Northern Radiator sees 30% of overall sales driven online

Nearly 50 years of heating and cooling expertise

Since 1971, Northern Radiator has been sourcing and engineering high-quality heating and cooling products and programs. With 20 regional distribution centers throughout the United States, Northern Radiator prides itself on delivering quality engineered products with quick order turnaround times and superior order filling.

As end-users began finding new ways to source products and leverage technology to research their options, Northern Radiator knew they needed to build  a more prominent online presence.

A sales plateau on the old system

Northern Radiator’s original eCommerce system was a simple transactional eCommerce site powered by Infor Storefront. The site hit a sales plateau and was not meeting customers’ expectations. Northern Radiator wanted to better serve the needs of their customer base.

Considering Northern Radiator sells to nearly 30 different customer types, they were challenged with creating relevant and intuitive solutions for both late adopters of technology and web-savvy users. They wanted to provide real-time access to availability, pricing and ordering to give their customers the edge they need to compete in today’s market.

The flexibility with the Episerver B2B Commerce Cloud platform versus the Infor platform, which was the storefront we were on previously, allows us to do eCommerce the way we want to do business. We don’t have to conform to someone else’s rigid box.

Hope Thompson

President , Northern Radiator

Narrowing the search for a better solution

Northern Radiator settled on Optimizely B2B Commerce Cloud because Insite Software (acquired by Optimizely in December 2019) was taking the time to understand their business model, future needs and assist in addressing their market challenges. Northern Radiator appreciated the B2B focus of the Optimizely B2B Commerce Cloud platform.

With Optimizely B2B Commerce Cloud, Northern Radiator is enabling customers to self-serve. Customers can easily sign-in and view information like pricing and real-time inventory.

Positioned for growth

For Northern Radiator success means business growth, exceeding customers’ expectations and continuous improvement. Today, just over one-third of the company’s sales comes through their online channel. They are continually deploying new website features to meet customers’ needs.

Many companies like Northern Radiator were built on relationships and handshakes, so tailoring their solutions to customers who prefer to self-serve online proves to be a major shift in business – a challenging but necessary endeavor.