Closing gaps in order management with a full-service data feed solution

As a small family business with an online store, Stone Coat Countertops started a YouTube channel in 2012 with the goal of helping do-it-yourselfers everywhere create beautiful countertops in their homes, no matter the budget.

Due to the popularity of its epoxy countertop solution, Stone Coat Countertops now boasts more than 1 million YouTube subscribers with videos that have garnered nearly 260 million views.

“Originally, the YouTube account was just to support the website, but now it’s the other way around,” said Kaleb Quist, Stone Coat Countertop’s Digital Marketing Specialist. “We’ve become YouTubers who just so happen to have a website where you can purchase our materials.”

Quist joined the team to help manage the company’s digital presence and marketplace reach. As Stone Coat Countertops’ popularity grew, so did the demand for its products. To meet more customers on more channels, the company looked to branch out from its BigCommerce storefront to third-party marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy.

Like any business that tries to scale, Stone Coat Countertops faced challenges with handling orders, listings, and feed errors from multiple marketplaces. The company soon realized having a data feed specialist in its corner would be greatly beneficial.

Since Stone Coat Countertops began using Feedonomics in mid-2021, the company has experienced an overall performance boost across all of its marketplaces. Amazon units sold increased by 10% within the first three months, and impressions on eBay grew by almost 250% within the first six months.

Stone Coat Countertops has also seen more impressions, more units sold, and more positive customer feedback since Feedonomics began streamlining its order integration and feed management.

“When somebody’s using another order integration service,” Quist said, “I ask, ‘What are you doing? Don’t you know you can have Feedonomics do all this work for you?’”

Orders falling through the cracks

Prior to Feedonomics, Stone Coat Countertops used a different service to help facilitate order management. This solution appeared to be working at first, but soon orders stopped feeding correctly, and attempts to address this were met with unresponsive customer support.

“They fumbled the ball. They were difficult to get a hold of, and their order integration service was sloppy,” Quist said. “It could take hours or even days for orders to feed back into our system, and the delay caused our customers to receive their packages far later than the projected delivery date. This led to some serious headaches for us.”

Stone Coat Countertops was left to deal with upset customers wondering why their products were not arriving on time. Any ecommerce brand would be concerned, but negative customer feedback travels faster and further when you have a huge social media following.

In addition to the problems with order integration, adding new products to the company’s catalogs was a tiresome process. Each marketplace has its own listing requirements, and ensuring every product follows them requires a vast amount of time and resources. This was a burden Quist ended up taking on himself.

“We would run into a lot of problems with marketplace errors because the algorithm will look for any excuse to flag something or take a listing down,” Quist said. “Much of my job was focused on resolving these errors and ensuring that our listings remained live on each marketplace.”

Quist spent a large part of his workday reviewing errors and essentially “holding the hand” of the original order integration team to ensure operations moved smoothly. But with goals of global expansion and growing the Stone Coat Countertops brand on social media, these were tasks that distracted him from helping achieve the company’s long-term objectives.

For these reasons, Quist was on the hunt for a way to fix the order integration issues and streamline marketplace error resolution.

Five-star communication and support

Quist’s top requirement for a new feed solution was a service with prompt customer support. Feedonomics provides 24/7 global support and assistance with marketplace error resolution, making it the easy choice for Stone Coat Countertops. The company’s dedicated feed manager at Feedonomics even helped Quist and his team navigate the transition away from its other feed provider.

“To get us started, our feed manager set up weekly calls with us to touch base and address any questions or concerns we had,” Quist said. “His team single-handedly moved our order integration service over to Feedonomics. It was a completely seamless changeover, which was a great relief for us.”

When the switch was complete, Quist noticed an immediate boost in communication, as well as increased control over the company’s product data, which made it easier to designate which products to list on each marketplace.

“The Feedonomics team made it really easy for me to communicate what we needed on different marketplaces—like, ‘This listing is going to be for Amazon,’ or ‘This listing is going to be just for eBay,’” Quist said. “They did a really great job helping keep everything organized and just overall being great communicators.”

Once onboarded and fully integrated with FeedAMP (Feedonomics’ automated order management technology), Quist no longer needed to constantly check if marketplace orders were feeding back to his website storefront. Feed errors were also prevented or resolved with a combination of automated data governance technology and support from Feedonomics’ marketplace specialists, lifting another responsibility off Quist’s shoulders.

“I think the biggest compliment that I can give Feedonomics is that we don’t really notice them, which is perfect because that means everything’s running the way it is supposed to be running,” Quist said. “If there’s ever an issue, the Feedonomics team jumps on it right away and gets it fixed. They are really quick to get back to us and explain what’s going on.”

Increased customer satisfaction and marketplace performance

With the improved order management system, gone were the days of delayed or misplaced order confirmations and confused customers. Not only were the backend issues addressed, but public perception also improved.

“That is another thing we noticed—after the transition, we received far fewer negative reviews than we had before,” Quist said. “Especially from customers asking, ‘Where’s my tracking number?’, ‘Where’s my package?’ or ‘Why isn’t my package here already?’ The orders feed into BigCommerce instantly, and now we can sometimes get the packages out the same day the order is placed.”

In addition to positive customer reviews, the Stone Coat Countertops team noticed better performance metrics across all of its marketplace channels. Within a month of adopting Feedonomics, the refund rate on Amazon decreased by 11%, and the late shipment rate was cut in half.

“We saw an increase in customers getting their packages on time, and our turnaround time became a lot faster,” Quist said. “Everything just became a lot more seamless and a lot more effortless.”

Stone Coat Countertops’ dedicated feed manager also optimized each of the company’s product listings for better performance and reach. As a result, the company’s listing sessions—a measure of the visits to a product page within a 24-hour period—on Amazon have steadily increased by 20% during its first three months with Feedonomics.

The company saw similar results on Etsy and eBay as well, with dramatic increases in product listing impressions and sales. On eBay, for example, impressions have gone up nearly 250% since Feedonomics took over product feed management, and the conversion rate has improved, too.

The perfect setup for future success

With plans to expand to international marketplaces and connect with more fans and customers, Quist said the company feels more comfortable and equipped to scale its business with the help of Feedonomics’ streamlined order management process. Quist believes the company’s future plans to “try to take over the world of epoxy” are attainable and “definitely something that Feedonomics will be able to help Stone Coat Countertops with in the future.”

This improved process has also helped create a more uniform customer experience, which is incredibly important when you have such a massive social media following. Quist’s time is no longer wasted on handling order issues or feed errors. Instead, he has a reliable feed manager he can trust to proactively resolve any problems.

“When Feedonomics came onboard, it freed me up to work on other things and not have to constantly worry about operations,” Quist said. “I absolutely appreciate being able to focus on what I need to be focusing on.”