The WebstaurantStore, has made a name for itself by selling products specifically designed for restaurant needs. Last Friday, Sept. 19, during the M&M Lecture Series, David Groff, President of The WebstaurantStore as well as an alumnus of Elizabethtown College, described how the branch of the store from Clark Associates started as a simple project in 2004 and has since grown into a multi-million e-commerce business. With only three people staffing the e-commerce business when it launched, shipping 10 products a day was considered a profitable day. Groff said that now WebstaurantStore has grown to ship around 55,000 products a day. WebstaurantStore has around 500 people working for Groff’s small business. Today, the store has three distribution centers and ships all over America and internationally.
Clark Associates was established in 1971 by brothers Glenn and Lloyd Clark. Starting off as an electrical company that had 12 employees in the 1970s, Clark Associates has now become a well-known firm that employs over 900 people in different states. The Clark Company includes equipment divisions, commerce service provider divisions and distribution companies. In the early 1990s, Groff took on the new idea for an e-commerce business. He described it as creating a “Home Depot for restaurants.”
The store provides restaurant equipment in a wide spectrum, from plates and silverware to refrigerators and grills. The WebstaurantStore carries around 110,000 products today, compared to 2004 when they only offered 7,500. Through their “entrepreneurial spirit,” Groff explained how the website has become extremely popular and has gained the reputation of accessibility and “instant gratification.” For example, if the owner of a bar realizes he needs more wine glasses, he can go on the website and live chat with a customer service associate to find the exact type of glass he is looking for. The owner can then place an order for the exact number of glasses he needs and they will arrive within five business days.
Groff said that in order to keep up with the need for fast delivery in the future, The WebstaurantStore has opened two more distribution centers: one in Kentucky and one in Nevada. “In 2015, we plan to open another distribution center in Maryland, and then one in Georgia in the year 2016. Having a distribution center in Texas is also a goal for the WebstaurantStore,” Groff stated during the lecture. The market change in the next five years is something The WebstaurantStore will have to adapt to, as Groff and his other Etown alumni employees mentioned.
Along with Groff at the lecture, two Blue Jay alumni employed by the Store mentioned how instant gratification and fast shipping are necessary in order for their customers to be satisfied in the next couple of years.
Besides shipping, Groff further explained why The WebstaurantStore has started developing a way to video chat live with a customer. Face-to-face communication while ordering a product, he explained, will help customers feel confident in their choices. After their rapid success in the market using video chat, Groff talked about how necessary it is to keep up with the new technology that our generation is obsessed with. Along with the video chat, the company is exploring a way for customers to place orders by voice or scanning barcodes to refill a product. For example, instead of the owner of the bar searching online for the wine glasses, he can just scan the barcode of the wine glasses he needs and have the product automatically ordered. Voice control would function similarly to this.
During the lecture, Groff stressed the importance of “embracing an entrepreneurial mindset,” and one way The WebstaurantStore is doing that is by creating a way for their website to customize itself for the customer every time they login. “Sites appearance will be customized to the visitor based on business type, purchasing and surfing trends,” Groff explained. “That way, if a church is surfing the website, they will not see the sale for shot glasses or a beer bong listed on the front page.” Adjusting their marketing is another important tool for attracting the future generation of customers. This enables the company to attract the maximum amount of customers and revenue.
Groff wants the company to continue growing throughout the coming years. Planning ahead is an important step to the success of his online business. Groff said he does not see a ceiling for more growth. “Our current competition brings in one billion dollars in sales; we want to reach that and go beyond,” he said. As the president of The WebstaurantStore, Groff stated that becoming the company it is today, worth $327 million, “is not possible without great people, such as our Etown grads.”
