PapelyCarton: two websites because they had two very different clients

* Metrics and testimonial pending confirmation with the client.

The context

PapelyCarton is a distributor of paper and board for industry with more than thirty years of craft behind it and FSC certification. Its value does not lie only in having the product: it lies in cutting it to size, keeping it in stock and delivering it fast, as well as advising on which material best fits each application.

That nuance matters. Anybody can sell a sheet of board; few deliver it cut to the exact size a production line asks for, and by tomorrow. Whoever receives the material ready to use saves handling and time: the real product is not the board, it is the problem solved.

On top of that comes the advice. Thirty years are enough to know what weight of board a display stand will take or which material will not transfer odours to a foodstuff; knowledge that lived on the telephone and nowhere else.

Over the years they had ended up with two websites that had each grown on their own: the corporate one, long-serving and out of date, and a newly launched online shop. Neither was the fruit of a decision, but of patches and emergencies: two shop windows with no plan saying what each was for.

The challenge

The underlying problem was not aesthetic: neither website was designed around how the person in front of it really buys. That cost appears on no invoice, but in sales that never arrive and in phone calls that make up for what the website should resolve on its own.

• Two clients with opposite ways of buying: industry asks for a quotation, compares and negotiates; the small client wants to add to the basket and have it now.
• The corporate website had become dated and had to be rebuilt without losing the visits already arriving from Google.
• The shop was attractive but awkward to use and slow, and finding the products was hard work.
• Two websites from the same brand competing with each other instead of adding up.
• A sector where almost nobody is doing it well digitally: a clear opportunity to stand out.

Translated into euros: the production manager looking for board for food packaging found no page for their sector and called somebody else. The designer who wanted five sheets for a model got tired of searching. And the sales rep spent half a morning on thirty-euro orders while a large quotation waited its turn. On top of that, rebuilding the corporate site badly could throw years of free visits overboard.

The solution: one website for each client

Before drawing anything we decided who each website speaks to and what it has to achieve. That division puts the whole project in order.

1 · Understanding how each client buys

We analysed what each profile is after and what they expect to find. A production manager does not buy the same way as a designer who needs five sheets for a model.

The first wants to know whether the supplier is serious and delivers on time; the second just wants to see the price, choose a size and pay. Putting them together meant boring one and frightening the other.

2 · The corporate website, to win industrial clients

Rebuilt from scratch, with a page of its own for each of the 11 sectors they serve (printers and graphic arts, packaging, industry, converters, protection, food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, point of sale, displays and print shops), the product families and the services: cutting to size, converting and die-cutting, advice, stock and urgent delivery, and samples.

The goal is for the phone to ring and quotation requests to come in. Giving every sector its own page is not a whim: whoever is looking for board for pharmaceuticals wants to read about pharmaceuticals. It is completed with sustainability, weekly offers, blog and contact.

3 · The shop, to sell without friction

The look was kept, because it was liked, and the work went into what was failing: finding the product quickly and buying it without going round in circles. You buy by category, by application (packaging, models, gifts, food, perfumery) and in the three units they work with: by sheet, by square metre or by kilo, with cutting to size.

Buying by application is key for the specifier: an architect is not looking for a paper weight, they are looking for something that will work for their model. Take them to the right material and the sale closes itself.

4 · One shared image for both

The two websites now share the same personality — kraft tones, typography with character and clean design — while each one is what it has to be: the corporate site serious, the shop quick and direct.

Their resembling each other has a commercial effect: whoever discovers the brand on one side recognises it on the other. A thirty-year-old company cannot look like two.

5 · Going live while protecting what had been won

Everything the old website had ranking is linked to its new page, so that neither Google nor your clients run into pages that no longer exist.

The inventory was made before anything was touched and checked afterwards, page by page. It is the most boring step and the one that avoids the most grief.

6 · Telling properly what they know how to do

Thirty years leave a lot of knowledge behind: material data sheets, recommendations on paper weight, answers the team repeats every week. It was in people's heads, not anywhere a client could find it.

Written down, it attracts whoever is looking for exactly that answer — and they arrive with half the sales work already done — and it shows judgement before the first call. It is also what makes the brand appear on Google and in the answers of artificial intelligence.

Two websites, one single business

The reasonable doubt is whether two websites will end up taking clients from each other. They will not, as long as each has a defined role: here they do not compete, they hand the client over when the time comes.

The usual path runs from small to large. The designer who buys five sheets for a model can be, two years later, the studio that needs material for a whole campaign. The shop is the cheapest way in to get to know whoever will one day buy in volume.

It works the other way round too: whoever is looking for an industrial supplier finds the corporate site and whoever is looking for a single sheet finds the shop. Each path reinforces the other in a sector where most people are still not doing their homework.

Results

PapelyCarton goes from having two loose websites to having two sales tools with a clear role: one that brings in industrial clients and another that sells online to the small client, who used to get lost along the way or end up buying from somebody else.

The first effect is internal and shows from day one: there is somewhere to send each client. The sales rep sends the small enquiries to the shop and spends their time on the large quotations.

The second is about position: eleven sector pages, the services explained and the team's knowledge written down are eleven ways in where before there was only one.

The project has just entered its phase of monitoring and continuous improvement. The first weeks' data says little, so we will publish the acquisition and sales figures here as soon as they have enough run behind them to say something real.

What the project includes

It is not just a new website: it is the set of pieces that make the two sites work as one business and that make it possible to measure whether they deliver.

A new corporate websiteOnline shopPages by sectorBespoke designContentRanking on Google and in the AIsConnected to their management systemMeasuring results

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