Meet the Client

Pfaltzgraff is America’s leading manufacturer and marketer of casual dinnerware and accessories for the home. As the oldest pottery maker in the United States, The Pfaltzgraff Co. grew from a modest-size shop that once produced salt-glazed stoneware in the early 1800’s to a large manufacturer that offers a full range of products and styles today.

Pfaltzgraff products are sold in thousands of stores in the U.S., including over 70 of their own stores. The company also markets high-quality, stainless steel flatware and glass beverage-ware. One of Pfaltzgraff’s most important goals is to offer consumers the most complete line of accessories for its dinnerware patterns.

The Challenge

Pfaltzgraff’s product offerings include a large number of patterns, each with a varying number of pieces. The company wanted a kiosk to provide a tool to store staff that would allow them to easily help customers browse through the myriads of patterns and stylebooks to match their particular piece. Often a sales clerk would need to call a toll-free number and act as an intermediary between the customer and operator at the call center.

Although their products are very popular wedding gifts, the gift registry system each Pfaltzgraff store used was largely paper-based. It didn’t allow gift buyers in other Pfaltzgraff stores to see gift lists in the bride’s home store. Pfaltzgraff wanted the ability to access their Web-based gift registry system from the kiosk to eliminate these issues.

The Solution

Livewire implemented a hybrid online kiosk software system that leveraged Pfaltzgraff’s existing E-commerce Web site to provide “virtual inventory” ordering capability to customers and salespeople in the stores. This virtual inventory system ensures that a customer will never be turned away from a purchase because their item is not in stock at a particular store. To give store personnel the proper incentive, they are credited for all sales made through their store’s retail kiosk.