As e-commerce sales have grown more important than ever since the pandemic hit, Nationwide Marketing Group is launching a new endless aisle feature for members with e-commerce-enabled websites that allows retailers to quickly and easily add products to their online catalogs.
Available through the group’s eXchange platform, the endless aisle feature has more than 150 brands and thousands of potential SKUs that members can add directly to their websites for their consumers to shop.
To use the feature, the consumer will visit a Nationwide member’s website, add the product to their online shopping cart, head to the checkout page, and select how they’d like to receive the product—either via BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick up In-store) or delivered directly to their home.
Once submitted, the retailer receives, and is credited for, the customer’s order and can place that order through eXchange, just like they would with any other stocking order for their store.
To test the waters, Nationwide worked with Serta Simmons Bedding (SSB) to run a program with 16 members in July. Using the endless aisle feature, those retailers were able to add three Serta mattress-in-a-box SKUs to their websites for customers to order. Those orders were shipped directly to customers’ homes by Serta.
“We are looking forward to showcasing the strength of the Serta brand and building on the strong partnership we share with our friends at Nationwide,” says Gary Melder, senior sales director of buying groups for SSB. “Direct-to-consumer sales continue to grow in the bedding industry, and we want to help Nationwide and their valued members capture their unfair share of this growing channel.”
With the test run done, the group will now work directly with its distribution partners to expand the feature to the rest of the eXchange catalog. Products already on the platform are regularly reviewed and selected based on consumer demand, their relevance to Nationwide’s current offerings, and new and emerging categories.
“Every retailer would love to have the opportunity to adjust their product mix frequently and on the fly, and that’s exactly what endless aisle will allow our members to do on their websites,” says Randy Derr, director of distribution and eXchange for Nationwide. “By opening up the endless aisle feature, our retailers can now test certain product lines and brands, experiment with entirely new product categories, adjust their mix for seasonality and availability, and more—all with a few clicks and with no physical inventory requirements.”
For more information on the Nationwide eXchange endless aisle experience, dealers can stop by the eXchange booth at PrimeTime in Nashville or contact Randy Derr.
