St. Louis, September 2021 - How do you take over 100,000 individual products and put them at the fingertips of your customers across the globe?

That has been the herculean task for website developers at Villa Lighting over the last year. And guess what? They have done it.

"I think when people visit our new website they're going to be very happy with what they get," Charles Freukes, Villa Lighting's IT Director said. "It has a tremendous ability to provide them with up-to-date information."

"Our new site can talk to our ERP in the background to pull real-time stock information, pricing and shipping statistics," Freukes said. "All sorts of great information we've never been able to give them before."

In addition to being designed to work on any device, the site has all the things you would expect in a new website, including examples of Villa's work for clients from their extensive portfolio. It is a who's who of companies from around the world.

"We wanted our customers to know all the verticals we touch," David Foss, VP of Specifications for Villa Lighting Supply said. "A lot of time when they think of national distributors, they think of retail and restaurants. There are so many others. Medical facilities. Grow facilities. There are so many different levels out there."

In addition to showcasing the wide variety of industries their commercial clients represent, it is the web-ordering functionality for existing customers that makes it one-of-a-kind.

For the individual client, everything will be narrowed down to their specific needs, giving them access to their own inventory of lighting products that Villa supplies for their individual business needs.

"Every customer is going to have their own store," web developer Kevin Bertel says. "Their own product list will be available with items specific to them."

It was the needs of Villa's existing customers that have driven this year long project. The focus has been on making their customers' lives easier with technology that is simple to use.

"Everyone really just wants to get their job done," Freukes said. "For a lot of our customers, because they are business-based, they don't want to spend a lot of time hunting around for what they want."

That level of service - keeping each clients products in stock and making it easy to get when you need it the most - is what has set Villa apart from the competition for years.

"We tried to make it as easy for them to get into our site and order our products to get the job done," Freukes said.

While taking care of existing customers with an industry-leading web ordering system is big part of the new website, the new website also is designed to educate prospective customers on how Villa can help them achieve their dreams with the best in commercial lighting.

"I was not that tech savvy with web development," Foss said of his introduction to the project. "I had different eyes on everything, so if I had different questions I asked."

"If I saw something I liked on another site," Foss said. "I tried to get it put into our site."

You can see that attention to detail when you visit the new site.

"I always come in as if I'm a customer, checking out the site and fixing things I think the customer would have a problem with," Bertel said.

Now, with the site up and running, customers will be carefully migrated over to the new platform.

The Villa IT team is taking it slowly to ensure the process is seamless for each customer. For each customer it will be as simple as logging in with an email address and linking to their account which is waiting for them in the new system.

"Once they get into the system they'll have access to all of their previous order history and be able to find everything they've done on the site in the past, all available on the new site," Freukes said.

Foss says that their goal was making the interface as simple as possible for all users.

"I want something that is going to be simple, to the point, and easy to use," Foss said. "I wanted them to see the scope of the work that we've done and how we can help them out with their brands."

Freukes believes this approach is one of simply tailoring a website to human nature.

"Things that are easy to use people generally tend to like," Freukes said. "So, the easier we make our site to use, the more people are going to enjoy it."

"People don't like to be frustrated when they're trying to buy something," Freukes said. "And buying things is a part of a lot of people's jobs."

Foss believes the new online home will allow the company to live up to expectations it sets in other parts of the business.

"We are perceived as the leaders in the industry," Foss said. "And we wanted to be in this avenue as well."

A world class company, he says, should have a world class website.