360 website. (Reaching into his big red sack and slipping on his peepers, Santa read this word for word.)

B2B sellers need to up their game and do a better job of building and growing e-commerce sites that business buyers find truly engaging and useful—only 7% of corporate buyers rate the e-commerce sites they use as excellent. Mark Brohan – Dec 3, 2019.

Apparently, they want their customers to have an excellent experience.”

Feeling just a little sheepish, we asked the Jolly One to elaborate on what he thought made an excellent experience. Peppering the talk with merry, and might we say belly shaking laughter, Santa took a sip of his ever-present hot chocolate and started rambling. We did our best to translate some of the North Pole jargon…

Kids looking for presents want all the details, your customers do too.
The children we deal with don’t just want a doll or a game, they want something special, something specific. It’s their Christmas present, and being little, they can’t remember the exact trade name. For example, there are 2,700 different models of the Barbie and 1,367 different Star Wars characters. The kids want to check out every single detail from height to accessories.

Distributor customers want and need what you folks at KYKLO call product content. Specifications, characteristics, compatibility information and pictures. Everybody wants pictures. The better the quality and the more the better.

What’s the differences between a HO and Lionel O Gauge electric train? Product comparisons rock…

Imagine you’re a budding 7-year old railroad engineer and you are carefully selecting the electric train that will show up under the Christmas Tree. Realizing even Santa is operating on a tight budget, the youngster is carefully analyzing the situation to get the biggest bang, or should I say locomotive, for the buck. Comparisons are fundamental in selecting just the right present. And, at least in Santa’s mind, they are critical in your customer selecting just the right product for their application.

The attention span of a 5-year old is probably longer than your customer’s span

According to research conducted by Google (which controls 90+ percent of all searches), “The average time it takes to fully load the average mobile landing page is 22 seconds. However, research also indicates 53% of people will leave a mobile page if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.” If it takes a long time to search products on your website, things aren’t going to go well.

Kid’s don’t want to wait till they are a grownup before the North Pole webstore flips up the next search. Bedtimes, dinner, and chores create a sense of urgency. Distributor customers have a different batch of urgencies but Ol’ Santa thinks you better have quick responses.

Analytics are important at the North Pole, and they should be to you.

Think about this: Kids start thinking about toys sometime right after schools starts. We see an uptick in traffic to our website every year around September 15th. The elves are “pretty magical,” but even Santa has to do a little planning. Using the system, we can start tracking interest in new toys and even understand when we might get a last-minute decision on some new item.

From Santa’s perspective, a distributor should be able to spot trends in product searches, identify what existing customers are exploring and review the products which attract new customers. The easier this is to accomplish, the better. And, as a reminder, don’t forget to check your analytics, Santa suspects not reviewing important data will get you onto the Naughty list for next year.

Everybody knows how to find Santa, but can they find your products?

There’s something to be said about being around for over a thousand years. Everybody knows Santa is located at the North Pole. Most know how to find Santa’s webstore at SantasNorthPole.com without a hitch. But, trust this Jolly Old Elf, we’ve spent a bundle getting up there on the Google listing.

For my distributor friends, it’s not that easy. Customers and potential new customers have to find you and locate your products. That’s where Google comes in handy. But the internet is crowded. A webstore not optimized for Google and other search engines will disappoint you more than the proverbial stocking full of coal.

Santa’s Sound Advice for Distributors

Santa believes KYKLO is the perfect answer to the distributor’s Christmas wish. If he and his elves weren’t so darned busy, Santa’s sleigh would probably be parked out in your driveway.

Finally, again quoting Santa Claus, “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Best Wishes from all of us up at the North Pole and the folks at KYKLO, too.”

Tell us what you think here.