Purchasing Power Launches New E-Commerce Platform for Superior Customer Experience

ATLANTA, March 26, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Purchasing Power, a specialty e-retailer offering American workers the opportunity to purchase consumer products and services through an industry-leading voluntary employee benefit, today announced the launch of its new e-commerce platform to deepen customer engagement and provide an enhanced shopping experience.  Purchasing Power chose hybris software, an SAP company and the world's fastest-growing commerce platform provider, to deliver an advanced e-commerce solution.  Crown Partners was used for integration services.

In 2001, Purchasing Power pioneered the concept of a payroll-deduction employee purchase program available as a voluntary benefit through employers. The company's first e-commerce platform was built in-house. Fast-paced growth, continuous product catalog expansion and the addition of new services such as education and vacation packages, led to the need for a scalable, feature-rich, enterprise class e-commerce platform.

As the employee purchase program of choice for Fortune 500 companies, Purchasing Power must deliver solutions that meet the needs of large, complex organizations. hybris offered a service-oriented solution that provides the flexibility and scalability to propel Purchasing Power forward as a leading e-retailer.

"Our company's purpose is to power people to a better life – we do this by offering the best employee purchase program and now we will have a best-in-class e-commerce platform to ensure we can continue to deliver on our purpose," said Scott Wheeler, Purchasing Power COO.  "Employer and employee feedback was a key component to the site's upgrades.  Purchasing Power's customers can now shop the extensive online product catalog in a useful and customized way, resulting in a dynamic customer experience."

Purchasing Power's unique business model requires a B-to-B-to-C e-commerce capability for employers and employees, which hybris was able to deliver. The highly flexible platform allows organizations to synchronize commerce across multiple channels, brands, business models and geographies on a single platform, making it an excellent fit for Purchasing Power.

"As a company catering to both B2B and B2C markets, Purchasing Power needs the customization capabilities and flexibility to tailor its e-commerce solution to meet customers' changing needs," said Steven Kramer, executive vice president sales Americas at hybris. "hybris' platform is expertly designed to cater to both B2B and B2C buyers and is maintained internally, which means it's easy to customize and expand. Today's world is highly personalized and it's important for retailers to ensure the best possible e-commerce experience for customers."

About Purchasing Power

Headquartered in Atlanta, Purchasing Power is available to six million people through large companies – including Fortune 100s – and government agencies. Purchasing Power is one of the fastest-growing specialty e-retailers in the market offering a leading voluntary benefit program. Purchasing Power was honored for "World Class Service" by Smart Business, recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies for six years on the Inc 500|5000, and is one of "Atlanta's Best and Brightest Companies to Work For". Purchasing Power is 'Powering People to a Better Life™' through its employee purchase program, financial literacy efforts and charitable contributions. Purchasing Power is a Rockbridge Growth Equity, LLC Company. For more information, visit www.PurchasingPower.com.

About hybris software

hybris software, an SAP Company, helps businesses around the globe sell more goods, services and digital content through every touchpoint, channel and device. hybris delivers OmniCommerce™: state- of-the-art master data management for commerce and unified commerce processes that give a business a single view of its customers, products and orders, and its customers a single view of the business. hybris' omni-channel software is built on a single platform, based on open standards, that is agile to support limitless innovation, efficient to drive the best TCO, and scalable and extensible to be the last commerce platform companies will ever need. Both principal industry analyst firms rank hybris as a "leader" and list its commerce platform among the top two or three in the market. The same software is available on-premise, on-demand and managed hosted, giving merchants of all sizes maximum flexibility. Over 500 companies have chosen hybris, including global B2B sites W.W.Grainger, Rexel, General Electric, Thomson Reuters and 3M as well as consumer brands Toys"R"Us, Metro, Bridgestone, P&G, Levi's, Nikon, Galeries Lafayette, Migros, Nespresso and Lufthansa. hybris has operations in 15 countries around the globe. hybris is the future of commerce™. For more information, visit http://www.hybris.com.

About Crown

Crown is a full service eBusiness firm enabling clients to attract, convert, retain and activate customers digitally. Driving commerce, content, customer experience & analytics solutions, Crown leads clients to deliver the right experience to each customer every time. Crown is a strategic partner with best-of-breed technology providers hybris, Adobe and ExactTarget.

Founded in 2001, Crown is privately-held and has been recognized six times as an Inc 500|5000 fastest growing company. Crown is headquartered in Dayton, OH with offices in Dallas, Denver and New York.

Media Contacts
Katie Welge
Walker Sands Communications
Tel: +1 312.267.0411
Email: [email protected]

Kaylee Laudon
hybris software
Tel: +1 952.200.4806
Email: [email protected]

Juliann Kaiser
Kaiser Marketing Group, Inc.
Tel: +1 770.643.0615
Email: [email protected]

Kristen Weeks
Purchasing Power
Tel: +1 404.609.5156
Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Purchasing Power