In 2010, Appropos had an idea - team up with Saucony and develop a custom enterprise catalog app. The first iPad had just hit the streets and the time was ripe. We rented an inexpensive office, put our heads down, and created what would eventually become Envoy. The results were a huge success and changed the way Saucony did business.
On the heels of that success, Appropos began licensing a repurposed version of the app to other companies and by 2012 had taken full ownership of the app and it’s technology. While we initially focused on building a front end mobile bolt-on solution for current business to business (B2B) providers, we discovered that many of the top B2B services on the market were lacking in core features. Our user base saw it too, and encouraged us to grow our tools into a more full-featured B2B solution.
2013 saw us doing just that. We moved into a new office, ramped up hiring, and began to build Envoy - a fully cloud-based, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) wholesale B2B platform. While other providers were offering B2B systems as a utility - basically, a static solution to an ever-evolving need - Appropos built what our clients needed: a SaaS model solution that can evolve and adapt to the changing needs of the marketplace. Finally, we updated and integrated all existing Appropos software into Envoy in order to provide a consistent and seamless B2B user experience for both iPad and web.
That same year also saw the introduction of Volta, the creative services arm of Appropos, which provides reliable, quality product photography and digital catalog production for our clients. Prior to Volta, clients were finding it increasingly difficult to manage their product photography. They were consistently missing internal deadlines, leading to upwards of 50% of their products missing imagery in their B2B system. Volta developed a scalable system that is able to satisfy not only our client’s high-volume photography needs but to also create digital product catalogs for the Envoy platform.
Envoy is currently used around the world by tens of thousands of people across various sales, marketing, back office, and IT roles. It has been implemented by footwear and apparel manufacturers on an international level, with millions of dollars in transactions flowing through Envoy every day.
The end of 2015 saw the opening of our first overseas support office in Munich, Germany, with plans for expansion of those services on a global level.
Growth in the footwear and apparel market continues to snowball as each new client brings new opportunities and Envoy continues to become synonymous with success in B2B. From our humble beginnings as 7 partners making digital catalogs together around one giant table, to an international company that employs 22 people, Appropos has created a product that is defining B2B sales for the future on a global scale.
