Celerant Technology Corp is offering anticipates further enhancements to its existing omni-channel retail solutions in eCommerce, mCommerce, and mobile solutions.
“During this past year, we have laid the groundwork for omni-channel retailing with the introduction of new mobile technology, vertical-specific interfaces and even standalone applications that do not require a wireless connection,” said Ian Goldman, CEO of Celerant. “Celerant’s integrated system will provide retailers with greater flexibility and efficiency in selling and fulfilling across multiple channels and locations and thereby increasing their earning potential.”
Celerant’s new web-based, complete system, Stratus Retail, which was unveiled at the NRF Show, as well as several Command Mobile and standalone inventory applications, including mobile POS, price check, physical inventory, transfers, purchase order entry and receiving, enable retailers to manage their business from anywhere in the store, and from almost any location. Celerant also introduced catalog interfaces with a wide, and continuously increasing, range of vendors for any vertical, including bicycle, sporting goods, firearms and more.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
PayPal Streamlines Online Checkout, Expands Mobile Payments
While PayPal announced Beacon last September to support hands-free
mobile payments for in-store shoppers, it has also recently improved its legacy online business.
According to mCommerce Daily, "Now when people select the 'pay With PayPal' option at checkout from an online store, the entire process of logging in and entering billing or other information takes place on the retailer’s site, instead of having to first go to a PayPal page."
“In addition, merchants only need to do one integration to get the same seamless checkout experience on a computer, tablet, or smartphone,” according to Don Kingsborough, VP, retail services, PayPal, in a blog post announcing the upgrade and other developments. PayPal is testing the updated checkout system with selected partners and will make it generally available to large online merchants in the first half of 2014, then roll out to small and medium-sized businesses.
Later this year the company will also allow customers to log into a retail site with their PayPal ID to further speed up checkout.
“If you are logged in and check out, all of your shipping, preferences and payment information is automatically populated. All you need to do is click the checkout button and you're done,” stated Kingsborough. Notes mCommerce Daily, "That’s similar to the 'Login and Pay with Amazon' service ... introduced in October to let people make purchases on other sites using their Amazon credentials."
"PayPal also announced the expansion of Payment Code, a new capability it recently debuted that lets shoppers use a scannable QR code or four-digit short code to pay in-store via PayPal’s smartphone app. Already available at 1,500 locations in the U.K., the service will extend to many merchants using the MICROS and Discover point-of-sale (POS) systems starting in February."
Regarding Beacon, PayPal's Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)-powered system for physical stores that lets PayPal app users automatically check in and pay at retail locations, Kingsborough said the company is testing Beacon at few merchant locations in the U.S. and Australia, with more soon joining the trial in the U.K., Canada, France and Germany, with integration into the PayPal app expected early this year.
According to mCommerce Daily, "Now when people select the 'pay With PayPal' option at checkout from an online store, the entire process of logging in and entering billing or other information takes place on the retailer’s site, instead of having to first go to a PayPal page."
“In addition, merchants only need to do one integration to get the same seamless checkout experience on a computer, tablet, or smartphone,” according to Don Kingsborough, VP, retail services, PayPal, in a blog post announcing the upgrade and other developments. PayPal is testing the updated checkout system with selected partners and will make it generally available to large online merchants in the first half of 2014, then roll out to small and medium-sized businesses.
Later this year the company will also allow customers to log into a retail site with their PayPal ID to further speed up checkout.
“If you are logged in and check out, all of your shipping, preferences and payment information is automatically populated. All you need to do is click the checkout button and you're done,” stated Kingsborough. Notes mCommerce Daily, "That’s similar to the 'Login and Pay with Amazon' service ... introduced in October to let people make purchases on other sites using their Amazon credentials."
"PayPal also announced the expansion of Payment Code, a new capability it recently debuted that lets shoppers use a scannable QR code or four-digit short code to pay in-store via PayPal’s smartphone app. Already available at 1,500 locations in the U.K., the service will extend to many merchants using the MICROS and Discover point-of-sale (POS) systems starting in February."
Regarding Beacon, PayPal's Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)-powered system for physical stores that lets PayPal app users automatically check in and pay at retail locations, Kingsborough said the company is testing Beacon at few merchant locations in the U.S. and Australia, with more soon joining the trial in the U.K., Canada, France and Germany, with integration into the PayPal app expected early this year.
Friday, January 03, 2014
ShopSocially Adds A/B Testing Component
In an article by Calvin Azuri, TMCnet Contributor on the Five9 Outbound Call Center site, ShopSocially announced that the company has added an A/B Testing component
to its eCommerce platform, which will enable retailers to measure the
impact on specific metrics such as sales conversion and revenue
generation from onsite social commerce modules added to their
eCommerce Websites. "The move is a big leap towards addressing the challenge of
quantifying the social commerce impact into tangible benefits," notes Azuri.
ShopSocially’s A/B Testing framework allows retailers to strategically channel Web traffic, routing some users to social commerce campaigns and not routing the other users. This will enable the retailer to measure the impact from the social commerce campaign, since all other aspects remain unchanged (a true A/B test). Retailers can also use the A/B Testing framework to route users to various versions of a social commerce campaign to measure the impact of different commercials.
ShopSocially’s A/B Testing framework allows retailers to strategically channel Web traffic, routing some users to social commerce campaigns and not routing the other users. This will enable the retailer to measure the impact from the social commerce campaign, since all other aspects remain unchanged (a true A/B test). Retailers can also use the A/B Testing framework to route users to various versions of a social commerce campaign to measure the impact of different commercials.
Thursday, January 02, 2014
Staples Wins Supply Chain Innovation Award With Smart Packaging
With excessive packaging as the top complaint of customers, Staples found a technology that created the right size box for every item shipped from its eCommerce centers, reports SupplyChainBrain.
With Packsize's On Demand Packaging technology, boxes are now customized for each order through an integration of systems, equipment and processes. As a result, they have reduced percent of occurage by more than 15 percent, benefited from approximately 60 percent reduction in air bags and reduced break-pack cube by about 20-percent. Overall, there was roughly an 8-percent improvement in overall cube of orders. Plus, 74 percent of Staples workers say the solution has made their job easier.
Each day, SupplyChainBrain reports, Staples ships 650,000 - 1,000,000 cases from its U.S. fulfillment centers, operating under well-tuned logistics system that guarantees any order placed before 5 p.m. will be delivered the next day to 96 percent of the population. Approximately 40 percent of these cases are less-than-full-case orders. These so-called break-pack orders have traditionally been picked into 7 to 14 different sizes of corrugated box types with the system selecting the best-fit box type based on the dimensions of the items in the order. Nevertheless, almost 40 percent of the cube is wasted.
When Staples first considered the viability of the Packsize system, a major requirement was the solution’s ability to keep pace with the parameters of Staples’ current order cycle times. “We could not reduce Staples’ ability to meet its customer service in any way,” says Kiessner. “One of the primary challenges was the total speed.”
"With delivery time sacrosanct," says SupplyChainBrain, "Packsize officials adapted their technology to interface with Staples’ order management system to automatically calculate via an advanced algorithm the optimal box size for every incoming order and route it to the proper fulfillment center and the most suitable machine at that center."
Click HERE to read how the On Demand Packsize technology works in practice.
With Packsize's On Demand Packaging technology, boxes are now customized for each order through an integration of systems, equipment and processes. As a result, they have reduced percent of occurage by more than 15 percent, benefited from approximately 60 percent reduction in air bags and reduced break-pack cube by about 20-percent. Overall, there was roughly an 8-percent improvement in overall cube of orders. Plus, 74 percent of Staples workers say the solution has made their job easier.
Each day, SupplyChainBrain reports, Staples ships 650,000 - 1,000,000 cases from its U.S. fulfillment centers, operating under well-tuned logistics system that guarantees any order placed before 5 p.m. will be delivered the next day to 96 percent of the population. Approximately 40 percent of these cases are less-than-full-case orders. These so-called break-pack orders have traditionally been picked into 7 to 14 different sizes of corrugated box types with the system selecting the best-fit box type based on the dimensions of the items in the order. Nevertheless, almost 40 percent of the cube is wasted.
When Staples first considered the viability of the Packsize system, a major requirement was the solution’s ability to keep pace with the parameters of Staples’ current order cycle times. “We could not reduce Staples’ ability to meet its customer service in any way,” says Kiessner. “One of the primary challenges was the total speed.”
"With delivery time sacrosanct," says SupplyChainBrain, "Packsize officials adapted their technology to interface with Staples’ order management system to automatically calculate via an advanced algorithm the optimal box size for every incoming order and route it to the proper fulfillment center and the most suitable machine at that center."
Click HERE to read how the On Demand Packsize technology works in practice.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Core Tech Moving
Starting Monday, December 30, Core Tech, the vendor of Mailware Multi Channel Manager, will be moving to larger quarters at 1245 Pearl St. #212, Boulder, CO 80302 (866-624-5927).
Monday, December 09, 2013
House Passes Innovation Act To Squash Patent Trolls
The House of Representatives voted 325-91 on Dec. 5 in favor of the
Innovation Act, which will limit activities of non-practicing
entities (NPEs) that stockpile patents in order to file
frivolous lawsuits looking to extort grievous settlements from hapless users.
Direct mail and marketing tech companies have been frequent victims of these NPEs, reports Direct Marketing News. Click HERE for more details.
This has been a pet peeve of mine since the 1990s, and I'm delighted to see this legislation pass the House. Now on to the Senate!
Direct mail and marketing tech companies have been frequent victims of these NPEs, reports Direct Marketing News. Click HERE for more details.
This has been a pet peeve of mine since the 1990s, and I'm delighted to see this legislation pass the House. Now on to the Senate!
Monday, December 02, 2013
Supreme Court Declines Case Re Making Online Retailers Collect Sales Taxes
The Supreme Court today declined to interfere in state efforts to
force online retailers to collect sales tax from
customers even in places where the companies do not have a physical
presence, or "nexus."
The case involved a decision by New York’s highest court to uphold that state’s 2008 law requiring sales tax collections. Amazon has no offices, distribution centers or workforce in New York, but the New York Court of Appeals said Amazon’s relationship with third-party affiliates in the state that receive commissions for sending it Web traffic satisfied the “substantial nexus” necessary to force the company to collect taxes.
The Quill Case
It has been 20 years since the Supreme Court ruled in Quill v. North Dakota that a state’s efforts to require tax collections from out-of-state companies violated the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. It said the necessary “substantial nexus” exists when the out-of-state retailer has a “physical presence” in the state.
But that decision came before the advent of eCommerce, and the New York court said the old test may now be outdated. “An entity may now have a profound impact upon a foreign jurisdiction solely through its virtual projection via the Internet,” the court ruled.
Patchwork
As noted in The Washington Post, online retailers complained that a patchwork of state laws and conflicting lower court decisions needed the Supreme Court’s attention. The Supreme Court’s Quill decision said Congress was in a better position than the court to provide uniformity in state tax collection requirements, but there has been little progress.
The Senate in the spring passed the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013, which requires companies that surpass $1 million in Internet sales outside the states where they are located to collect every state’s sales tax, but the future of the bill is uncertain in the House.
The case involved a decision by New York’s highest court to uphold that state’s 2008 law requiring sales tax collections. Amazon has no offices, distribution centers or workforce in New York, but the New York Court of Appeals said Amazon’s relationship with third-party affiliates in the state that receive commissions for sending it Web traffic satisfied the “substantial nexus” necessary to force the company to collect taxes.
The Quill Case
It has been 20 years since the Supreme Court ruled in Quill v. North Dakota that a state’s efforts to require tax collections from out-of-state companies violated the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. It said the necessary “substantial nexus” exists when the out-of-state retailer has a “physical presence” in the state.
But that decision came before the advent of eCommerce, and the New York court said the old test may now be outdated. “An entity may now have a profound impact upon a foreign jurisdiction solely through its virtual projection via the Internet,” the court ruled.
Patchwork
As noted in The Washington Post, online retailers complained that a patchwork of state laws and conflicting lower court decisions needed the Supreme Court’s attention. The Supreme Court’s Quill decision said Congress was in a better position than the court to provide uniformity in state tax collection requirements, but there has been little progress.
The Senate in the spring passed the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013, which requires companies that surpass $1 million in Internet sales outside the states where they are located to collect every state’s sales tax, but the future of the bill is uncertain in the House.
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