Amazon has something to crow about with its Webstore and Fulfillment services -- and it's not shy about doing so.
Blue Harbor, LLC, a seller of cell phone accessories, started using Amazon Services in the third quarter of 2009, two years after setting up business in New Jersey. With the addition of the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Amazon WebStore services, they have seen an unexpected spike in their online sales. According to Anuj Goel of Blue Harbor, "Sales volumes increased on average 40 percent to 65 percent for each product we listed on Amazon.com for fulfillment with FBA. The first spike in sales on Amazon occurred when we won the Buy Box in our category. The second, and perhaps more important, is when we started using FBA."
Goel describes Fulfillment by Amazon as a convenient and powerful tool to boost sales. Getting set up was straightforward and the user interface walked them through the process for listing and shipping inventory to Amazon's fulfillment center. With Amazon handling customer service questions, Blue Harbor can focus more on sourcing and sales of their products.
Blue Harbor finds people shop on Amazon.com because they trust the Amazon brand. They know they will receive their orders when promised; and they like the free Super Saver Shipping and Prime discounted shipping. Being able to offer these benefits to shoppers instills the same level of trust in Blue Harbor making their products all the more appealing.
Blue Harbor is eager to increase their offering through Fulfillment by Amazon. Currently, the cost savings on warehousing and the order processing is marginal. However, they calculate a substantial drop in overhead as they increase the inventory they offer through FBA and decrease the volume they fulfill themselves. Says Goel, "FBA is significantly more potent than we anticipated, it augments our business well, and the benefits far outweigh the costs."
Friday, February 26, 2010
Sterling Integrates Mobile Devices for SCM
Sterling Commerce has developed a pair of new mobile applications that extends the management of business-to-business (B2B) integration to mobile devices for users of its supply chain management solutions.
The Sterling Integrator Mobile and Sterling Control Center Mobile are intended to broaden access and control of the Sterling Business Integration Suite, the vendor’s collaborative tool for B2B integration and managed file transfer. Sterling is now making those capabilities available on the Apple iPhone, extending the management of B2B interactions beyond on-premise control consoles or laptop PCs.
The Sterling Integrator Mobile enables users of Sterling Integrator, a B2B gateway. It monitors key integration resources to ensure the on-schedule exchange of business documents, transactions and events, including purchase orders, acknowledgments, advance shipping notices and shipment-status messages.
Sterling Control Center Mobile gives users of Sterling Control Center a management tool for Sterling Managed File Transfer, a means of ensuring secure data movement. It provides access to file transfer system status, exception alerts and key system controls.
The Sterling Integrator Mobile and Sterling Control Center Mobile are intended to broaden access and control of the Sterling Business Integration Suite, the vendor’s collaborative tool for B2B integration and managed file transfer. Sterling is now making those capabilities available on the Apple iPhone, extending the management of B2B interactions beyond on-premise control consoles or laptop PCs.
The Sterling Integrator Mobile enables users of Sterling Integrator, a B2B gateway. It monitors key integration resources to ensure the on-schedule exchange of business documents, transactions and events, including purchase orders, acknowledgments, advance shipping notices and shipment-status messages.
Sterling Control Center Mobile gives users of Sterling Control Center a management tool for Sterling Managed File Transfer, a means of ensuring secure data movement. It provides access to file transfer system status, exception alerts and key system controls.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Calumet Photographic Selects iCongo eCommerce Platform
Calumet Photographic has selected has selected the iCongo eCommerce Platform as the backbone of its online global presence, because it was designed to meet the complex requirements of multi-national, multi-brand and multi-channel organizations. Calumet will leverage the iCongo eCommerce Platform and marketing suite to launch four country sites from a single platform with different business rules to support each country.
Calumet’s decision to re-platform will result in the organization’s ability to better service its customers with iCongo’s integrated marketing tools, including call center and CRM, e-mail campaign management, polling, surveys and advanced personalization capabilities. The integrated e-mail and CRM ensures that customers and prospects can be more effectively identified and targeted with advanced segmentation and CRM data to determine which promotions will yield the greatest results for each audience.
With more than 40,000 online products, a dedicated rebate center, in-depth education and product resource centers, availability of rental and other equipment through store integration, Calumet set out to find a robust solution that would best manage its highly interactive and customer-centric online channel. "Some of the key drivers in the selection of iCongo’s eCommerce Platform are the solution’s ease in creating complex layered promotions, advanced site search and integrated e-mail campaign management," says Tim Brennan, CTO for Calumet Photographic. "Communications with our customers is critical and we believe the iCongo eCommerce Platform provides us with the infrastructure and toolset needed to continue growing locally and internationally.”
Calumet’s decision to re-platform will result in the organization’s ability to better service its customers with iCongo’s integrated marketing tools, including call center and CRM, e-mail campaign management, polling, surveys and advanced personalization capabilities. The integrated e-mail and CRM ensures that customers and prospects can be more effectively identified and targeted with advanced segmentation and CRM data to determine which promotions will yield the greatest results for each audience.
With more than 40,000 online products, a dedicated rebate center, in-depth education and product resource centers, availability of rental and other equipment through store integration, Calumet set out to find a robust solution that would best manage its highly interactive and customer-centric online channel. "Some of the key drivers in the selection of iCongo’s eCommerce Platform are the solution’s ease in creating complex layered promotions, advanced site search and integrated e-mail campaign management," says Tim Brennan, CTO for Calumet Photographic. "Communications with our customers is critical and we believe the iCongo eCommerce Platform provides us with the infrastructure and toolset needed to continue growing locally and internationally.”
SAP To Consolidate SaaS BI Platform
SAP today announced BusinessObjects BI OnDemand, a major upgrade and consolidation for the vendor's software-as-a-service (SaaS) business intelligence offering, according to Doug Henschen of Intelligent Enterprise.
The new BI OnDemand unites (and replaces) two formerly distinct offerings: CrystalReports.com, the company's simplest and most popular SaaS offering, with hundreds of thousands of users, and the previous version of BI OnDemand, based on the vendor's conventional software.
The new BI OnDemand not only delivers a single, consistent online environment in which to use familiar tools (CrystalReports for reporting, Web Intelligence for query and analysis, Xcelsius for dashboarding and data visualization, and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer for fast, in-memory data analysis), it also provides wizard workflows designed to simplify data access and analysis.
"SAP hopes to be a single source of on-premise and on-demand BI," says Henschen. "Users of conventional Crystal Reports software can already push a button to publish reports on CrystalReports.com. What was missing in today's formal announcement was news that the next major 'Aurora' release of the on-premise BusinessObjects XI platform, which is expected in the second half of this year, will be loaded with data-export and report/visualization publishing options that will link conventional software to the SAP BusinessObjects online services.
"Also missing was detail on the pricing of the new BI OnDemand. CrystalReports.com subscribers and current BI OnDemand customers will be grandfathered into the new service under their current contracts, but they'll gain access to all the tools, wizards and workflows at no additional charge. A free Personal Edition will be limited to 10 MB/2,000 rows of data. An Essential edition will allow up to 2 GB of storage and will be geared to individuals, work groups and departments. An Advanced edition will be aimed at companies that require integration with on-premise data sources, advanced security features, and more storage (up to 5 GB). Add-on features will include hosted data warehouses, a development environment and single sign-on capabilities."
The new BI OnDemand unites (and replaces) two formerly distinct offerings: CrystalReports.com, the company's simplest and most popular SaaS offering, with hundreds of thousands of users, and the previous version of BI OnDemand, based on the vendor's conventional software.
The new BI OnDemand not only delivers a single, consistent online environment in which to use familiar tools (CrystalReports for reporting, Web Intelligence for query and analysis, Xcelsius for dashboarding and data visualization, and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer for fast, in-memory data analysis), it also provides wizard workflows designed to simplify data access and analysis.
"SAP hopes to be a single source of on-premise and on-demand BI," says Henschen. "Users of conventional Crystal Reports software can already push a button to publish reports on CrystalReports.com. What was missing in today's formal announcement was news that the next major 'Aurora' release of the on-premise BusinessObjects XI platform, which is expected in the second half of this year, will be loaded with data-export and report/visualization publishing options that will link conventional software to the SAP BusinessObjects online services.
"Also missing was detail on the pricing of the new BI OnDemand. CrystalReports.com subscribers and current BI OnDemand customers will be grandfathered into the new service under their current contracts, but they'll gain access to all the tools, wizards and workflows at no additional charge. A free Personal Edition will be limited to 10 MB/2,000 rows of data. An Essential edition will allow up to 2 GB of storage and will be geared to individuals, work groups and departments. An Advanced edition will be aimed at companies that require integration with on-premise data sources, advanced security features, and more storage (up to 5 GB). Add-on features will include hosted data warehouses, a development environment and single sign-on capabilities."
Some Slack on PCI-Compliance Audits?
The November 2009 PCI Council guidance provides some idea of how a merchant can be PCI-compliant even if they have missed a quarterly external vulnerability scan, reports StorefrontBacktalk. Specifically, if your QSA believes you met the intent of Requirement 11.2 and your risk has been sufficiently addressed through your overall efforts and practices, the QSA can assess you as compliant even though you did not meet 11.2 exactly as stated (i.e., the four quarterly passing scans)
Those “practices” would be having all your other controls in place as part of your overall vulnerability management, such as timely patching of all systems, conducting internal and external penetration tests whenever there is an application upgrade or infrastructure change, and having your quarterly internal vulnerability scans in place. For good measure, StorefrontBacktalk suggests also implementing an internal procedure so you don’t get in this fix again next year. With this approach, you might just be able to work with your QSA to make the case that you met the spirit and intent of 11.2.
Bear in mind that your acquirer needs to be comfortable with any compensating control because they have to accept your Report on Compliance (ROC) or your Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) if you self-assess.
Those “practices” would be having all your other controls in place as part of your overall vulnerability management, such as timely patching of all systems, conducting internal and external penetration tests whenever there is an application upgrade or infrastructure change, and having your quarterly internal vulnerability scans in place. For good measure, StorefrontBacktalk suggests also implementing an internal procedure so you don’t get in this fix again next year. With this approach, you might just be able to work with your QSA to make the case that you met the spirit and intent of 11.2.
Bear in mind that your acquirer needs to be comfortable with any compensating control because they have to accept your Report on Compliance (ROC) or your Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) if you self-assess.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Panjiva helps businesses search for, vet vendors
CNNMoney.com reports: Josh Green and Jim Psota joined forces in 2006 to launch Panjiva, a company that scours shipping records to help companies learn more about vendors around the world. After a period of trial and error, Green and Psota have developed a search engine for eCommerce that can detect trends about suppliers and products, in addition to providing information about the vendors. Click HERE to read more.
Friedman Corp. Acquires Computer Solutions
Friedman Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Constellation Software Inc., has announced it has acquired Computer Solutions, Inc. (CSI), Miami Lakes, FL, which develops, sells, and supports "ORDER POWER," a fully integrated order management and eCommerce suite for the IBM iSeries, handling order entry, order processing and fulfillment, customer service, warehousing, accounting, and manifesting.
As a result of the purchase, CSI will become part of Constellation’s Friedman Operating Group and will continue to operate as an independent division of Friedman.
Eric Herrmann, Chief Financial Officer of the Friedman Operating group, commented, “The acquisition of CSI is an ideal match for the Friedman Operating Group. CSI has a longstanding and loyal customer base primarily located in the domestic United Sates. We have now extended our reach into the Multi-Channel Merchant and Direct-to-Consumer markets with an established partner. CSI’s expertise in the order management and fulfillment markets will be a wonderful compliment to Friedman’s existing business.”
Ernest Smith, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for CSI stated, “This was an extremely positive acquisition for CSI’s customers and employees. It reinforces our company’s commitment to the IBM iSeries platform and our product suite while provides CSI with the additional stability and strength of partnering with a much larger enterprise.”
About Friedman: Friedman Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Constellation Software. Friedman Corporation develops enterprise computing solutions for the discrete to-order manufacturer. Friedman's advanced multi-platform technology and modular application design support customized enterprise-wide solutions to meet the unique requirements of the discrete to order manufacturer. Friedman's integrated single database architecture supplies the foundation for the manufacturer's e-business, remote dealer systems, and distribution chain.
As a result of the purchase, CSI will become part of Constellation’s Friedman Operating Group and will continue to operate as an independent division of Friedman.
Eric Herrmann, Chief Financial Officer of the Friedman Operating group, commented, “The acquisition of CSI is an ideal match for the Friedman Operating Group. CSI has a longstanding and loyal customer base primarily located in the domestic United Sates. We have now extended our reach into the Multi-Channel Merchant and Direct-to-Consumer markets with an established partner. CSI’s expertise in the order management and fulfillment markets will be a wonderful compliment to Friedman’s existing business.”
Ernest Smith, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for CSI stated, “This was an extremely positive acquisition for CSI’s customers and employees. It reinforces our company’s commitment to the IBM iSeries platform and our product suite while provides CSI with the additional stability and strength of partnering with a much larger enterprise.”
About Friedman: Friedman Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Constellation Software. Friedman Corporation develops enterprise computing solutions for the discrete to-order manufacturer. Friedman's advanced multi-platform technology and modular application design support customized enterprise-wide solutions to meet the unique requirements of the discrete to order manufacturer. Friedman's integrated single database architecture supplies the foundation for the manufacturer's e-business, remote dealer systems, and distribution chain.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
