A fried has an existing retail store doing product sales and service/repairs. They have an extensive web site, plus an online ecommerce shop built using Zen Cart. They currently have an accounting system (CashFlow Manager) but no POS system, stock system or customer management system.
The Zen Cart online shop doesn't integrate with the accounting system. Plus Zen Cart isn't easy to make mobile device friendly and can't properly handle the stock control for the different sizes and colours of stock items. There are currently some 2000 products in Zen Cart, but most of them have colour and size attributes, so it's actually more like 15,000 separate SKUs.
It's time for him to get real and exploit the full benefits that a fully integrated, multi-channel, mobile capable retail setup can deliver to the business.
I figure he needs at least the following elements:
POS System - Fully functional retail POS system that integrates to a stock system and customer system, plus other channels (e.g. Magento web site, eBay and Amazon) and takes EFTPOS payments (e.g. Tyro), plus PayPal payments. Ability to use an iPad or Android tablet as the POS input/display device with Wi-Fi integration to cash drawer, receipt printer (e.g. Epson TM-T88V-i), portable bar code scanner, and portable EFTPOS terminal. Integrate with accounting system (e.g. Xero).
Stock System - Stock control and sales reports for all channels. Handle purchase orders, product management, warehousing, supplier management. When a product sells in any channel (store, online, eBay or Amazon) the other channels are updated accordingly. Ability to use a wireless hand held stock control scanner, or smart phone app, to check and update store and warehouse stock counts.
Customer System - All channels share customer information in a central customer system. Able to create email lists and handle email campaigns. Maybe integrate with the likes of MailChimp.
Magento Integration - Fully integrate a Magento ecommerce web site with the stock system and POS.
Google Product Search Integration - Automatically publish products in Google Shopping results.
Mobile Commerce - Web site fully supports customers with smart phones and tablets. Customers can make online, phone and in store payments using their smart phones and PayPal.
eBay Integration - End to end integration with eBay and the stock system, web site and POS. I think he could sell significantly more if he could easily have complete integration with eBay.
Nice to have:
Amazon Integration - End to end integration with Amazon and the stock system, web site and POS. I figure it will be sooner rather than later that Amazon starts selling in Australia. Similar stores in the UK market do very well via Amazon.
As an example of how I see it working, here is 'A Day in Retail'.
Retailer arrives at shop, turns on computers and POS system.
Retailer logs into stock system and gets a report of online orders that have come in via the web site, eBay and/or Amazon. Pick and pack the orders with receipts ready for dispatch. Customers have paid online using PayPal, or some other merchant facility and funds will transfer to the Commonwealth Bank account.
Customer comes in and purchases a few items. Retailer/assistant uses the POS terminal to process the sale. Customer pays using cash, the EFTPOS terminal using VISA/MasterCard, or PayPal on their smart phone.
Retailer/assistant takes a customer phone call and makes a phone sale. Order entered into the system and the system calculates the Australia Post charges. Customer pays using a credit card, PayPal or direct deposit. Order picked and packed with receipt ready for dispatch.
Assistant arrives and prints off a shop floor replacement report. Then restocks the shop shelves from the warehouse.
Assistant checks for any new online orders, picks and packs them with receipts. Assistant does the early afternoon run to Australia Post.
Assistant checks in new deliveries and prints bar codes for existing stock lines and labels them.
Retailer adds new stock lines to the stock system with pics and descriptions. Then pushes the new items out to the POS system, web site, Amazon and/or eBay as appropriate.
Retailer gets stock reports and places orders with suppliers for new items. Orders sent via email with purchase orders attached.
Retailer adds some slow selling and/or clearance items to the eBay store.
Retailer sends out the fortnightly email to customers which includes some product promotions.
Retailer checks into the accounting system (e.g. Xero). Imports details of POS, phone and online transactions and payments. Imports details of orders received and made. Reconciles all bank transactions. Gets all the key business reports: Trial Balances, P&Ls, Balance Sheets, Debtor and Creditor Analysis are created from the detailed sales data from the other systems.
Platform
I'm extremely keen for the new setup to be as mobile and smart phone friendly as possible for both the retail business, the online channels and the customers.
It would be great if the new PayPal mobile payment service could be used.
I think it's time to move to a cloud based accounting system (e.g. Zero). Possibly cloud based POS/stock/customer system(s) as well.
After quite a bit of research I've failed to come up with any solution that is likely to be able to achieve the key goals. I guess some things like the PayPal mobile payments are too new to be widely supported yet. Plus while a few solutions do integrate POS/stock/customer and an online shop, I haven't found any that might also handle eBay and Amazon as additional channels.
So is there anyone out there already doing anything close to this, or know of something in development that would?
Best regards, Lloyd Borrett.
Last edited by Lloyd Borrett; 13 hours ago at 02:01 PM.
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