Our movement to ecommerce is really the next iteration of making technology accessible to all hospitality stakeholders.
If you’ve ever had to replace a PTAC on the fly or purchase televisions for your 300-room property, you’ve experienced how time-consuming finding the right products at the right price can be. Hospitality technology is notorious for cycling through models frequently, so even replacing equipment can be a challenge. And keeping track of partial orders from various companies is a logistical nightmare.
Enter KniTec’s ecommerce site, which will provide a centralised location in which hoteliers can purchase their hospitality technology.
What kinds of technology will be available?
- Televisions
- Digital signage
- PTACs
- Appliances
- Safes
- Alarm clocks and charging stations
- Conference room packages
- Sanitation equipment
- Room-service delivery robots
- And more
The road to ecommerce
The industry leader in hospitality technology and professional audiovisual products, KniTec noticed that the market was saturated with technical jargon, but lacked a hotelier-friendly guide to the most popular hospitality technology buzzwords.
“Our team knows what Pro:Idiom is and how B-LAN relates to SONIFI, but does the average hotel manager have the time to learn hospitality televisions well enough to confidently purchase hundreds of thousands of dollars of televisions?” said KniTec’s vice president of hospitality Brendan Gephart. “We saw an opportunity to be industry consultants and built our website around that – and the industry responded really positively.” KniTec ranks highly in organic search for thousands of hospitality technology products.
“Our movement to ecommerce is really the next iteration of making technology accessible to all hospitality stakeholders,” he added.
Launching ecommerce
Launching an ecommerce site is not an overnight endeavour, however. Between designing the look and function of the marketplace, creating the backend inventory management system, and securing a safe, compliant checkout platform, the project involves the collaborative efforts of multiple departments. KniTec has been actively working on the project since mid-2020 and dreaming about it for years before that – and now, it’s working towards launching.
“We’ll launch in phases,” explained Gephart. “First we’ll focus on current hospitality televisions, then we’ll expand to appliances, then to everything else, including professional audiovisual products like digital signage displays for the lobby. At some point, we also want to create portals so that customers can log in and see previously purchased items and recommended items by brand standard. We have big plans and are incredibly excited to execute.”
The first phase of KniTec’s ecommerce platform is scheduled to launch in early spring 2021.
