DistributorCentral Updates and Tips

Those Distributors and Suppliers that are familiar with the DistributorCentral website editor know that we already offer a Featured Product Block.  This block allows you to choose a product to “feature” on any page of your site. This product must be manually changed each time a Distributor / Supplier wants to update it by going into the editor and adding a different product.

Now there is a version of the Featured Product block that will randomly change to another product in any of your catalogs on your website that you choose, each time the page is reloaded. This is called the Random Product Block.

You can add this to any of your pages:

1. Log in to your DC account
2. Go to Websites > Add/Edit Websites
3. Click Edit next to your website (on the right side)
4. Click on Add/Edit Web pages
5. Select Edit to the right of the page to which you would like to add this block
6. Either click on Add New Block on the right side OR edit a current block that you want to change
7. Once you have selected the block template, go to “Change section Content to” and open the drop down menu
8. Select the Random Product Block
9. Pick the catalog that you want this product to pull from on the left. All your catalogs that have been added to this site will be there to choose from.
10. Save the changes at the bottom
11. Preview your site at the top right. Look it over and close the window 
12. Then go to Website Publisher and Publish New Changes to make this change show on your live site for your customers.

This image below is a sample of what a featured product block looks like. You can choose from a small, medium, or large image and you can also decide if you want a description or pricing listed.

Some Distributors choose to use these product blocks as “fillers” to help add website content and some use it to show off their most sold or most requested products. Feel free to use this feature in any way that you would like on your DC site!

Suppliers and Distributors in DistributorCentral can create and manage the contacts that they want to be available for other companies to see.

If a Distributor is researching  a Supplier in DC, they will see the contact information that the Supplier has offered when they set up their DC account. In some cases, the Distributor will also have other contacts that they work with, within that Supplier company.

For example, sometimes the Distributor has a sales representative within the company that they need to send all their orders to- instead of the general orders contact listed for all other Distributors to see. In this case, a Distributor can set up a “Private” contact for that Supplier. If they set up a “Private Orders” contact, all their order email notifications would go to that email for notification and then the order will go to the Suppliers DC account.

A Distributor can do this for any other type of contact as well, including a private artwork contact, sales , billing, customer service, proofs and orders.

This would work the same way for a Supplier.  A Supplier might work with a certain person within a Distributor’s company that the Distributor does not list for other Supplier to contact. A Supplier can also pick between any of the above Distributor Private contact types to add to a Distributors contact information.

BEFORE you do this , be aware that these Private contacts do override the other contacts in their account and it will effect where orders and other correspondence is being sent.

To set up a Private contact, follow the steps below:

For Distributors:

1. Log in to your DistributorCentral account
2. Go to Suppliers Menu> Supplier Contact Info
3. Search for the Supplier for which you would like to create a private contact
4. Click on Info to the right
5. Then click on Contacts tab
6. Click on “Add New Contact”
7. Now select the Contact Type in the top field
8. Enter the contact info needed
9. Save at the bottom
10. The next time you view this contact info, you will see those private contacts listed as well

For Suppliers:

1. Log in to your DistributorCentral account
2. Go to Distributors Menu> Distributor List
3. Search for the distributor for which you would like to create a private contact
4. Click on Info to the right
5. Then click on Contacts tab
6. Click on “Add New Contact”
7. Now select Type in the top field
8. Enter the contact info needed
9. Save at the bottom
10. The next time you view this contact info, you will see those private contacts listed as well

Did you know that you can add correspondence to an order or a customer?

Did you know that you can add a reminder to that correspondence if you use Outlook?

This would be helpful in a situation where you need to go back to the order or take action with an order or customer.

One distributor is using it to remind herself to send out Thank You notes after orders ship and also reminding her when it is a customers birthday.

Some others are using it to remind themselves that they need to call their customer back for a follow-up.

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Follow these steps to set your reminder from an Order Summary page:

 1. Go to the Order Summary page

2. Go to the Customer order area at the top

3. Click on Add/Email to the right of the Correspondence section 

4. Then check the box to send a reminder at the top of the page and enter a date for the reminder (1 & 2 below)

5. Then scroll down to the bottom (make sure that you don’t have any external emails selected) and type in your reminder message. (3 below)

6. Click Save Correspondence. (4 below)

7. You will see a download message in your browser, you can click on that and select Open or Run (dependent on your browser)

8. Now select “Save and Close” in the top right of your Outlook Window. This will set up your Outlook and you will get a pop up reminder on the date and/or time specified.

You can also do this same type of reminder directly from your Customer Correspondence:

1. Find your customer in your database

2. Click on Edit

3. Click on the Correspondence tab

4. Now click on Add New Correspondence on the top left and follow instructions above starting with #4

 Let us know if you have any questions regarding this blog:  info@distributorcentral.com