Cleveland-based technology firm is doubling its staff in response to a new product line and new retail partnerships.
Cleveland – In less than 2 years after releasing groundbreaking software to improve online merchandising, Easy2 Technologies is ramping up its staff to meet demand, continuing to increase revenues and expanding its office space in Cleveland’s Playhouse Square district. Due to the success of its flagship product, Easy2 will have doubled its staff by the end of this July; from 14 associates to 28 and is on track to increase sales by 50% this year.
The firm was founded eight years ago, and is today creating online product demonstrations for over 150 manufacturer and Internet retailers across several industries. Easy2’s interactive rich media merchandising solutions, which utilize features such as 360° zoom, image galleries and animated tours, among others, can be found on major retailer and manufacturing sites across the Web.
Easy2 understood the frustration many companies endured to produce demos one at a time at a relatively substantial cost. In 2006, in response to this pain, the company devised a new application that allows non-technical people to create an infinite number of their own high-quality product demonstrations in-house for a fraction of the former cost. One of the greatest benefits of the new application is the built-in syndication engine, which co-brands and links the product demos to the client’s channel partner Web sites. No other company offers these same abilities in such a convenient and cost-effective package.
The new product is called MYO (Make Your Own). For the firm’s clients, the implementation dramatically increased productivity and allowed manufacturers such as DeWALT power tools to create hundreds of new product demonstrations with no incremental cost using their own in-house resources. Now DeWALT has over 1,000 demo versions syndicated to the retail sites that carry their products.
The application quickly edged out Easy2’s competition, while drawing the attention of major retailers, such as Circuit City and Sears, which have made Easy2 their preferred interactive demo partner. These retail partners are eager to see their manufacturing vendors sign up for the MYO Demo program and to provide as many product demos as possible. “It creates a win-win scenario for all parties involved,” said John Bukovnik, Easy2’s president and co-founder.
The company began at Case Western Reserve University’s business incubator in 2000. It moved to its current location on Huron Road in 2005, and this month, completed its expansion from 6,700 square feet to 9,400 to accommodate the growth of new employees.
Easy2 is very optimistic about its future prospects. The company plans to expand its research and development efforts, hire several additional employees this year to meet current demand, and to keep its product innovations coming.
“Our growth has helped keep us in front of our competition and has positioned us as an industry leader,” said Mr. Bukovnik. “The MYO Product Selector application (available this summer), which allows clients to quickly build an online wizard for shoppers to choose from a multitude of similar products based on the shopper’s own preferences and needs. Our vision is to ultimately offer a suite of MYO applications to help our manufacturing clients and channel partners merchandise their products more effectively.”
“We anticipate that the planned new products will have a similar effect on sales as MYO Demo,” Bukovnik said. “This is an exciting time for us, but we refuse to rest on our laurels.”
Easy2 Technologies is a leading provider of “rich retail” content, including its exclusive MYO (Make Your Own) Web-based application allowing non-technical manufacturing personnel to create interactive product demos. The company also develops buying guides, product selectors and visualization tools for the home improvement, consumer electronics, juvenile, sporting goods, and craft industries. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Easy2 specializes in providing creative online merchandising and training solutions to national manufacturing and retail clients, including DeWALT, Circuit City, D-Link, Cub Cadet, Buy.com, Samsung, Lowe’s, InSinkErator and Moen. For more information, visit www.easy2.com.