As an online shopper, the customer is becoming more accustomed to a friction-free shopping experience; less inclined to wait in long queues to check out, personalized offers, product recommendations based on purchase history and not the least accessibility to all stores around the world, irrespective of place and time.
The customer's requirements for convenience have increased, and they want it on their terms:
Buy online, return in store.
Pay at the store and have the item delivered home.
Buy online, pick up in store.
Be inspired with relevant offers and recommendations.
All experiences reveal that the stores that can deliver this sell more.
But how do they achieve that?
The fashion retail specialists, Cornator, TRIMIT and Front Systems, have collaborated with Stormberg, a Norwegian sports & outdoor clothing brand to offer a seamless shopping experience in their stores.
Haakon Skavhaug-Flender, product manager and partner at Front Systems, is impressed with Stormberg's offensive strategy:
- Stormberg's need to be able to deliver a seamless shopping experience is not unique, but they have been actively pursuing it, and that makes a great deal of difference.
Stormberg chose among the best tech players within ERP, eCom and POS to bring unified commerce to life. A strategy also known as "Best-of-Breed" in technical language. This is an accelerating trend as opposed to the traditional monolithic approach, where a single vendor develops all the solutions. Front Systems aids store employees in creating a truly seamless shopping experience, thanks to the underlying integrations with the top niches.
Haakon Skavhaug-Flender, product manager and partner in Front Systems.
Skavhaug-Flender has experienced the collaboration with Cornator as very positive:
- Cornator has invariably been a professional and flexible partner. Our equal interest in fashion retail niche has made this association gratifying and stimulating. It has been a great pleasure working with them.
Jesper Madsen, CEO of Cornator Norway is well pleased with the collaboration:
- Front Systems develops a POS app based on leading edge technology with innovative solutions. They are extremely professional and accommodating. The aim of this collaboration has been to develop an integration between ERP and POS that is "real-time" and delivered "out of the box" and ready-to- use. We believe that bespoke integrations are over and done with just as bespoke applications are dissolving, and SaaS growth is thriving.
Madsen continues:
- The collaboration has resulted in an integration based on a SaaS model, which greatly reduces the development and maintenance costs. The integration is module-based that is built on scalability. This makes it easier to start with the essentials and continue to gradually build on without incurring any costs for development.
- Microsoft Business Central with TRIMIT fits perfectly for Scandinavian companies, and with the integration which ensued from Cornator and Front Systems collaboration, one has a perfect solution for retail. The solution is for those who want to implement IT but be able to do without a development project.
Jesper Madsen, CEO Cornator Norge AS
Microsoft Business Central, used by Stormberg, is supplied by Cornator with the special module TRIMIT.
ERP is a centralized system in a retail chain. It is a fulcrum that connects every aspect of an enterprise and facilitates information flow between disparate systems.
Traditionally, cash register systems updated the ERP system with sales and inventory once or twice a day only, which in turn has put a spoke in the wheels for achieving Unified Commerce.
Front Systems in conjunction with Cornator have developed a real-time integration in a way that the ERP system has information on what happens in the stores: sales, inventory, settlement, customers, returns and so forth round-the-clock.
Jens Christian Iglebæk, general manager of Leketøy Stormberg Inter AS, is content with the new system. Stormberg has implemented this in four of its stores and the rest will be up in February 2021.
- The key benefit of real-time information is that we receive all sales transactions to our ERP system at the same time as the sale is completed in Front Systems POS. Through this, we can retrieve varied statistics from one system, get updated inventory from our stores, which consequently is updated to the online store. We look forward to going live in all our stores and implement a solution that is new, enhanced, and better more than ever before, he says.
Jens Christian Iglebæk, general manager of Leketøy Stormberg Inter AS