SCHAWEL+COLES Helps ComStar International Move into a New Era of Industrial Product Sales

SCHAWEL+COLES, an interactive ecommerce agency based in Utah and New York, is designing and developing a new Magento Enterprise store for ComStar International Inc., the most comprehensive manufacturer of environmentally safe, industrial strength chemical products in the world.

A leader in creative online store creation and implementation, SCHAWEL+COLES has an agreement to solve some unique challenges for ComStar. The company’s previous web store had crashed and was not salvageable. This has given the 45-year-old company a chance to rethink its sales channels, its online strategy and how to reach new markets.

While building the new store, SCHAWEL+COLES has also helped create a temporary corporate site and has assisted in evaluating the company’s branding for new retail opportunities. Some of ComStar’s leading products that have potential in direct-to-consumer sales streams will also receive microsites to bolster reach and provide education.

“We chose S+C because they can merge design and innovative ideas into a solid platform on the back end to create a standout eCommerce site that is as robust as it is beautiful. They are also responsible and responsive — a rarity in the eCommerce industry. They have also held our hand every step of the way to educate us in bringing exciting tools to the staid world of chemicals,” said Joyce Takiguchi, President of ComStar International.

SCHAWEL+COLES is creating a comprehensive eCommerce solution that handles all of ComStar’s unique channels — consumer, wholesaler, distributor and independent sales representatives — in one administrative dashboard. The S+C team is designing an efficient interface with product uses, instructions and safety bulletins tools while making it easy to find items with layered navigation tools.

Michael Schawel, the agency’s co-founder, said, “This project has been tricky but we are solving it by being great communicators, carefully writing out parts of the project, and by shifting the right resources at the right time to cover all the directions each month.”

ComStar also tasked S+C with integrating the store with disparate accounting, fulfillment and shipping systems. The webstore will be scalable for the anticipated growth of the company, which manufactures proprietary products such as HVAC coolants, plumbing supplies, heavy-duty odor eliminators, precision cleaning and transportation cleaning items.

“SCHAWEL+COLES was excited to take on a client in a traditionally stodgy industry because they shared our vision for growth and new opportunities. Our focus and experience with environmentally friendly products that are super strong gives us a leg up on our competition in a growing market segment. S+C is giving us the tools to make it happen,” Takiguchi said.

Developers at S+C expect to release the site to the public before the end of the 2014 and continue working on product microsites, company branding and marketing along with additional functionality to make it easy to buy ComStar’s innovative products, whether the customer is large or small.

About ComStar International, Inc.

ComStar International Inc. has been manufacturing effective industrial cleaning products since 1969. The company has manufacturing sites in New York, Texas, China, the UK and Canada, but all products for the U.S. market are all made in the United States. The 100 employees of ComStar International are proud to be industry leaders after the company went “green” 20 years ago and proved environmentally friendly products can clean as well as more harmful blends.

About SCHAWEL+COLES

SCHAWEL+COLES is an interactive e-commerce agency located in Salt Lake City, Utah with a consulting arm in New York. Online retailing expert Michael Schawel partnered with design industry veteran Matthew Coles to form an agency that gives clients elegant design with intelligent functionality. S+C offers a comprehensive range of e-commerce, design, marketing, identity, core development services aimed at solving problems and answering questions. For more information, see schawelcoles.com.