Plumbing the Digital Pipeline: Defining E-Commerce for Wholesale Distribution with Sarah Kirwen Director of eCommerce at Oatey

Transcript

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Jamie Clapper (00:00):
Welcome to Unpacking the Digital Shelf B2B Edition, the podcast for the practitioners navigating complex data, massive catalogs, and the shifting expectations of the modern business buyer. Every month we sit down with the leaders who are moving past the hype and building digital shelves that actually scale. Jamie Clapper here with the Digital Shelf Institute, and welcome back to another episode of Unpacking the Digital Shelf B2B Edition. Today, we are diving deep into a topic that is both incredibly massive and frequently misunderstood, the evolution of B2B digital commerce. If you ask five different people in a B2B manufacturing company to define e-commerce, you'll likely get five completely different answers. To some, it's just Amazon. To others, it's a customer portal, and to the traditional sales team, it can feel like a learning curve. Today, we are unpacking what e-commerce actually means in the complex world of wholesale distribution.

(01:04):
Our guest, Sarah Kirwen, director of e-commerce at Oatey, didn't just inherit a digital strategy. She had to build the glossary, set the boundaries, and educate a legacy industry on why the digital shelf is the ultimate growth engine. Let's get to unpacking. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the podcast. We're so excited to have you on today.

Sarah Kirwen (01:24):
Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Jamie Clapper (01:28):
Awesome. Well, myself and Lauren have a whole slew of questions that we want to dive in and ask you based on your experience. And so we are just going to dive in for our listeners who are ready to hear some of the juicy nuggets you're going to share. So Sarah, you've said because everyone shops online in their personal lives, everyone thinks they're an e-commerce expert as we call it. Let's talk specifically on wholesale e-commerce where you have spent a ton of time in your career. For a lot of people, that sounds like a contradiction in terms. However, how do you define e-commerce wholesale at Oatey and what makes it fundamentally different from say the consumer-facing digital shelf?

Sarah Kirwen (02:09):
Sure. So for us at Oatey, wholesale sales is through our PVF and PHCP space, is we sell into independent distributors, buying groups, and national accounts. So traditionally, these channels have sold through counter locations or through outside sales teams. We don't sell direct to customers, neither in a B2C space or through a B2B portal. So everything we do is really partnership-based and partnership is really the key. We've always really valued our distributor partnerships and really grown strategically with them, both on what our business needs are and what their business needs are. So when I'm thinking about the difference with that consumer-facing digital shelf, we don't really have that direct control because it's really the distributor who is thinking about how they want to position products based on the offering they have both of our products and competitively. We really lean into what their strategy is and really have that conversation to know what they want to accomplish and then build that business plan together.

(03:19):
So they're really defining that. We obviously know our end users, we know what products go together. We think a lot about when we position on our website, how do we get people to find the information they need? And then we bring that expertise to our distributors as much as we can.

(03:40):
Yeah, they know who their end user on site, they know who they're targeting, and they know how they define the e-commerce journey. We know our products, and so we are able to bring that expertise to them.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (03:53):
And that is a different way of thinking about your consumer because you do have an end-to-end end consumer that you have to think about, but you also have your specific consumers. And I really like the way that you bucket it into three very distinct kind of channels when you think about digital. So you have your omnichannel, so like a Home Depot and a Lowe's, you have your pure play like Amazon, you have your wholesale distribution, so traditional distributors, but they all have different needs. I think you called it the end user, and they're all looking for different types of content, different types of experiences. So how do you and your team figure out what to serve to each of these different buckets and what is needed from a digital shelf perspective?

Sarah Kirwen (04:41):
Sure. So I think of it kind of how we would think about product development. And so we are spending a lot of time when we're thinking about new products, and then I think this can translate. We are in the field talking to the people using our products to understand how do they use them? What applications do they need them in? What challenges are they overcoming? How can the product support a need maybe that isn't currently filled or the current existing product line doesn't accomplish? And then that's how we bring a new product to market. So I think it's very similar to translate that messaging when we think about content, but we think about it as each channel. So a person shopping in that wholesale space who is maybe doing a spec job or needs very specific measurements on a product, they may probably already know a lot of what they need, and so they're looking for the version of that that's going to make it easiest for them.

(05:39):
So when we think about content, we're creating content that will relay that message. And we don't necessarily need the same volume of content because again, they know how to find it. They're using all the. When they search, they might say glue, which is a commonality for cement versus the more traditional cement or primer. And so we think about content that way, and then we think all the way down to a more DIY-focused individual or someone starting a home project, and we make sure that they have the entire everything they would need to know in content. And then we can cater each of that based on where we're deploying it or through what channel we're deploying it to. So in a more pure play environment like in Amazon, and we have a portal, we have a lot more control to do that directly. On a wholesale distributor side, everything is really, as I mentioned earlier, very relationship-based.

(06:34):
And so it might make it harder to get that content out. Everything is really done through emails and spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. So there's a little bit of a step back from control that we have there, but we also can work directly to understand the feedback loop if we do send stuff in or we're hearing, whether it be through a review or directly through a distributor that there's a challenge, we can get that directly from our partners and adjust or develop content accordingly. So really understanding who the audience is, developing the entire breadth of content, making sure all the attributes are accurate, especially when you're talking about a professional who needs things exactly correct, whether it be from an item setup or to order an item online, and then being able to splice that and cut it down based on the right audience and who's shopping each site.

(07:29):
I

Lauren Livak Gilbert (07:29):
Really loved your example of talking about glue, but that can also mean cement. And I think about that as context. And there's a lot of conversation around context lately in the digital industry, especially because of LLMs and people who might be using AI and there's additional context. But that is context that you and your team might need to know, but might be in the minds of your sales reps or the people developing your products. And so how are you trying to get that? And where are you storing that? And how are you pulling all of that knowledge from all the places across your organization? Because I don't think you have a team of 25 people. Am I correct?

Sarah Kirwen (08:08):
Sure don't. We do not. No. Team of two directly and then support through communications content. Yeah.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (08:18):
So

Sarah Kirwen (08:18):
How many

Lauren Livak Gilbert (08:19):
People are on your team? Do you have two, three?

Sarah Kirwen (08:21):
Two of us. Yeah.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (08:22):
Two of you. Okay. So how are you working through that relationship? Is it a communication loop where you're meeting with them? Is there a standardization to get them to fill in this information? I feel like all of that data is going to become more and more important and might not have ever needed to be in a system because it was in their brain and they just had a chat, right?

Sarah Kirwen (08:43):
Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of organic knowledge that just gets passed down or a lot of spreadsheets and things saved on shared drives. So for us, we've been really trying to lean into being a PIM-first organization. This is something that is still in development so that it isn't just living individually either in a customer database or with ourselves. From a feedback loop, a lot of it is meeting with our trusted partners, especially those that have really, I guess on the wholesale side, really leaned into this space and are testing new things and are willing to share that back and forth. We make sure that we are regularly both meeting on their initiatives, what they're learning with things like the vernacular that's common versus industry correct. We do a lot of sharing back and forth of what they are seeing in terms of how things are searching on site, where they're seeing us win, where they're seeing us fall down in some of those results.

(09:46):
So our goal is really to work very closely with our content team to pass that back and forth. We do the same thing on our pure play side where we are trying to take all those optimized, whatever it might be, keywords or content or just general learnings and bring it back in and have it live in our PIM system so that we're really trying to create a consistent experience across all the platforms that we're on. And it's a lot of email sharing and internal meetings and making sure that we are constantly meeting both as partners across marketing and then partners externally.

Jamie Clapper (10:27):
Yeah, no, that's great, Sarah. And I feel like most of the e-commerce teams are scrappy, so those listening probably appreciate the fact that you are a team of two and they're going, "Oh, it's not just us. We're in this together." So really want to pull from a bucket that you spoke a bit about, which was distribution. So obviously we know the big box retailers, Home Depot, Lowe's, name dropping here, and then you have Walmart and Amazon. Everyone has their own platform that usually I will say makes it fairly easy to be able to share data and content back and forth. But as you think about distributors who might be lagging behind digitally, how do you communicate the mutual value of adopting those strict data standards? What have you put into place? What have you also been pushing from your side just to get them to see it as a partnership rather than an operational burden?

Sarah Kirwen (11:24):
Yeah. So I was part of a project over the last couple of years through the American Supply Association. There's a data standardization effort. And what this really grew out of was this recognition on the distributor side where they felt like manufacturers weren't necessarily sharing their information, almost like we were holding onto it. And from a manufacturer standpoint, struggling with such a large amount of distributor customers and how do you get your information to each template because everyone was calling it something different. And so we spent a lot of time right-sizing what folks were calling all the attributes, what does it mean to have a marketing description? And really the goal of that project is to have us all, as much as we can be speaking the same language or understanding when we're asking for a measurement what that is. And then the adoption process is part of this message of why adopt?

(12:19):
And I think what it really is, when we're all calling things the same or we're all looking for the same information, it's a much faster response time on our end. So as the manufacturer, we really own that data. We know our products. We have the engineering specs and the submittals. We have the chemical experts. So all of that is something that we house. And if we can easily translate it out to anybody, that turnaround time is much faster because we can export it out of our PIM and we can send it over directly versus when everything is different, then there's a lot of internal translating that we have to go through or mapping process. So I think that's one of the messages. We can get this to you quicker. And then as things change, which they inevitably do, we can respond faster.

(13:11):
The other important thing is that when we are consistent across platforms, then people have a belief in our product because they're always finding the same information everywhere. And so from a distributor's standpoint, they can win that sale because someone isn't finding something different no matter where they are. They can trust in the product, but they're trusting it on the site they're on. And so often they are on the distributor that they have a relationship with. So I think there's also a sales case to be made where you know you're getting the right thing, you know you're not going to return it. And we knew what you wanted from the get-go, so we were always able to provide that to you in the correct format right away.

(13:56):
The tools we're using, we're really leaning into channel mapping and Salsify as much as we can. We really want to utilize that standard so that no matter what distributor comes to us, and we've been getting asked more and more to provide data in that way, it's a much easier process for our team to export out and send that over. And then we can show them that standard as well with definition so it's very easy to understand here's how we develop this, here's how it makes sense in our industry, and then be able to export that out pretty quickly from the tool.

Jamie Clapper (14:29):
I think that's awesome. I think to be a leader in the space of wholesale e-commerce and be a voice for the plumbing industry in a sense to say, "Hey, here are our standards. Here are the guides that we're building in place to essentially create more efficiency in the space." I think that's awesome. And I love the work you're doing with that and the work you've done on the data standards board for ASA. I mean, it speaks volumes. We've had a few guests on that they have spent a ton of time talking about the value of product data. My co-host Lauren posts on LinkedIn all the time about content and how, yes, we need content to be able to build our PDPs, but hello AI world, you need even more content to be able to win in that space, if you will. And so I think the value is there.

(15:18):
Sarah, you've put a ton of work into this. I guess a quick follow-up that I'm sure our listeners want to know too is how do you get your organization on board to support this initiative and just have an overall even understanding across the organization of the value of digital and e-commerce? And instead of it having that silo feel of it's a sales channel and you're running in your own lane and you're not impacting the other channels, which obviously we know is not true, but how do you get folks on board in the organization to support what you're doing?

Sarah Kirwen (15:52):
I think there's kind of a twofold way I've approached it. I often think it seems very intuitive that we would all be shopping online today, but for us and for a lot of companies, we're over a hundred years, so we built our business through traditional channels. And so as important as the internet is, it is still a newer sales channel. So I try to be really empathetic that we're all kind of learning it. And this is new in the scheme of how we have really built our brand and built our company. So the way I like to approach it is to really understand the language that drives us. What are our true values? What is our mission? How have we built our brand over the last hundred years? And then how does e-commerce fit that? A lot of it I've mentioned earlier was relationship building, and that's really a critical part of our partnerships.

(16:51):
And I think that digital and e-commerce is how our distributor partners are evolving. It's clearly very important to them. And so by us leaning in and embracing it, we are showing that continued partnership in this new era or this evolving era. So I think that's really important as part of it. When I was looking at how we build up the wholesale e-commerce department on the whole, part of it is just educating, understanding the state of play today, understanding the challenges that we have, understanding what are the areas where we're going to really be able to grow, where are we just going to maintain? And then where can we look for new business? Which is a method, again, we think about from a product development standpoint. So it's a language that really makes sense. And then just translating that onto this digital and e-commerce space.

(17:47):
I think the other thing is I have a couple trusted partners in the organization that will always, if I'm not in the room, because again, e-commerce oversees all parts of it. So we're so used to saying our wholesale and our retail channels, but e-comm is looking over everybody. And so making sure there's always someone who understands it and can raise their hand if they don't see me there and say, "Hey, we need to make sure that the e-commerce team is involved," is really been critical to ensuring that the team starts getting involved earlier in the process and becomes more of a voice and that the organization remembers and starts to really embrace this as part of the overall sales process, new product development process.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (18:30):
A big theme that I've heard throughout this entire podcast is just cross-functional collaboration. And it seems like you've done a really great job of building that inside your organization and really using the word omnichannel and thinking across all of those different pieces. So big kudos to you for that.

Sarah Kirwen (18:46):
Thank you.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (18:47):
Question around thinking in an omnichannel way. I think a large part of that is how you measure what's online versus in-store, how you define omnichannel with your finance team, with your sales partners. I'm sure that has been a bit of a journey and you're probably still working through that. What would your advice be for anyone listening trying to figure that out? Because I'm assuming majority of your sales are still traditional sales. Obviously you have a growing e-commerce digital shelf piece of it, but how are you working with finance, with your sales teams, with even shared goals across the company to be more omnichannel?

Sarah Kirwen (19:31):
Yeah. Yes, that's a huge challenge because very often, and I think a lot of organizations probably see this, the sales classify through the channel that you sell into. And if you're looking strictly at the reporting through whatever your software is, you're going to see it maybe as a wholesale sale. And then the way that it actually gets to the end user, we don't have that data. So we've kind of looked at it a couple ways. With customers who are able to provide us with POS, we've been able to work really closely with IT to ingest that into a Power BI dashboard. And so they are able to help us look and say, "This percentage of sales was through whatever e-comm measure it might be." And sometimes we can get down to the level of, was it ship to customer? Was it buy online pickup in store?

(20:24):
Sometimes we don't have it quite that level. Sometimes we get dollars, sometimes we get pieces. So we can play around with it and think about based on what customer provides what, having maybe more of a retail-focused dashboard or a wholesale-focused dashboard. So where we get POS, that has been a huge help because it does show, yes, the dollars initially went in through distribution, but here's how it got to the end user. And then we can also pull that back and say all the work that the content team and the brand team has been doing is all feeding into the ability for people to find that and purchase that product. Where we don't have POS, it can be a little trickier. And so what we've been trying to do there, and this really is pretty applicable in our wholesale space, is think about utilizing industry data.

(21:13):
And so ASA has been a good source of they survey their members and they might say 7% of sales call it is going through an e-comm channel. And then we can back into that through some calculations, understanding what we're selling in through our wholesale channel, layering in that percentage and saying, okay, based on that, while we don't have the direct data, we think we're probably doing about this dollar amount through wholesale e-commerce. So bringing that through to finance, bringing that through to leadership just shows that the efforts that we're making, the partnerships that we have, the online strategies we've done is driving some of that sales business through our distributors. And I think it also shows that our partners are leaning into it and they're reporting out on percentage of sales. So they're obviously seeing it as a growth channel for them. And so it kind of twofold helps both show the dollars that we are getting through that, but then also why we need to continue investing because it's clear that that's somewhere that they're at.

(22:17):
So that's how we're looking at it, both ways to help the larger organization be able to see the big picture of how that product gets out the door, even though for us, that initial sale straight into a distribution center.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (22:30):
And you had finance involved in the conversation, which I think is a critical piece, right? Yes. And they need to understand the complexities of selling online to multiple different channels and what that means. So I bet there's also an education to the finance team, correct?

Sarah Kirwen (22:45):
Yeah, I've worked really hard partnering with finance, with IT, with product, really with customer service across the board to just talk through what the umbrella of e-commerce is and the complexities around it. And everybody has come to it a little differently initially. So having that overarching message of it's not just this one customer or I know the system says it's this customer in wholesale, but it's actually a larger picture. Being able to bring that through is something we've worked on and continue to work in. I do think it's an ongoing process, especially as things evolve and as you get new folks coming in and out and new strategies. So yes, ongoing education is critical.

Jamie Clapper (23:33):
Love that. Firm believer in educating all the time. Sarah and I have spent a lot of time talking about that in our past roles. Sarah, you covered a ton today. Just even I think being in the plumbing industry itself, it's evolved over time to this more digitally friendly era, if you will, where originally a lot of folks would shop at counters, they'd go into their favorite distributor, their wholesaler, they had a contact, they knew everyone. And now we are seeing that evolution happening where from a digital perspective, folks are shopping obviously more online. You may even have more contractors shopping online as needed, time is money, all of these wonderful things that are happening to shake up the ecosystem as we think about the industry that you're in. I'm going to throw a wild card in here a little bit and ask about AI because again, alongside data and content and everything else that's happening in the digital space, I feel like AI is one of those buzzwords that is 100% out there.

(24:40):
Love it, hate it. However you feel about it, it's happening. And so from an AI kind of mindset, do you guys have insights into how your end users may be using AI or what their thoughts are? Or this could even be from an internal lens or even a distributor partnership lens. How are folks embracing the AI era, if you will, within the industry?

Sarah Kirwen (25:08):
That's a good question. I don't know if I fully know yet. I think it seems like, to your point, there's a lot of talk about it and a lot of recognition. We've seen some partners acquire different AI softwares and figuring out how they're going to deploy them. On more of the pure play side, obviously there's been a much quicker deployment of some of the agents. I think right now what we're thinking about is how are we learning about Agentic shopping and the shift in terms of AIO versus SEO or how those two things live together? And then how are we optimizing our content or getting ahead of our content now so that when the ask comes, we're ready for it and we're thinking about it across the different maturity levels of each of the different customers as they figure out what their AI strategy is.

(26:14):
I know it's definitely a conversation.

(26:18):
So we just really want to ensure that we're getting, as we talked about earlier with some of the content back and forth, we're trying to get that information so that we can bring it back to our team. But our team has really been leaning in as much as they can to get things going now. And then if we have some strategies we can bring to our partners, we may be able to say, we've done X, Y, and Z, or we've been able to see some returns here. Is this something that you think you would want to deploy, we could use as a strategy? So I would say infancy stages in a lot of ways, but something we're trying to think and learn about and leverage our internal AI council to do our case studies and get ahead.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (27:00):
Well, I mean also as a team of two, is it something that you're exploring internally? And also please talk about the AI council. That sounds really cool too. But do you see it as an opportunity for you to feel like a team of 25 or how are you looking at it?

Sarah Kirwen (27:17):
So we have a really incredible content and comms teams who aren't directly e-comm, but do all of the work that allow my direct report and I to go sell. We really think about the sales and distribution, and then they're really focused on the content piece of it. So there is a lot of work that those teams are doing. Our marketing department has been really leaning into how to activate AI for a while. We do obviously manage our own website, and so there's a lot of things that they are doing there that can be brought over to our partner side. Our AI council on the whole is our internal company approach towards AI. And so we have experts across all the different departments that are trying to understand what are the case studies and how could this be used? Obviously it's going to be different for the engineering team than the customer service team, IT team.

(28:13):
So each of them have that champion that is in the room gathering what the opportunities would be and then trying to talk through, okay, what is the AI application for this particular group's needs? And it's going to be different across everybody.

(28:31):
And so we're kind of leaning in, I would say, in that way to the expertise of the others around us that probably a little, I don't want to say farther ahead, but they have understood that case studying have been involved in this sooner. So that's kind of how we are. They're the experts and we are learning from them.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (28:57):
Everyone's figuring it out. Nobody's an expert. Figuring it out. Makes sense.

Jamie Clapper (29:01):
Right. Most people are told just go do AI and then there's no context. That's one of Lauren's and my favorite slogans I think we hear often. Yeah. But no, I think it's great. I think the work that you're doing, I think it supports what I think is going to happen, which is this conversation that has been evolving over time about the trades and not having enough folks coming up into the trades.

(29:25):
But the people that are coming up through the trades are obviously younger generations that are used to shopping on their phone, used to shopping through TikTok, all these different ways of doing things that are completely different than I would say where the plumbing industry started out. So it's a great way and a great location to be in to start to figure out AI and all these different ways of digitally making it friendly for folks that are coming up that will be those next generation of contractors and just, you know, So by nature, it's what they know, it's how they shop, it's not going anywhere. And I think being able to be on top of that will speak volumes when that next generation continues to roll through.

Sarah Kirwen (30:11):
Yeah, those of us that are in this part of the plumbing industry have said there's no way our personal shopping habits are not going to start to become our professional shopping habits. And so we are starting to see that shift. But we also still have many folks in the industry who have operated in the same way. And there is a ton of value in going to a counter and talking to a counter salesman or someone who's an expert. And so there's a way to blend those two things together as a partnership, not as a replacement. I think both need to exist together.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (30:46):
I have to give a huge shout out. Follow Oateye on Instagram. They're plumbing reels and just content is hilarious. I know zero things about plumbing, but I find it so funny. So you do a great job of also using alternate channels. You got to go check out the OD account on Instagram.

Sarah Kirwen (31:03):
Yes, our social team is incredible and they're very fun. So much fun. Yeah.

Jamie Clapper (31:10):
Absolutely. Well, awesome having you today, Sarah. You have shared so much knowledge. You've answered, I'm sure, a lot of questions that our listeners had and are always, always a lovely guest to have on here. And I plan to have you back in the future as Oatey continues to evolve in the AI space and figuring out what is the next big thing in plumbing and what's happening. So thank you for the time today. As always, great to have you on.

Sarah Kirwen (31:38):
Thank you so much. This was fun.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (31:39):
Thanks so much, Sarah.

Jamie Clapper (31:41):
Thanks for tuning in to Unpacking the Digital Shelf B2B Edition. To keep learning from the best in B2B, subscribe now and join our community of leaders by becoming a member of the Digital Shelf Institute. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.