Customer stories
- Solutions guide
- Creative Pro
- K-12
- Higher education
- Government
- Non-profit
- Small business
- Medium to large business
- >Customer stories
Europawatch.com
FileMaker Pro Keeps Europawatch.com Ticking
Until 1996, the company promoted its products exclusively through
a 68-page full-color catalog. But creating, printing, and
distributing the catalog was becoming an increasingly expensive
proposition. President and CEO Ralf Mandt-Rauch and his brother Ben
Schob decided to re-create the entire catalog electronically for
distribution on CD-ROM using FileMaker Pro. They were already
familiar with FileMaker Pro, having used it to build the company's
office automation solution, called Trilogy. (That solution has been
such a success that the brothers spun off Logistiques Inc., a
FileMaker Pro solutions developer.) The brothers also knew that
FileMaker Pro would reliably support graphic images and videos so
they could show their exclusive Virtual Samples and play movies in
kiosk mode to prospective customers at trade shows. In 1997, they
moved the catalog onto to the Web and changed the company name to
Europawatch.com.
At the center of the Europawatch.com Web site is a fully
searchable electronic catalog (called the iCatalog) that the
company's 500+ North American distributors can access to search
Europa's entire product line and find the exact watch to fit their
promotion in just a few seconds. The rapid information retrieval is
even more significant considering that almost every part of the
watch is customizable and the company offers well over 300
models.
Europa's iCatalog lets distributors search the entire product line
by categories such as model code, price range, color, and function,
and instantly view a list of all models meeting that criteria. The
result shows a list of items with thumbnail pictures (stored in
FileMaker Pro as JPEG files). Clicking on any item brings up
greater detail and an enlarged photo of the watch and its
packaging. The iCatalog system also provides self-service support
to distributors, letting them securely track the status of their
orders and shipments. Soon the system will be expanded to alert
distributors automatically via e-mail when orders have been
delivered to their clients.
To help educate its distributors about the Europa product line,
the brothers also built a FileMaker Pro-based Kiosk solution for
use at trade shows. It runs a Europa Watch presentation and four
movies, all managed within FileMaker Pro.
Since the launch of iCatalog, Europa has also launched a FileMaker
Pro-based Virtual Sample system that, according to Mandt-Rauch, is
the first of its kind in the promotional products industry. The
Virtual Sample system lets distributors build professional watch
presentations designed specifically for their customers in 72
hours. After submitting desired specifications and selecting one of
10 backgrounds or submitting artwork for a custom background,
distributors receive a high-resolution, digital image sample of the
finished product—including animation where appropriate. The system
has completely eliminated the time and cost associated with
creating and shipping physical product samples. Eventually,
Mandt-Rauch hopes to launch a special section of the site where
people can build watches to their exact specification and submit
them directly to Europa's overseas manufacturing facilities.
Between Trilogy, iCatalog, the Web site, the Virtual Sample system,
and the numerous back-end systems powered by FileMaker Pro, the
company has 38 FileMaker Pro databases in constant operation. The
iCatalog database is the largest, clocking in at 160MB.
Serving its customers with state-of-the-art technology has enabled
Europa to grow its business significantly while keeping its
existing distributors happy. 'By giving our customers the tools to
help themselves,' explains Mandt-Rauch, 'our individual account
reps can handle a lot more sales calls rather than having to worry
about telling customers what happened to their shipment.' How has
FileMaker Pro impacted the business? 'Let me put it this way,' says
Mandt-Rauch. 'In one year alone, we've more than doubled our sales
while adding only two people—it's that dramatic!'
Contact information
Contact Info for Customer:Ralf Mandt-Rauch
President and CEO
Europawatch.com
310-417-8409
ralf@europawatch.com
Filemaker Contact:
Kevin Mallon
Public Relations Manager
FileMaker Inc.
408-987-7227
kevin_mallon@filemaker.com
http://www.filemaker.com
- What makes Europawatch.com tick? FileMaker Pro! Europawatch.com, provider of customized promotional watches for Fortune 1000 companies, features their entire product line on a FileMaker Pro-based Web catalog.
- High Technology
- Retail/Wholesale
- Small Business