Mymarket.com bolsters market reach as online procurement booms in catering industry

01 August 2005

mymarket.com, the UK’s foremost electronic marketplace for the hospitality industry, unveils its new e-procurement system this week, setting a new precedent in the sector.  The system has undergone a complete overhaul and redesign, undertaken by leading brand and digital agency Rufus Leonard, to update and modernise the e-procurement process and to help mymarket extend its customer base.

mymarket works on an industrial scale, processing over  £9.5 million worth of orders each week and having been designed for e-procurement professionals, it’s underlying technology is therefore functionally complex.  The challenge to the team at Rufus Leonard was therefore to retain the necessary functionality, whilst designing an intuitive user interface for both the existing corporate customer base and for smaller independents from whom its complexity should be invisible.

Rufus Leonard simplified and streamlined the original structure of the e-procurement system, creating a refreshed and revitalised proposition that is both simple and straightforward to use.  Unnecessary features have been removed, navigation re-defined and a new application user interface created to provide a more contemporary and appealing look and feel.  This process was developed from extensive user trials that fully involved the mymarket customer base and several years worth of feedback on the existing site.

The new system mirrors that of the best practice consumer shopping sites to create a more viable ordering process for existing corporate clients and remove barriers to adoption for smaller independents who in the past simply did not have the time or resources to use what was an industrial facing procurement system.

Chris Wills, Client Partner at Rufus Leonard, comments: “All too often, industrial e-procurement systems are simply systems with little thought for the user.  Mymarket.com was determined that the customer came first and that meant the whole user experience should reflect the customer needs.  We cherished the challenge to develop an ordering system that sets a precedent in the marketplace and redevelop a brand that will keep mymarket.com at the front of the pack.”

Mike Blank, Project Manager and Director of Systems at mymarket.com, adds: “Having seen mymarket.com grow so successfully, it was only right that we evaluate its online presence to ensure its continued success and growth.  Working with the team at Rufus Leonard has been a great experience for us all and given us a website which is so much more than just an interface with our existing customers. The collective brand and digital experience that the Rufus Leonard team brought to this project contributed greatly to the finished site and ID that we see today.”

Other agencies involved in this work included WDPA, Angry Fish and Online Liquidity Holdings.

mymarket.com is the internet ordering and information service for the hospitality industry, offering professional procurement services, including electronic contract negotiation, consolidation and management; easy online ordering with suppliers; purchase reporting and measurement; access to all the latest industry news and information and full project consultancy and support services.