Sanderson, the publicly-owned provider of multichannel retail software, has implemented its Elucid system at Beaverbrooks the Jewellers in the UK. The new system streamlines and improves operations at Beaverbrooks’s Direct business, incorporating Mail Order and Online Sales, offering faster delivery, and enhancing customer service. It also strengthens sales and marketing capabilities across the business by combining and exploiting data from all sales channels to support Beaverbrooks’s multichannel strategy.
Beaverbrooks has grown to be a true multichannel business, employing over 800 people, with 66 UK stores, an established Mail Order division, and a thriving Online channel, reports Sanderson. The Elucid system processes and fulfills all Mail Order and Online sales, increasing the number of orders dispatched per day, providing real-time inventory levels with improved stock control, and driving warehouse efficiency.
Positioned as the central hub between retail stores, head office operations, and online sales, Elucid integrates with existing retail and eCommerce systems and presents consolidated data from all sales channels. Beaverbrooks is also benefiting from improved customer data collection via Elucid CRM, which is enabling better customer profiling, targeting and buyer behavior analysis.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
MNP Debuts StoreActive iPad Ordering Platform
Direct Commerce systems vendor MNP Media, Salisbury, UK, has announced the completion of a contract to provide Soletrader, a leading UK-based shoe retailer, with StoreActive, an integrated in-store iPad ordering solution and the newest addition to MNP's ActiveSeries.
Soletrader, which has a network of 50+ stores throughout the UK selling fashionable shoes to young men and women at value prices, prides itself on its ability to constantly and rapidly evolve its product offerings. Beyond its retail network, Soletrader has also developed a highly effective direct operation with extensive online trading.
The company determined that when a customer could not find their size in a store, shop assistants advised the customer to go online, which can also lead to loss of the sale. But if the retailer could capture the sale and fulfil the order a day or two later, the customer expectations could be managed and brand loyalty continued.
StoreActive Makes the Sale
StoreActive, designed to be tablet-independent, links a company's warehouse inventory to all retail locations to ensure all sale opportunities are captured. For SoleTrade, the system allows the sales assistant to search the customer's shoe requirements and place the order against real-time inventory. The customer can then pay via chip-and-pin, with the order shipped direct to home or work and the order record available to the customer online.
In addition the system supports capture of customer details to help build lifetime value from what was originally a transactional retail purchase.
SoleTrader selected MNP based on the vendor's proven track record of high-volume order processing and its experience providing order processing systems for multi-channel clothing retailers, which StoreActive knows first-hand as a user of the OrderActive back-office order management and warehouse management system.
Pierre D’Arbost, Managing Director, MNP Media commented, “Over recent years we have undertaken a lot of development work to ensure that our software can be easily integrated to satisfy the demands of retailers. Our clients have retail challenges that provide MNP with the opportunity to pioneer many ‘direct’ innovations. We are delighted to be partnering with Soletrader and look forward to our continued push into multi-channel retail.”
Soletrader, which has a network of 50+ stores throughout the UK selling fashionable shoes to young men and women at value prices, prides itself on its ability to constantly and rapidly evolve its product offerings. Beyond its retail network, Soletrader has also developed a highly effective direct operation with extensive online trading.
The company determined that when a customer could not find their size in a store, shop assistants advised the customer to go online, which can also lead to loss of the sale. But if the retailer could capture the sale and fulfil the order a day or two later, the customer expectations could be managed and brand loyalty continued.
StoreActive Makes the Sale
StoreActive, designed to be tablet-independent, links a company's warehouse inventory to all retail locations to ensure all sale opportunities are captured. For SoleTrade, the system allows the sales assistant to search the customer's shoe requirements and place the order against real-time inventory. The customer can then pay via chip-and-pin, with the order shipped direct to home or work and the order record available to the customer online.
In addition the system supports capture of customer details to help build lifetime value from what was originally a transactional retail purchase.
SoleTrader selected MNP based on the vendor's proven track record of high-volume order processing and its experience providing order processing systems for multi-channel clothing retailers, which StoreActive knows first-hand as a user of the OrderActive back-office order management and warehouse management system.
Pierre D’Arbost, Managing Director, MNP Media commented, “Over recent years we have undertaken a lot of development work to ensure that our software can be easily integrated to satisfy the demands of retailers. Our clients have retail challenges that provide MNP with the opportunity to pioneer many ‘direct’ innovations. We are delighted to be partnering with Soletrader and look forward to our continued push into multi-channel retail.”
Monday, September 19, 2011
7GeGe.com Launches mComm Site with Digby
7GeGe.com, a leading Chinese specialty retailer of fashionable and
contemporary apparel, has partnered with Digby to launch a mobile
optimized website by year’s
end.
7GeGe.com plans to deliver an engaging mobile shopping experience to millions of young, mobile and fashion-focused consumers. This new mobile initiative allows 7GeGe.com to enhance customer loyalty and gain insight on consumer buying behavior, resulting in a more direct relationship with its customer base through any smartphone, anytime and anywhere.
Through the new 7GeGe.com mobile-optimized website, consumers will be able to easily research and purchase items in as little as 60 seconds. Key features will include: rich product photographs, complete product descriptions, shop by category, store locator, email signup, order tracking, complete site search, ratings and reviews, promotional offers, and email a friend.
7GeGe.com plans to deliver an engaging mobile shopping experience to millions of young, mobile and fashion-focused consumers. This new mobile initiative allows 7GeGe.com to enhance customer loyalty and gain insight on consumer buying behavior, resulting in a more direct relationship with its customer base through any smartphone, anytime and anywhere.
Through the new 7GeGe.com mobile-optimized website, consumers will be able to easily research and purchase items in as little as 60 seconds. Key features will include: rich product photographs, complete product descriptions, shop by category, store locator, email signup, order tracking, complete site search, ratings and reviews, promotional offers, and email a friend.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Urban Decay Launches eComm Site on Demandware
Demandware, Inc., a leader in on-demand eCommerce, has announced that Urban Decay, the largest independently owned color cosmetic company in the United States, has re-launched www.urbandecay.com on the Demandware Commerce platform to support the growth of its online business in the U.S. and into international markets.
Urban Decay was previously running its eCommerce operations on an antiquated legacy platform that required manual intervention to process even basic orders. The system also lacked the flexibility marketers needed to change or upload content on-the-fly. As a result, the company depended on its internal IT staff to make all changes to the site, limiting its ability to introduce new products and promotions quickly and effectively.
With the Demandware Commerce platform, Urban Decay marketers now have complete control over merchandising promotions, catalog, pricing and all other aspects of the shopping experience. In addition, Demandware’s on-demand model eliminates the need to source and maintain costly IT infrastructure for eCommerce, and provides seamless, automatic upgrades containing new functionality to enable ongoing site innovation.
Urban Decay is also building a mobile commerce storefront leveraging the Demandware Commerce platform.
The new eCommerce site, implemented by Precision Design Studios, offers consumers an inside look at color palettes and product finishes. Social engagement tools, including ratings and review capabilities and photo and video uploading, help Urban Decay connect and build stronger relationships with customers.
Urban Decay also took advantage of several pre-built integrations to third-party technologies available through the Demandware LINK Marketplace. These integrations include Bazaarvoice for ratings and reviews, Paypal for regular and express checkout payments, and Avalara for sales tax management. Several more integrations are planned as the company grows and expands internationally.
Urban Decay was previously running its eCommerce operations on an antiquated legacy platform that required manual intervention to process even basic orders. The system also lacked the flexibility marketers needed to change or upload content on-the-fly. As a result, the company depended on its internal IT staff to make all changes to the site, limiting its ability to introduce new products and promotions quickly and effectively.
With the Demandware Commerce platform, Urban Decay marketers now have complete control over merchandising promotions, catalog, pricing and all other aspects of the shopping experience. In addition, Demandware’s on-demand model eliminates the need to source and maintain costly IT infrastructure for eCommerce, and provides seamless, automatic upgrades containing new functionality to enable ongoing site innovation.
Urban Decay is also building a mobile commerce storefront leveraging the Demandware Commerce platform.
The new eCommerce site, implemented by Precision Design Studios, offers consumers an inside look at color palettes and product finishes. Social engagement tools, including ratings and review capabilities and photo and video uploading, help Urban Decay connect and build stronger relationships with customers.
Urban Decay also took advantage of several pre-built integrations to third-party technologies available through the Demandware LINK Marketplace. These integrations include Bazaarvoice for ratings and reviews, Paypal for regular and express checkout payments, and Avalara for sales tax management. Several more integrations are planned as the company grows and expands internationally.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
Online Sales Tax Collection Forecast: Murky With A Chance of Fudgeballs
The state of California has agreed to a compromise deal with Amazon.com that postpones collection of sales taxes on sales to Amazon customers in California until late next year. In the interim, Amazon and a coalition of other etailers have until July 31, 2012, to lobby Congress to pass legislation authorizing states to collect sales taxes for online sales, regardless of nexus (and thus overturning the 1992 Quill Corp. vs. N. Dakota ruling of The Supreme Court that precluded taxation for sales made to a Ship-To address in a state where the merchant has no presence or "nexus."). If Congress does pass that legislation, the deal with Amazon is that it won't have to collect sales taxes for California shipments until January 2013. Otherwise, they will have to start paying the sales tax in September 2012.
This may also moot a series of political and court battles on this issue that have been pursued over the last few years in New York, Illinois, Connecticut, Rhode Island, North Carolina, Arkansas and Colorado.
Complicated enough? Well, it gets worse. Illinois recently passed an online sales tax law that sets the rate for the sales tax as the location in Illinois where the order is processed, not the delivery location. If the merchant has no nexus in Illinois at all, then the standard state tax rate of 6.25% is due, but within Illinois, there are different tax rates for each county and municipality. In fact, the rate is 0% in some locations: so obviously some large "processing center" is going to locate there and offer to do third-party processing for any out-of-state direct merchants who want to avoid Illinois sales tax. But more to the point, since it is difficult to determine where the processing location might be -- and impossible for the consumer, in most cases -- this seems like the most bizarre piece of tax legislation out there. Just for starters, the "processing center" could be the location of the server on which the order processing system is running, or the credit card processor handling the transaction, or the credit card issuer authorizing the transaction, and so on, with other possible links in the processing chain. And this doesn't even account for mirrored servers in multiple locations that are often necessary to guarantee up-time for the processing service.
This is sheer madness, whether it's California playing a calendar game, the merchants courting Congress for legislative favors, or Illinois pretending that there is a physical cash register somewhere ringing up online sales. And it seems like there is no obvious way to stop this insanity. So fasten your seat belts. We're all in for a very bumpy ride!
This may also moot a series of political and court battles on this issue that have been pursued over the last few years in New York, Illinois, Connecticut, Rhode Island, North Carolina, Arkansas and Colorado.
Complicated enough? Well, it gets worse. Illinois recently passed an online sales tax law that sets the rate for the sales tax as the location in Illinois where the order is processed, not the delivery location. If the merchant has no nexus in Illinois at all, then the standard state tax rate of 6.25% is due, but within Illinois, there are different tax rates for each county and municipality. In fact, the rate is 0% in some locations: so obviously some large "processing center" is going to locate there and offer to do third-party processing for any out-of-state direct merchants who want to avoid Illinois sales tax. But more to the point, since it is difficult to determine where the processing location might be -- and impossible for the consumer, in most cases -- this seems like the most bizarre piece of tax legislation out there. Just for starters, the "processing center" could be the location of the server on which the order processing system is running, or the credit card processor handling the transaction, or the credit card issuer authorizing the transaction, and so on, with other possible links in the processing chain. And this doesn't even account for mirrored servers in multiple locations that are often necessary to guarantee up-time for the processing service.
HP Clarifies Future Course
Hewlett-Packard has issued a clarification of its future course, which understandably was widely interpreted as "getting out of the PC business" and discontinuing webOS and the TouchPad. Evidently, the only true statement in the foregoing is "discontinuing the TouchPad." As for the PC business, the HP Personal Systems Group (PSG) is alive and well, and "You'll still be able to buy HP PC products and services through our
supply chain partners and online, and you'll continue to receive great
customer service." As for WebOS, it is still alive - "Although HP is winding down the device operations of our webOS division by October 31, 2011, we will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software."
"In a nutshell," the statement concludes, "we expect the new PSG—whatever form that will be—will continue to innovate with high-quality products and services to meet business and consumer needs. HP will continue to focus on innovative cloud solutions and services to help tame the explosive growth of data that our customers are experiencing."
"In a nutshell," the statement concludes, "we expect the new PSG—whatever form that will be—will continue to innovate with high-quality products and services to meet business and consumer needs. HP will continue to focus on innovative cloud solutions and services to help tame the explosive growth of data that our customers are experiencing."
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
IBM Sterling Enables Mobile Modules as iTunes Apps
IBM's Sterling multichannel order management solutions has made a major commitment to the mobile platform and environment. To supplement Sterling's Order Management and Fulfillment Suite the company offers the IBM Sterling InFlight Data Management Mobile to enable B2B integration
teams to search, view, track and monitor data processed through the
Sterling Commerce integration as-a-Service platform and exchanged with
their trading partners via a mobile device. The module is available as a free app in the iTunes store.
Other Sterling Commerce Mobile Commerce apps include:
Sterling Field Sales Mobile
Provides customers using Sterling Order Management timely access to product content, pricing and inventory availability information from a mobile device. This allows sales representatives to quickly and easily respond to customer inquiries from anywhere.
Sterling Order Management Mobile Framework
Provides users of Sterling Order Management with mobile commerce capabilities to build and deploy a branded mobile store presence supporting product search, inventory look-up, product information look-up, order capture and checkout, and order history look-up.
Sterling Store Associate Mobile
Provides users of Sterling Order Management with more choice in how store associates access and use product and inventory availability information to handle customer inquiries and consummate the sale in a retail store setting.
Other Operations-Focused Mobile Applications from Sterling include:
Sterling Control Center Mobile
Provides users of Sterling Control Center with anywhere, anytime, mobile, handheld device access to file transfer system status, exception alerts, and system controls. File transfer support personnel benefit from using mobile access to ensure that decision-critical business information is securely delivered to the people and systems that need it.
Sterling Document Tracking Mobile
Provides users of Sterling Collaboration Network with anywhere, anytime, mobile handheld device access to monitor, search, review and manage document and trading partner activity
Sterling InFlight Data Management Mobile
Provides Users of Sterling B2B Integration as-a-Services products with anywhere, anytime, mobile handheld device access to search, view, track and monitor business critical documents processed by Sterling Commerce and exchanged with their trading partners.
Sterling Integrator Mobile
Enables users of Sterling Integrator to monitor key integration resources anywhere, anytime using their mobile handheld device to ensure that the most time- and content-critical business documents, transactions, and events are successfully exchanged on schedule.
Sterling Order Management Administrator Mobile
Gives users of Sterling Order Management anywhere, anytime access to system response time and performance information from their mobile handheld device to ensure that orders are processed and fulfilled on time.
Sterling TMS Carrier Mobile
Provides carrier users of Sterling Transportation Management System (Sterling TMS) with the ability to manage shipment tender requests between shippers and transportation carriers via a mobile handheld device. This enables carriers to respond immediately to shipment tender requests and report shipment status in real-time.
Other Sterling Commerce Mobile Commerce apps include:
Sterling Field Sales Mobile
Provides customers using Sterling Order Management timely access to product content, pricing and inventory availability information from a mobile device. This allows sales representatives to quickly and easily respond to customer inquiries from anywhere.
Sterling Order Management Mobile Framework
Provides users of Sterling Order Management with mobile commerce capabilities to build and deploy a branded mobile store presence supporting product search, inventory look-up, product information look-up, order capture and checkout, and order history look-up.
Sterling Store Associate Mobile
Provides users of Sterling Order Management with more choice in how store associates access and use product and inventory availability information to handle customer inquiries and consummate the sale in a retail store setting.
Other Operations-Focused Mobile Applications from Sterling include:
Sterling Control Center Mobile
Provides users of Sterling Control Center with anywhere, anytime, mobile, handheld device access to file transfer system status, exception alerts, and system controls. File transfer support personnel benefit from using mobile access to ensure that decision-critical business information is securely delivered to the people and systems that need it.
Sterling Document Tracking Mobile
Provides users of Sterling Collaboration Network with anywhere, anytime, mobile handheld device access to monitor, search, review and manage document and trading partner activity
Sterling InFlight Data Management Mobile
Provides Users of Sterling B2B Integration as-a-Services products with anywhere, anytime, mobile handheld device access to search, view, track and monitor business critical documents processed by Sterling Commerce and exchanged with their trading partners.
Sterling Integrator Mobile
Enables users of Sterling Integrator to monitor key integration resources anywhere, anytime using their mobile handheld device to ensure that the most time- and content-critical business documents, transactions, and events are successfully exchanged on schedule.
Sterling Order Management Administrator Mobile
Gives users of Sterling Order Management anywhere, anytime access to system response time and performance information from their mobile handheld device to ensure that orders are processed and fulfilled on time.
Sterling TMS Carrier Mobile
Provides carrier users of Sterling Transportation Management System (Sterling TMS) with the ability to manage shipment tender requests between shippers and transportation carriers via a mobile handheld device. This enables carriers to respond immediately to shipment tender requests and report shipment status in real-time.
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