Retail and eCommerce highlights this week include: Willies.co.uk which specialises in ice hockey, inline hockey and figure skating equipment, now has implemented Brightpearl’s Retail Operating System (ROS). BigCommerce merchants can now provide exclusive offers and discounts to valuable consumer communities like students, teachers, and the military to drive immediate sales. Catalog Manager is making eCommerce effortless with real-time product updates for online retailers. Aptean to buy Aptos’s planning and product lifecycle management division.
Ice sports equipment retailer sharpens the blades of its operation with Brightpearl
Willies.co.uk, which specialises in ice hockey, inline hockey and figure skating equipment, has implemented Brightpearl’s Retail Operating System (ROS). The platform’s features include an Automation Engine, seamless Plug & Play integrations, its data-rich Inventory Planner Premium and advanced reporting functionality.
With Brightpearl in place as the brand’s central source of truth, the Willies.co.uk team can remove multiple interfaces and spreadsheets. Instead, the company can gain access to integrated, 360-degree visibility across all its channels and locations.
Since 2018, Willies.co.uk has built its status as an expert ice sports equipment retailer. The company offers a broad range of ice skates, hockey sticks, clothing and accessories. In addition to skate sharpening and repair services, to hockey and skating fans via its Shopify website and Coventry-based store.
The brand has grown rapidly in the short years since its launch. The company sought a speedy and reliable ‘centralised hub’ to enable greater visibility over the many separate apps and processes it had accumulated as it grew. The team also needed a solution to its clunky manual operations, consisting largely of manual pick-and-pack processes and meticulous data entry, especially around purchasing, which was sinking valuable time and holding the business back from further growth.
Drawn to its industry-renowned compatibility with Shopify, the team chose Brightpearl’s leading retail operating system (ROS) to bring their multi-channel processes together. It was implemented in a speedy 120 days. Brightpearl’s impressive library of Plug & Play integrations meant it seamlessly synced with the retailer’s existing Shopify setup. It also offers the merchant the means to be hyper-scalable; so it can easily extend to any apps or sales channels it chooses to adopt as it scales.
The team’s cash-flow visibility has been fully optimized with Brightpearl’s advanced reporting functionality. This delivers access to real-time, data-led insights across their entire business. Staff will find it easier to gain visibility around cash flow, sales, purchasing and other key insights, which will enhance real-time decision-making.
SheerID partners with BigCommerce to provide offers and discounts to merchants
SheerID, a global leader in identity marketing, has joined forces with BigCommerce. The strategic partnership will enable tens of thousands of BigCommerce merchants on the BigCommerce platform to easily provide exclusive offers and discounts to consumer communities such as students (globally), the military, teachers, healthcare workers, first-responders, seniors, young-adults, and new movers. These groups represent 70% of the population 18+ in the U.S. and university students in 191 countries.
SheerID is supported by a digital verification engine with access to 20,000 authoritative data sources around the world. The engine instantly verifies eligible customers for exclusive offers. Brands have found that verifying audiences for exclusive offers with SheerID generates three times the conversion of their typical campaigns. In addition to a return on ad spend (ROAS) of 20:1 or higher.
SheerID’s app combines powerful sub-second verification performance, no-code installation, and the following capabilities to help merchants on the BigCommerce platform streamline sales:
- Instant verification of eligible consumers without leaving the website
- Automatic brand and design integration
- BigCommerce promotion engine integration for single-use codes
- Ownership of zero-party data for future marketing and sales
- ROI reporting tracking conversion, revenue and AOV impact
These capabilities allow BigCommerce merchants to verify customers through multiple steps in the customer journey to dramatically impact business today and tomorrow. This includes extending special offers at different times during the shopping experience through a landing page, discounts during checkout, or after registering for a loyalty program.
Catalog Manager is making real-time product updates for online retailers
Catalog Manager is a Product-led-growth model SaaS software that is on a mission to “make eCommerce effortless“. The SaaS product is making waves in the retail world by providing retailers with cleaned, structured, standardised manufacturer catalogues that can be accessed by retailers in several formats tailored for each business. Catalog Manager aims to enable retailers to sync up-to-date catalogues directly onto their online storefronts.
As the global B2B eCommerce industry continues to grow exponentially, online sellers are under immense pressure to keep their websites up to date. The reason is – today, 73.7% of B2B buyers’ research that precedes any purchase begins on an online platform. And a large part of their sales journey happens online across a multitude of online channels with no intervention from the seller.
However, with retailers juggling dozens of product feeds every day from multiple suppliers, manually checking for data accuracy and uploading them to the website in real-time can be a daunting task.
And that’s where Catalog Manager comes into the picture, for it serves to bridge the gap between suppliers and sellers by automating the catalog management process so online retailers can publish consistent, standardised data on their eCommerce portals.
Catalog Manager works by sourcing latest product information from 130+ brands, scrubs the data and pushes it to eCommerce stores of subscribing retailers. All retailers have to do is subscribe for catalog updates to their choice of suppliers, and automatically receive the latest product information to feature on their online stores.
Aptean to buy Aptos’s planning and product lifecycle management division
Aptean and Aptos, a leading provider of retail technology solutions have entered into a definitive agreement through which Aptean will acquire Aptos’ planning and product lifecycle management division. Aptean is a provider of mission-critical enterprise software solutions.
The planned purchase will expand Aptean’s cloud-based software offerings for the apparel, luxury, fashion and specialty retail industries. It will broaden its fashion and apparel footprint. Following the transaction, Aptos will continue its focus on its suite of unified commerce solutions for the retail space. This includes its point of sale, order management, merchandising and other retail-specific applications.
With operations primarily based in Milan, Aptos’ planning division’s software is purpose-built to meet the merchandise planning and design needs of retail brands. Hundreds of established customers, including well-known fashion companies across the globe, rely on Aptos’ planning solutions to anticipate demand, optimise production and make more informed decisions.
Through the transaction, Aptean will acquire the full breadth of operations and the product portfolio of Aptos’ planning division. This consists of solutions for merchandise financial planning (MFP), product lifecycle management (PLM), assortment planning (AP), and allocation, forecasting and replenishment (AFR). The addition of these products will complement Aptean’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) and shop floor control (SFC) offerings for the apparel industry with tools that support the entire apparel merchandise lifecycle from concept to shelf, providing visibility and real-time insights into financial planning, design, purchasing, distribution and delivery. The transaction is expected to close within the fourth quarter of 2022.
