New enhancements available to dealers
By Gary Evans -- Furniture Today, May 25, 2009
HIGH POINT — The economy has put the squeeze on spending, but retail technology companies are squeezing back with new solutions for helping retailers eke out higher margins and improved efficiencies.
Here are some of the newest innovations, enhancements and additions shown to dealers at the recent High Point Market.
Storis
Red Prairie Certification: Users of Storis Vision R8.6 can now interface with the Red Prairie WMS system to enhance warehouse management capabilities. Customers can utilize warehouse management tools that provide improved workload potential and efficiency.
Accounts Payable: Storis has redesigned this product to provide retailers with a fully integrated, real-time payables processing solution within the Storis Visions R8 Windows interface. The company said the revamped product takes the power foundation of its Release 7 application and combines it with the advanced technology of its new R8.6 release. Options allow organizations to process invoices en masse or in a quick payment option. Bills can be paid using customized checks created in the company's Forms Designer or posted against a credit card. Also included is a fully integrated bank reconciliation feature.
Third Party Interface with Vertex and CCH: This new interface offers the ability to communicate with vendors, helping retailers streamline their tax process. According to the company, this interface will transmit order/invoice information to Vertex or CCH, which will then provide the proper tax jurisdiction and amounts.
“Multi-Lingual” User Experience: R8.6's intuitive process allows users to quickly import translated text into screen presentations and files in English, Spanish, French and other languages.
Floor Designer: Storis has enhanced features in its Forms Designer to allow retailers to create customized floor tags, bar code labels for inventory and point-of-sale scanning, self-service tags and more. This integrated capability allows users to heighten a business's brand awareness, increase accuracy and efficiency from the point of receipt to the point of sale, and provide customers with accurate product information.
Myriad Software
Software as a Service (SaaS): Myriad is adding SaaS, also known as Cloud computing, to its repertoire. The company says this is an opportunity for furniture retailers to be free of the worry of purchasing hardware, making sure backups are done, updating their operating system, etc. And when users are away from their businesses, they can access their operations through any computer with an Internet connection.
The company said SaaS takes away all the focus on system requirements, updating network products, ensuring that they have good backups, and making sure that if there is a hardware glitch, they are moved to another safe environment in a seamless manner.
Crowley said the service is in beta testing with one of Myriad's clients, with a small group that also will follow in beta within the next 30 to 60 days. The service will then be offered to other clients and prospects in September at the Las Vegas Market. “It's not for everyone, but it will certainly be a great option for the small and medium-sized furniture retailers who are looking for a quick and inexpensive solution,” said company President Carolyn Crowley.
Profitsystems
The company's flagship product is its enterprise software, Profitprofessional, a fully integrated point-of-sale, customer relationship management, sales management, and inventory management and accounting package for the home goods retailer. The company said its software exceeds the operational and marketing needs of retailers of any size.
Inventory Management: The company says that inventory management is the primary means by which a retailer can increase a store's profitability. Profitprofessional's regularly updated tools provide efficient receiving, storing, tracking, counting, transferring and delivery of merchandise, but also evaluate which items are the most profitable (by GMROI) and in the highest demand.
It then forecasts future sales based on numerous tracked variables. Retailers increase profitability by keeping the best sellers in stock and reducing their inventory of slow movers through an automated markdown process. As a way to track inventory, the company's radio-frequency bar coding provides instantaneous receiving, transferring, picking and counting of inventory, as well as on-the-sales-floor and shopping cart capability.
Customer Relationship Management: The latest version provides tools to leverage every customer contact toward the goal of increasing sales. Among these tools are an up-board, salesperson activity calendar, automated follow-up letters, e-mail capability, traffic counting and reports to help the retailer make decisions on marketing and advertising strategies.
Sales Management: The latest tools include sales goals and performance reports, salesperson effectiveness reports, close ratios with comparison against team averages, time management reports and integrated internal communications. Retailers can monitor which salespeople have the highest revenue per opportunity, which categories of merchandise they excel at selling, and when they require extra training. Improvements to point-of-sale and integrated accounting technology also were explained in High Point.
Profitprofessional is available to be installed on the traditional in-store PC network and also is available on the Internet for subscription use. The software-as-a-service model enables minimal cost of entry and accelerated implementation.
ViewIT Technologies
3D Room Designer: Uses the same core technology as 3Dream.net but is even easier for the consumer to use. This technology gives the consumer the ability to create and decorate her own spaces in live, navigable 3D.
Pre-designed room scenes can be opened and modified, and items can be added or deleted or re-sized according to the user's requirements. Or, the consumer can use basic room shape templates to create her own specific layout. The company said the product can be a lead generator for the retailer and is more visual and emotionally attaching than two-dimensional. Also, consumers can begin the sales process online and share room designs with the partner store to receive design assistance and store-specific personalized sales proposals. ViewIT adds that the 3D tool is “addictive” so users will visit often and for long periods, giving the retailer multiple opportunities to promote products or services on its Web site around the 3D design window.
The ViewIT 3D Room Designer can be linked to any Web site starting at $495 per month.
Icovia
Design Edition: Icovia broadened its appeal to the high-end interior design market at the High Point Market with the latest version of Icovia Design Edition, its interactive online room-planning solution. Henredon and Hickory Chair are suppliers of the first products that Icovia is making available through this software. For the first time, the company said designers will be able to virtually furnish spaces using products from manufacturers that include specifications as well as photos and links to manufacturers' Web sites.
This software also includes thousands of generic home furnishings symbols that can be easily customized by designers to create their own products. Once a manufacturer's product is integrated with Icovia Design Edition, designers can work with them in the context of a floor plan or elevation view plan, and the result can be printed, e-mailed or embedded on a Web page or blog to share with customers.
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