Most retailers, who have had some experience with running an online business as an adjunct to their traditional retail operations, quickly discover that it’s a lot harder to manage than originally anticipated.
This is primarily due to the administrative and operational ‘time’ required to manage the web business successfully. It is therefore critical that you have an appropriate operations system in place, over and above having a ‘pretty’ website. Using a basic ‘online shopping cart’ will create more problems than it will provide benefits.
The good news is, the Retail Express Webstore is designed for retailers – and offers a complete operational system to overcome the challenges, allowing you every opportunity for success! It’s the perfect Online Store Software for retail businesses!
Unlike most websites, the Retail Express WebStore ( Online Store Software ) is completely integrated with your retail operations and back-office. Your warehouse and in-store inventory is dynamically live with your online WebStore, hence preventing over-sells and reducing administration.
The table below outlines the primary differences between using Retail Express to manage your in-store and online Webstore, versus using a separate ‘Shopping Cart’ system as an ‘add-on’ to your existing retail stock control / POS system:
Retail Express WebStore |
A ‘Typical’ WebSite / Shopping Cart |
Putting Stock on your Web Site
Uploading inventory to your WebStore is automated. As you send and ‘receive’ stock to your stores, the inventory appears live on your WebStore automatically.
|
Putting Stock on your Web Site
You need to manually spend time uploading stock live to your shopping cart. This can take many, many hours per month. |
Updating your Stock Levels
The stock levels displayed on your WebStore are updated automatically, and in real-time.
If you sell an item in-store, it counts down online in real time, and vice versa. |
Updating your Stock Levels
The stock levels must be constantly updated on your website, manually. This takes large amounts of time to administrate.
Furthermore, if you over-sell an item to an online customer – this can create significant customer service issues for your business & brand. |
Customer Order Management
When you get a customer order online, the sales order appears in your central ‘sales report’ area – the same location where your in-store sales occur.
It’s therefore all centralised and easy to manage. |
Customer Order Management
Online sales are separate form your in-store POS system, so you would need to manually re-key, or re-enter the sales manually into your POS or accounting system.
This can take many hours each month. |
Customer Database
Your customer database is centralised. All customers and transactions can be reported upon, and retrieved from one central database (both in-store, and online) |
Customer Database
You end up having to manage a separate database for online customers versus in-store customers – which becomes an administrative and marketing issue for you as your business grows. |
Logistics
There are many warehouse logistics functions that need to run smoothly, such as automated emails to customers, ‘picking slips’ for your warehouse staff, and the ‘dispatch’ of your inventory to your online customers.
These functions are easily handled within Retail Express. |
Logistics
Since your website shopping cart system is separate from your main retail operations stock control system – then there is no integration with your warehouse logistics.
This becomes very difficult to manage. |
 |
Display your entire product range professionally online |
|
Increase total sales and repeat business |
|
Increase store traffic and geographic reach |
|
Draw existing customers back in-store via customised e-catalogue promotions |
|
Promote special items (discounted and slow moving stock) |
|
Enable sales when your staff are ‘offline’ (while your asleep, or when phones are unanswered during to peak retail traffic periods) |
|
Dynamically controlled navigational structure to cater for 1 to 10,000 products. Create a Department, Category or Sub Category within seconds |
|
Invoices and Order Confirmations are automatically generated and sent to customers. Stock is then counted down live within your master stock control (in-store, warehouses, etc) |
|
When you dispatch stock from your warehouse, customers are advised automatically via email of their shipping details. |
|
Customisable ‘welcome messages’ on each page, and scrolling tickers to promote special offers |
|
Customer History is recorded for future reference & reporting |
|
Dynamically create ‘Quick Links’ on your site, such as ‘About Us’ Delivery info, Payment Options, etc |
|
Mass upload of stock and images is simple |
|
‘Featured Product’ advertisements are easily added to your Departmental home pages |
|
Flexible pricing controls for online & in-store |
|
Smart search feature allows customers to quickly find the product they want |
|
eCatalogues can be customised and emailed to your entire database at scheduled times and dates |
|
Secure Online Check-out process |
|
And much more… |
If you want to improve any of the following areas in your business, then Retail Express offers a comprehensive and practical solution:
