Shireburn eStore

Shireburn e-Store

e-Commerce is not just about selling on-line. If you think about your current operations, the sales process is a relatively small part of the operation. There is also sales order processing, stock picking, delivery notes, logistics, billing and collections just to name a few. As a result, implementing an e-Commerce solution which does not streamline directly with your inventory and financial systems uploading and downloading via Excel does not allow you to get the most out of the investment.

On-line sales are an increasingly important channel for companies both for Business-to-Consumer (B2C) sales as well as for B2B trade sales. As volumes through the on-line channel pick up pace, so does the importance of implementing a strategy that ensures that the on-line sales processes are a natural extension of your existing inventory and financial controls with high levels of integration to your inventory and accounting systems and a reduction in duplication of effort.

The Shireburn e-Store is a module of the Shireburn Inventory Management System (SIMS) which forms a part of the Shireburn Business Suite and it enables users to extend their operations on-line both for B2C (Business to Consumer) and B2B (Business to Business) sales directly integrated into their operational data with single point of data management for stock details, orders, payments etc. The Shireburn eStore allows you to extend your sales reach while maintaining low operating costs and high degrees of efficiency. Continue to centrally manage your inventory both on-line and on-premise through the Shireburn Inventory Management System (SIMS). Read more about how the Shireburn eStore integrates to SIMS & SFM.

The Shireburn eStore is aimed at sales of either products or services and supports the following:
  • Customisable look & feel to suite your corporate style and current corporate web site
  • Display of extended product descriptions, multiple images per product, file attachments for brochures etc
  • Support for multiple pricing levels and discounts, supporting foreign currency pricing and including contracted prices by client.
  • Selection of items for purchasing using a flexible user interface by category, by description and price.
  • User selection of display method using various styles including icons and lists, number of items per page and sorting and pagination
  • Extensive search by brand, category, description or part of description
  • Display of a dynamic Shopping Cart identifying what has been added to the cart with prices including and excluding VAT and showing totals
  • Optional dynamic display of quantities in stock
  • Promotional offers and schemes such as “buy this product get 10% off this category” currently in effect
  • Effecting of payments via credit cards or PayPal with integration to multiple payment gateways
  • Viewing by the user of the status of their current orders and expected deliveries
  • On-line orders become orders in SIMS and sales made become cash sale in SIMS enabling the completion of the full process cycle
  • Payments processed through the payment gateway are accounted for directly in SFM, the Shireburn Financial Manager

Integration with SIMS & SFM

The high level of integration between the Shireburn eStore and SIMS, the Shireburn Inventory Management System, provides very significant extra value when implementing an e-Commerce solution as compared with solutions needing uploading and downloading of data via Microsoft Excel or other such methods. Products created in SIMS, together with their prices, categorisation, descriptions, images etc are automatically available on the Shireburn eStore with no additional user or administrator effort. This integration ensures the accuracy and timeliness of data, reduces the manual effort involved and thus decreases costs.

The Integration points between the eStore and SIMS & SFM include:
  • maintenance of stock card details in SIMS including specific selling prices in multiple currencies and extended product descriptions are available on the eStore
  • specific product categorisation used for the web which can be different from that used for internal stock categorisation
  • the ability to allocate a product into more than one category
  • real-time checking of quantity in stock of a product
  • sales effected in the eStore become cash sales in SIMS
  • supported for contracted prices for specific clients and related to particular products with automation of expiry dates of the agreed price
  • the availability of all client account details
  • the availability of loyalty account holders' details
  • support for distinct product lists used for featured products or products subject to special offer. This allows specific products to be included in one or more product lists
  • support for products from multiple SIMS companies being sold in one eStore. Useful for groups of companies.
  • support for multiple images per product
  • support for multiple resource files per product such as product brochures, specifications etc.
  • Enable B2B clients to access their SFM account transactions, reprint invoices and obtain statements.

    Many first generation eCommerce sites require companies to export data from their inventory systems to Microsoft Excel from where the data is uploaded to the e-Commerce web site. Not so with the Shireburn eStore where automation and productivity are maximised and costs are minimised.
User Interface

The user interface of an eCommerce site is critical in ensuring that the user’s experience is pleasant and in driving repeated visits by the user to the site, thus increasing value generation. The Shireburn eStore is designed for easy identification of products and browsing of categories, brands etc to ensure that the time spent by the user on your site exploring potential products and services of interest is maximised. featured products are easily promoted while guidance to the user is available of other products linked to the current product. These may be, for instance, covers, spare parts or chargers for the currently selected mobile phone or matching items of clothing to complement the current item being displayed. etc. The best way to evaluate the ease of use of the Shireburn eStore is to run our demo site. >> use our demo eStore site

Maintaining your Corporate Style

The Shireburn eStore provides a design which allows direct access from your corporate web site while maintaining the same branding, graphics and look and feel of your corporate site. The eStore can also support your complete site, both the corporate aspects and the e-Commerce aspect. The Shireburn eStore supports multiple design templates and CSS styling to allow the customisation of a web site to meet the corporate style of a company making it consistent with the corporate web site.

The use of customisable templates also allows easy refreshing of styles on the eStore to ensure high levels of user interest caused by frequent design changes.

Search Engine Optimisation, Analytics & Monitoring

The Shireburn eStore supports extensive use of tagging of products to enhance the chances of your products being found within a user's search on Google, Bing etc. This SEO functionality will directly lead to an increase in sales. The Google Analytics support capabilities of the eStore are also impressive with user activity and the path they take through the site being logged to allow you to identify where clients drop-out of the purchase cycle. Track when a visitor is new to your site and display different products or information to that user.

Shopping Cart

A dynamically displayed shopping cart allows the user to visualise the contents of their cart. Users who drop out of the purchase process prior to confirming their purchase, in addition to being monitored, will find their products still in the cart. A button is available next to each item to allow addition of the item to a shopping cart which is dynamically displayed to the user with a running total of items ordered.


General Features

The Shireburn eStore also provides the following facilities:
  • Customisable menus
  • Linking of item categories to menus
  • Customisable images / layout throughout most of the website using CSS standards
  • Google Analytics integration
  • Cookie support to detect previous visitors, purchasers etc.
  • Dynamic Shopping Cart
  • Integrated Content Management to add text, images, video & image slideshows
  • Customer registration with automatic linking to SIMS/SFM clients
  • Support for credit card clearance through multiple payment gateways and PayPal support
  • Customer account details management & customer order history
  • Automated password recovery
  • User management for website administrators to create, lock/unlock, activate & delete user accounts
  • Website site map for search engine optimisation and user navigation
  • Support for sales through multiple SIMS companies in a single web shop front enabling groups of companies to supply different products through different companies in the same shop while maintaining their back-office integration


B2B eStore Extension

Business-to-Business (B2B) sales have additional requirements as compared to Business-to-Consumer sales (B2C) and the B2B eStore Extension Addresses these requirements.

The B2B eStore enables trade customers to manage their purchase cycle on-line at times which are convenient for them and even when your offices are shut without having to settle their orders through on-line payments.

The Shireburn B2B eStore enables clients to:
  • Place sales orders on credit with interactive feedback on stock availability.
  • Have access to promotional offers and schemes currently available as well as contracted prices
  • Create new orders by cloning previous orders for repeated ordering
  • View the status of their current orders and expected deliveries
  • View their order history
  • View their accounting transaction history and balance and regenerate copies of invoices raised
  • Access their standing demographic data and be able to effect changes to their telephone, fax, e-mail and contact name details.

Hosting

Reliability is critical for e-Commerce in ensuring trust in the brand on-line.  Shireburn will host your e-Commerce site in our 24x7 hosting environment to ensure you have large-company availability at small company costs. 


How do I learn more?

The best way to evaluate the Shireburn eStore is to run our demo site. >> use our demo eStore site or call Shireburn on +356 2131 9977 to discuss the specific needs of your organisation.

>> Shireburn eStore brochure