Development of Distributor Portal

Background

In June of 2022 while attending the NutriWest National Symposium Dr. Forster & Dr. Horowitz of NutriWest NY had exploratory discussions with  NutriWest CEO Mr. Tony White and subsequently with distributors regarding development of a central web site or portal that would enable multiple distributors to have a professional  presence that represents their brand and territory.

This portal would be based on the NutriWest NY web site that has been developed over the last several years and its content fully scrutinized and approved by NutriWest Corp. legal team for FDA compliance and adherence to corporate guidelines.  In addition the site has been developed using the latest web technology and best practices allowing for organic SEO results and optimization.

Development of Distributor Portal

Background

One of the main features of this distributor portal is the ability for each participating distributor to have fully managed home page featuring upcoming seminar information and it's own ordering system where a customer would have the ability to select from the complete NutriWest catalog of products and elctronically submit that order to their ordering and fulfillment staff. This proposed ordering system would not initially interface with the NutriWest customer/account database but would allow for a seamless experience for a customer who is used to an Amazon-like "One-Click" shopping journey. Other subscription benefits to a distributor would be ancillary services such as email marketing and traffic analytics.

Development of Distributor Portal

Challenges

The scale of this project does present some challenges when it comes to language, legality and compliance. In our communication with Corp. regarding this portal we have been given some guardrails on how each participating distributor represents themselves and the overall NutriWest brand and at the same time adhering to FDA regulations. In discussions with Corp. to date we have been informed that each distributor must agree to have its web content reviewed by the legal team representing NutriWest corporate and once completed must acknowledge via signed documentation that NutriWest does not support or advise on the distributors web content.

Development of Distributor Portal

Challenges

The technology side of this project also presents a couple of challenges. From a content perspective all of the current content will need to be edited to have an appeal to a customer or prospect who can be in any national territory or distributor network. We also need to develop an intuitive way using a national interactive map for that customer to look up a distributor in his/her territory and be presented with an introduction, an option to search for a local seminar and in addition order product that would be automatically assigned to the correct distributor and a notifiction sent to the associated staff member. In addition the customer should have the ability to save a favorite list and reorder with little or no friction for future orders. On the plus side this shopping cart will not need to process transactions in any way.

Development of Distributor Portal

Challenges

The question of how we integrate existing distributor's web sites into this new portal will be something that needs to be coordinated with an IT rep from the marketing agency to ensure the correct procedure is put in place to redirect that distributors domain name to the portal domain name(TBD). Access to domain registrars would be the only challenge here as the technical side is relatively easy.

Development of Distributor Portal

Solution

The solution being offered is an aggregation of multiple distributors into a web portal design where the individual distributors take full advantage of a focused and ongoing marketing effort by a digital marketing agency. This agency will create content that attracts search engine traffic organically. This content can be blog articles, PDFs, video and other asset types. All of this content will have been cleared by NutriWest's legal team for language and FDA compliance. There will also be an email marketing component available to participating distributors where promotions are broadcast to a list of subscribers that is provided to the marketing agency their behalf.

Development of Distributor Portal

Solution

One of the most valuable features of the portal will be the electronic ordering system whereby a distributors customer can select from the entire NutriWest product offering and add to cart with quantities and size options. That shopping cart upon submission will be transmitted directly to the distributor for fulfillment and final ordering via Corp. system.

Customers using shopping cart system will have the ability to view previous orders and reorder from a saved wishlist.

Development of Distributor Portal

Solution

In addition to a Homepage and Shopping Cart, there will be a separate page containing regional seminar information, promotions and possibly registration capabilities.
All of the distributor information content will be sent to the Marketing Agency for changes and updates.

Development of Distributor Portal

Solution

So "How Does One Find A Distributor" on this portal where there are multiple distributors participating? This will be achieved via an elegant search mechanism built into the several areas of the site, the next slide does have a wireframe illustration of how that would work.

Essentially a customer/prospect would find the site organically or via the distributors marketing and upon browsing the site would have access to the main navigation links, we will place the following "Find A Distributor" and "How To Order". Both of these when clicked will redirect to a main search with 2 search options, Search By ZIP or Search by State. After entering a ZIP code or selecting a State the search function will query a Distributor database and return the appropriate Distributor landing/home page.

Development of Distributor Portal

Click To Enlarge

Development of Distributor Portal

Solution

After an order is submitted the shopping cart will send a notification to the distributor alerting them to a pending order, that notification will contain the order details, at this point the understanding is the distributor will confirm customer information and proceed with placing that order in the NutriWest Corp eCommerce portal for shipping/billing and payment.

Development of Distributor Portal

Cost Structure

Development costs for portal will be absorbed into NutriWestNY/RightNow retainer fee. The pricing for individual distributors and monthly subscription costs could be as follows:

Initial Signup/Onboarding Fee: $1500 (or whatever NutriWest NY is comfortable with)
The rational here is to recover the inital investment for site and content development in addition to legal fees attributed to compliance review as required by NutriWest Corp. This fee is to be directed to NutriWestNY

Development of Distributor Portal

Cost Structure

Monthly Subscription fee:

1-4 Distributors - $599 a month

5-9 Distributors - $449 a month

10+ - $349 a month

Development of Distributor Portal

Cost Structure

Participating distributors will be required to sign and approve a Terms of Use upon signup which includes the acknowledgment of limited support, advisement or approval of the distributor’s content on the portal as requested by NutriWest Corp.

Distributors participating in the program will be committing to an annual contract (12 months) with language that allows for certain conditions to excuse the distributor from the contract.