Savage, Minnesota – March 29, 2010 – CP Tech announces its first completely integrated ecommerce customer.  Screen Systems, Inc. now has an ecommerce site for its customers at www.screensystemsonline.com.

The site is administered by Northwest Graphic Supply, the parent company of Screen Systems.  All descriptions and pricing are controlled within the DistributionPlus enterprise system, meaning that Northwest Graphic Supply can make changes without having to call any outside source to make changes.  The whole site is integrated with DistributionPlus – even the shopping cart is integrated into the order entry system in DistributionPlus.  As soon as the site visitor goes to checkout their shopping cart, the order is immediately created in the order entry system in DistributionPlus. All information is in real-time, so stock quantities are automatically adjusted in the inventory and all pricing on the ecommerce site reflects the correct pricing by customer.

In addition, customers can log on to their account and view their order status and order history, which also provides tracking numbers.  This allows for a self-service portal for customers.

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?

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 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.

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 not feel comfortable doing business with you.

The Better Business Bureau has an accredited program, simply called Better Business Bureau Online,  for websites to help in making your site more credible and comfortable for your site visitors.  Their mission, taken from the website, is as follows:

BBBOnLine’s mission is to promote trust and confidence on the Internet. BBBOnLine allows businesses with Web sites to display the BBB Accredited Business seal online following confirmation of their adherence to the BBB Code of Business Practices, including its online standard.

By showing the BBB Online seal (logo) on your site, you are showing your customers that  your business measures up to high standards.

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 stated in the article, the intent of the article was to encourage all of their customers to use the extra services that they offer in order to have better results.  My firsts thought, however, was that everyone else doesn’t “get it”.  Far from the intent of the message.

When communicating with your customers, particularly written communication, it is imperative that your reader (customer) understands the message the way that you intended it to be understood.  Have someone else read it before you send it.  At the very least, put it aside and read it later.  Sometimes after your mind has been on to other things, you can review with a fresh perspective.

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 are not trying to become a retailer, because they are a manufacturer. They are doing this as a “lab” and will be sharing their findings with other online stores (e commerce) that sell P&G products.  It is unknown if the pricing offered by P&G will undercut the prices of other online retailers.

On the surface, it appears that P&G is putting spending into market research that should prove to be beneficial to other online retailers, and I think that’s all it is. Could this become a threat to other online retailers?  Would it make sense for P&G to sell directly to consumers, other than the purpose of this “lab”?

In the big picture, internet sales are a small portion of total P&G sales.  Cutting out distribution and retail channels would not make sense.

Related articles

• P&G opens ‘eStore’ to collect sales data (sfgate.com)
• P&G Tests Online Shop (online.wsj.com)

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 who you listen to), has changed the sales playing field in some markets.  You may have to get the sale in a different manner. Albert Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Be creative at getting the sale; look long-term as well as short-term for you and the customer.

Looking at the bigger picture; go back to the quote from Einstein and ask yourself, does this apply to the way that I run my company?

Engage Your Customer

Engage your customer. Do not engage with your customers for the sole purpose of getting a sale, but rather engage with your customers to increase customer service and enrich the relationship that you have with your customers. Many times, as a byproduct of interacting with your customer, your customers can give you information that an expensive market research campaign can never give you.

Explore Social Media

Use social media to engage with customers and non-customers alike.  Create a LinkedIn account for yourself. Join some LinkedIn groups and network and share ideas. Maybe even start a LinkedIn group of your own.

Start a blog as part of your website.  Blogs can be used for frequent communications with your customers, and news that your customers and readers will find interesting and beneficial.

Other social sites that businesses are currently using include Twitter and Facebook.  With Facebook, you don’t necessarily start a Facebook account for your company, but rather create a “fan” page for your company which allows people with Facebook accounts to “follow” your company and communicate via comments on “the wall ” – the means of communicating with others on Facebook.

Three benefits to all of this interaction on the web that I can immediately think of are:

1. You are engaging in relationship building with customers and others that may become customers.
2. You are creating a brand for you and your company.
3. Search engines, such as Google, have the power to index social media sites, blogs, and other web content you may have.  This all helps in your search engine optimization (commonly referred to as SEO), which can lead to increased traffic on your website.

Related articles

• Looking To Get More Traffic To Your Web Site? (ronmedlin.com)
• 5 Ways a Small Business Can Succeed with Social Media (franklinbishop.net)
• 2010 – Welcome to the Age of Customer Service (socialmediatoday.com)

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 and inexpensive it is to send items via USPS priority flat rate. It has been my experience that if you have small, heavy items, USPS is the way to go, because you ca get a lot of weight into a smaller box; and with USPS it doesn’t matter how much it weighs, just as long as it fits into the box.  If you are shipping lighter and larger items, it probably still makes sense to continue to use your current shipping service.

Some distribution software has the ability to integrate with shipping software, such as the software that UPS and FedEx offer to businesses. Make sure your software has the ability to integrate with USPS services so that you can take advantage of the low cost flat rate shipping through USPS.

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 can be downloaded in PDF format. Seth has compiled written stories from authors who see the “big picture” into this wonderful ebook. It has more than 80 pages, but is a quick read; and a worthwhile read.  In Seth’s Blog, he says:

Now more than ever, we need to shake things up.

Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. I hope a new ebook I’ve organized will get you started on that path. It took months, but I think you will find it worth the effort.

Download the ebook here.

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 service for a small subset of its approximately 149 million users.

I bring this up as a thought, as many business applications are moving to the web, rather than the traditional approach of having the business applications on the desktop or centralized server within the company.  Cloud computing is a trend that is increasing in popularity, but it hasn’t necessarily been perfected yet.  You will need to weigh your options and risks before making a decision. If things go awry, how accessible is your data?