Integrated Web Ordering & Fulfillment Software

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Integrated Web Ordering & Fulfillment Software

rogerd

3:18 pm on Feb 5, 2001 (gmt 0)

Does anyone have experience with fairly low end integrated mail order software that either combines the web ordering with inventory, fulfillment, etc. or that has an automated interface for converting online orders into pick tickets, etc.? I'm working with a site that can't afford a big mid-range solution, but needs a multi-user setup capable of handling up to a few hundred orders a day. A good web front end for dynamic catalog page generation would be a major plus.

Brett_Tabke

3:28 pm on Feb 5, 2001 (gmt 0)

Got a customer who swears by: Equaia
(it's not cheap, but it does everything you want)

[edited by: lorax at 11:39 pm (utc) on Aug. 12, 2006]
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rogerd

3:39 pm on Feb 5, 2001 (gmt 0)

>>it's not cheap, but it does everything you want<<

My "fairly low end" was politically correct business-speak for "CHEAP!!" :) Thanks for the quick reply, I'll check out the Equaia site. They must have hired Accenture to help them come up with an easy to remember, meaningful name... ;)

mattb

3:44 pm on Nov 29, 2001 (gmt 0)

kicking this back-up to the top. We've looked at Mail Order Manager from Dydacomp. Any other competitors out there for a growing small biz? We ship about 400 packages a month now and hope to grow to about 1200. (Plus we drop ship.) Anyone out there have any comments on a system we can use?

Thanks!

rogerd

2:32 pm on Dec 5, 2001 (gmt 0)

Mail Order Manager has been around for ages, and greatly predates web ordering. They were running on PCs before PCs were considered a platform for "serious" software, and grew up in the days of phone and mail ordering.

In the mail order biz, they would be considered a lower end package, but so would most systems targeted at below 500 - 1000 orders per day. I would expect them to be very strong on the back-end fulfillment, list management, etc. side of things. No idea how well they do with web integration. If you actually go through a demo or purchase the product, by all means post here and let us know what you think!

mattb

5:08 pm on Dec 6, 2001 (gmt 0)

Yes, we did purchase Mail Order Manager. I have to say that implimentation did not go well and we returned the software. The software looks great for a small company on the surface. However, the features that we really wanted turned out to be brand new in the current release. Web integration with authorize.net for real-time credit card authorization and UPS integration. (Print your own labels and assign your own tracking numebrs, etc.)

We could not get the UPS to work on our system. They did not tell us up front, but the executable that supported the new UPS integration wasn't available for about two weeks after we bought the package. So we had to wait for them to release the new executable. Which did not work after they did release it. Support was working on the problem, but we were nearing the end of our 30 day money back guarantee. We had no choice but to send the package back. I felt that was our only leverage as a customer. Since you pay everything up front, you have no recourse if something breaks once your 30 days are up. It appears as though they have the corner on the market for this type of software.

A few other comments. The back-end database was built with FoxPro. I suppose it's stable, but wouldn't be my first choice.

They push SiteLink (their e-commerce piece) I wasn't too impressed with the demo sites they had out their. Plus it ran on NT and I would rather stick with Linux for our web server.

The order taking screens looked very good. Probably minimal training if you have a bunch of agents taking calls.

Back to the drawing board...

TallTroll

5:26 pm on Dec 6, 2001 (gmt 0)

mattb,

Just get a custom-built job. I would imagine with the IT market in its current state you can get hold of some very competent developers at knock-down prices. It'll probably still cost a shade more than a packaged solution, but if you get exactly what you need, thats usually worth the premium in the long term

rogerd

5:54 pm on Dec 6, 2001 (gmt 0)

Thanks for the update, mattb. I'm sorry to hear about your problems, although I guess I would have expected the web integration to be the weak link. If you look at any other packages, feel free to post. I did a survey a while back, but we decided to try to run the site for another year without a full-blown fulfillment system.

mattb

8:49 pm on Dec 6, 2001 (gmt 0)

custom built job...

I think that is the path we are going to go down. LinkPoint will sell us the COM object so the credit card end will be ok. UPS requires that you ship 30 packages a day with them before they will hand over their code. So until we reach that we'll have to work with the WorldShip software.

I've already contacted a developer to help me work on it. The one big factor of course was that MOM was supposed to save me time. I didn't see that happening.

abertone

10:19 pm on Dec 6, 2001 (gmt 0)

Miva may do the trick for you... but it may be too web enabled.

-Andrea

TallTroll

10:18 am on Dec 7, 2001 (gmt 0)

>> I've already contacted a developer to help me work on it.

One of the nicer things about a custom solution is the potential to resell it. If you are having problems with whats on the market, so are others

rogerd

1:19 pm on Dec 7, 2001 (gmt 0)

I'm doing a Miva site right now... Looks like a decent package for "out of the box" software, though customization appears to be limited. Not sure how well the "back end" fulfillment functions will work. Currently, we are running into a bizarre slow Miva database problem on a Unix server. HTML pages come up quickly, but database calls and writes are slow as molasses. We're reinstalling on a different server to see if that clears it up. I did a Miva Order site a couple of months ago. Very rudimentary, but it functions very smoothly.

mattb

2:53 pm on Dec 7, 2001 (gmt 0)

We currently use miva merchant. Our host had problems off and on with speed a few months ago. If I complained loud enough they would eventually fix the problem. (Runaway processes they claimed.)

I think they've since put us on a new server. Things seem to be ok now. Miva is in general slow from what I've seen. I have it on the list to review The Exchange Project sometime next year after we get the order fulfillment piece finished. If you like PHP, Exchange Project looks pretty nice.

ebgreen

12:43 pm on Dec 14, 2001 (gmt 0)

I have a Yahoo store and use GotMarketing to send 48,000 emails a month for $200. They have smaller plans.

ebgreen

8:16 am on Dec 17, 2001 (gmt 0)

Try hyperpos2.com.

Rick_Brown

4:38 am on Feb 21, 2002 (gmt 0)

I don't know if you're still looking but my search for Order Fulfilment software has led me to Response from CoLinear Systems (www.colinear.com) and Solution from Morgan CustomSoft (www.mcsiworld.com) in addition to MOM. I'm waiting fo demo software from CoLinear. What have you done since your last post.

Rick_Brown

4:38 am on Feb 21, 2002 (gmt 0)

rogerd

12:45 pm on Feb 21, 2002 (gmt 0)

Hi, Rick. The site I was originally working with went with an un-integrated system, i.e., the front-end web catalog doesn't interface with the back-end fulfillment. It's OK for their current volume, but in a perfect world I would have gone fully integrated now, rather than having to switch later when volume demands it. The front-end system I installed was a somewhat modified version of eShop from Cyberstrong.com. It's an ASP-driven catalog/cart, and is fairly easy to modify. The software is not nearly as full-featured or developed as Miva, but it's much faster and has great support. I gather the company is quite small, but when we had a crisis (induced by server changes made by the host, who denied making changes) they were super-helpful in getting the site back online.