An article on Tech Crunch sums up the Forrester Research forecast that ecommerce sales in the US will continue to grow at a 10 percent compound rate through 2014 to nearly $250 billion (up from 2009’s $155 billion).

With a predicted 8 percent of all retail sales being conducted online by 2014, what does that mean to retailers that do not have a web presence?  How will this effect your current sales channels?

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New Reporting Format in Next Software Update

by Grant Kegley on March 1, 2010

CP Tech customers that are currently using the DistributionPlus software will soon be getting an update in the software.  One change included in the update will be in the reporting: both in the functionality and the way that you can view it (the update will include a new browse to view your reports).  There is a new report view whereby you can see the report similar to how you would review a report in Microsoft Excel, or any other spreadsheet program.  In the report view, the heading column is static and stays at the top as you scroll through your data, so you always know the particular heading of the column that you are looking at.  Here is a screen image in the report view:

sample report

Sample Report in Report View. Click on the image to see a larger view.

The benefits of the new reporting function include:

  1. A Cleaner look. The new browse gives you a report view and takes out the report banner that you see at the top of the reports now (although you can still see it if you want to as the report view can be toggled on or off).
  2. Static headers. As you scroll through the data in the body of your report, the headers stay anchored at the top of your view.
  3. Easier to Navigate. The commands are shown at the bottom of the page (as buttons).
  4. Prints to multiple destinations. If you choose to, you can have the report “print” to multiple locations (different printers, email, browse, or fax) all on the same print command.
  5. More search control. When you choose to search for an item within the report, a small search window appears with a search box and search commands.  All search commands are included in the search window.
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Is Your Website Credible?

February 11, 2010

With so much online scamming happening on today’s internet, how do you know visitors to your website or, more importantly, ecommerce site feel comfortable doing business with you?  Unless your visitors have come to you from some sort of listing that also may grade your business based on customer feedback (example: Google Products), they may [...]

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This Month’s “Customer Who Gets It”

February 3, 2010

I recently received a newsletter from a vendor that we use for some of our online marketing.  This was their “inaugural newsletter”.  I do applaud them for starting a newsletter to communicate to customers.
One of the three articles posted in the newsletter was titled, “This Month’s Customer Who ‘Gets It’”.  Even though it was never [...]

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Proctor and Gamble Opens Online Store for Testing

January 26, 2010

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According to an article on internetretailer.com, Proctor and Gamble has
announced that it will launch a online retail web site in late 1st or early 2nd quarter this year.
The article goes on to say that Proctor and Gamble is doing this to see how consumers interact with their products online, and that they [...]

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What Will You Do in 2010?

January 11, 2010

About a year ago, with the economy the way it was, the message  from many business gurus was to nurture relationships with your current customers, and rely on them for additional business. So what will you do in 2010?
Be Creative
The poor economy, whether in the past or still current (depending on [...]

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USPS Flat Rate Shipping for Your Business

December 23, 2009

If your business is a distribution center, much of what you do ultimately ends up in your shipping area to be sent out to your customers.  Many distribution centers primarily use either UPS or Federal Express to ship their packages. You have probably seen the commercials from USPS showing how easy [...]

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What Matters Now

December 16, 2009

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Being in the Marketing profession, I follow many notable marketing professionals through books, blogs, or websites. One of them that I follow is Seth Godin.  In one of his recent blogs, rather than some new idea or thought for the day, he had a free ebook that [...]

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Runnning Your Business in the Cloud

September 2, 2009

Yesterday, the web giant, Google, had the misfortune of their Gmail (Google’s online email service) servers going down for approximately two hours.  Evidently, they had taken down a small percentage of their servers for routine maintenance, but the demand on the rest of the servers was too great, shutting down the [...]

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Seminar or Webinar?

August 19, 2009

You have most likely been to a seminar of some sort, where you go to learn something new or or find out about the latest offering from some organization.  You go to a conference room at a hotel, or maybe it’s a multiple day conference with several seminars sprinkled in the agenda.
Once [...]

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