VendorNet(R) Debuts StoreNet(R) Live for Ship-From-Store and Pick-up-in-Store Cross-Channel Fulfillment at the 2010 National Retail Federation Conference

DELRAY BEACH, Fla., Jan. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- VendorNet (http://www.vendornet.com), a leading supply chain solutions provider, today announced it is debuting StoreNet® Live, its Ship-from-Store/Pick-up-in-Store cross-channel fulfillment software at the National Retail Federation's 99th Annual Convention & Expo. The distributed order management technology intelligently routes orders to a retailer's best inventory source whether that be brick and mortar stores, warehouses, and/or third-party vendors for direct-to-consumer fulfillment. The latest addition to VendorNet Commerce Suite, StoreNet Live, integrates with a retailer's existing e-commerce and retail inventory management systems to make brick and mortar store inventory available for online sales, and stores capable of seamless Ship-from-Store and Pick-up-in-Store fulfillment.

StoreNet Live's Pick-up-in-Store technology significantly enhances the customer experience by enabling retailers to offer customers the convenience of placing orders online and reserving inventory at individual stores for pick-up. This also extends the shopping window for consumers for last-minute purchases, eliminates shipping charges and multi-day shipping transit times, and increases the potential for additional in-store purchases during order pick-up.

In addition to the Pick-up-in-Store technology, StoreNet Live offers Ship-From-Store fulfillment that enables retailers to fulfill orders directly from stores when a product is out-of-stock in the direct-to-consumer warehouse(s). It makes corporate-wide inventory available for e-commerce sales, providing consumers with greater access to more inventory whenever and however they shop. This presents tremendous upside sales potential for retailers, and streamlines inventory utilization.

Ron Offir, president of E-commerce at Jones Apparel Group and a VendorNet client, remarks on the technology. "The implementation of StoreNet Live was part of Jones Apparel Group's overall strategy to fulfill sales on our e-commerce platform by optimizing corporate-wide inventory to meet online demand, and deliver best-in-class customer service. VendorNet's technology is helping us improve service to our customers by showing web shoppers inventory across all channels, and capturing demand that may otherwise have been a lost opportunity. Our adoption of StoreNet Live went smoothly with Jones' store personnel willingly embracing the software for its user-friendly interface and ease-of-use."

Jones Apparel Group is running all of its Nine West, Easy Spirit, Bandolino, Anne Klein, and Jones New York stores on StoreNet Live.

"The retail industry is seeing a distinct shift towards the multichannel consumer, which means retailers need to rethink the technology architecture of their supply chain in order to deliver a consistent customer experience regardless of the purchase channel," says Sharon Gardner, president of VendorNet. "StoreNet Live leverages a retailer's existing e-commerce and retail inventory platforms to integrate corporate-wide inventory for consumer purchase in any channel, eliminating the silos of channel-specific inventory and fulfillment processes typical in most retail organizations."

Gardner adds, "From our experience, exposing store inventory online can increase top line sales by as much as 25 to 50 percent, truly allowing retailers to cash in on cross-channel fulfillment. With 68% of consumers comparing prices online before shopping in a physical store and 58% locating items online before going to a store, as Gartner Group reported, it is imperative that retailers expose and sell their store inventory online, and also make the fulfillment process as flexible and seamless for the consumer as possible."

StoreNet Live represents a major next step for retailers that are embracing a cross-channel strategy. It acts as middleware between existing e-commerce, warehouse, and retail inventory systems, exposes inventory levels from all saleable locations, routes orders to the best inventory source for fulfillment based on a configurable rules-based engine, and delivers the tools at the fulfillment locations to streamline the pick, pack, and ship process.

Features include:

• Intelligent routing of e-commerce orders to the 'best' store to fulfill Ship-from-Store orders based on:
  • Store Availability
  • Item Safety Stock Levels
  • Inventory Discrepancy Tracking
  • Store Proximity to Customers
  • Store Preference Settings
  • Store Minimum/Maximum Order Settings
  • Split Shipment Rules
  • Expedite Shipment Rules
  • Sell-through and Overstock Inventory Levels
• Flexible user interface to modify store allocation business rules on the fly
• Immediate routing to target stores for Pick-up-in-Store orders
• Logical pick lists and integrated pack slip and shipping label documents for stores
• Customizable receipts for Pick-up-in-Store
• Automatic re-routing of Ship-from-Store orders when a store reports unavailable inventory
• Real-time communication to the host system and customers when inventory is picked or not picked by the store for Pick-up-in-Store orders
• Intelligent tracking of inventory discrepancies by store to minimize overselling, order re-routing, and cancels
• Shipping carrier integration for manifesting and pick-up confirmations
• Executive dashboard reporting and analysis for managing and measuring the e-commerce cross-channel fulfillment process

Key Benefits include:

• Captures lost sales by eliminating channel-specific inventory
• Leverages corporate-wide inventory and increases product availability to consumers independent of the shopping channel
• Improves the customer experience by expanding product selection and availability as well as fulfillment options (i.e., Pick-up-in-Store and Ship-from-Store)
• Extends selling windows during peak periods, and enables the sale of store merchandise 24x7, 365 days per year
• Facilitates sell through of end-of-season merchandise at non-discounted prices
• Improves inventory forecasting by capturing better product demand data
• Minimizes shipping transit time and shipping charges to customers by shipping orders from the closest store, and/or allowing customers to Pick-up-in-Store

VendorNet will be demonstrating StoreNet Live's Ship-from-Store/Pick-up-in-Store technology at booth #2514 at the NRF Annual Convention and Expo. Be sure to stop by and find out why retailers including Jones Apparel Group and CompUSA selected VendorNet to drive their cross-channel fulfillment strategy.

About VendorNet

VendorNet delivers web-based supply chain management solutions to multi-channel retailers enabling real-time collaboration with third-party suppliers and all corporate fulfillment channels including stores. VendorNet Commerce Suite establishes a powerful foundation for solutions that dramatically improve supply chain processes, reduce costs, increase sales, and strengthen cross-channel inventory collaboration. VendorNet's clients include Neiman Marcus, David's Bridal, Guitar Center, Spiegel, SmartBargains.com, Rue La La, The Swiss Colony, Home Decorators Collection, FrontGate, CompUSA, Nine West, Orvis, and Lands' End. For more information on VendorNet, visit http://www.vendornet.com.

    Contact:
    Louisa Rupp
    954-767-8228
    [email protected]

SOURCE VendorNet