Retail Special Report
not only be able build and insurance sectors. “New target
to order carpets areas are a bit like gardening; you plant
and other types of a seed and then maybe a year down the
flooring online, they line the green shoots start to appear,”
will also be able to reflected Harris. “Business decisions
choose from a wide in sectors such as insurance don’t turn
selection of beds – around very quickly – they take a long
which is a relatively time to change. So the tiller has moved
new market for us,” but the ship is still steaming ahead in
explained Harris. a straight line at the moment. However,
“Whereas buying our business is on the whole in very
a carpet is a little shipshape order.” a71
like ordering a
handmade suit,
choosing a bed is
more like ordering
a pizza, with all the
size and topping
options – first you
Plastic waste at Purfleet is prepared for recycling.
choose the basic
model as a single,
double or king-size, then you decide what
<<
Channel relationship colour you want and whether you want
drawers, etc. I think e-commerce suits
And what of Carpetright’s relationship this pattern of choice well. Of course,
with resellers and systems integrators? some customers may want to look at the
Sometimes we deal direct with the system website to see what’s on offer, then
vendor and sometimes with one of their actually place an order in one of our
channel partners,” said Woosey. We stores rather than online. Either way, we
largely use systems integrators to get the think e-commerce will work well in making
software up and running, although our our customers even more aware of what
own team always has ultimate control we have available.”
Steve Johnson: “By using our bespoke
and oversees the whole operation,” said
version of Microsoft Dynamics Navision
POS software, we have accelerated the
Woosey. He added that Carperight As for the future from a marketing
ordering process and improved both our
sources some product through Fujitsu, perspective, the company has recently
customer service and order accuracy
even though it is not Fujitsu kit. In terms looked at a select group of new business rate substantially.”
of the HP servers, these were bought verticals to target; such as the house
through reseller Genesis. “The support
contract for the servers is also with
Genesis, although this is backed off to
HP,” said Woosey. The Microsoft Dynamics
Navision POS system was sourced
through reseller K3. “Because there is
nothing on the market that does what we
wanted our POS system to do as standard
we engaged K3 for the customisation of
the software – K3 also integrated it with
our SAP stock manage-ment system,”
said Woosey. In terms of the SAP stock
management software, Carpetright buys
user licences from SAP direct, while
system implementation and ongoing
support is largely dealt with by Axon.
E-commerce – the next step
In addition to the company’s ongoing store
expansion strategy, Carpetright also plans
to add e-commerce for customers that
Martin Harris inspects the
prefer to order goods online. “By using
Purfleet warehouse.
our e-commerce facility, customers will
10
MANUFACTURING
&LOGISTICSIT December 2009
www.logisticsit.com
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