The ultimate software package?? Does it exist?

[plainlazy]

Hi,

Our company runs 3 seperate websites as well as havng a presence on eBay, Amazon and various others. We also have a 'bricks and motar' store although this is very much secondary to the ecommerce side.

The problem we are having is that managing our inventory across our various outlets is becoming more and more unmanagable. We sell thousands of products, each with various sizes and colours. Currently our accounting package (quickbooks) is seperate to our inventory system (top 2 toe) which is seprate to our ecommerce software (click cart pro).

Is there are package out there that can either tie everything together or a package that does everything out of the box?

Hope all that makes sense!?

Anyway, I look forward to hearing from you....

Dave

[VA Today]

Have sent you a pm.

[Dawg]

Alison, correct me if I'm wrong, but I sort of thought that a forum was a place to share information, unless specifically asked not to. I'm sure other people will be interested in a catchall bit of software....:)

[consultant]

That is a good question!

You could try using Magento for ecom, running your different stores from one install, then you could use a bridge to QB!

[fruit trees]

There are many packages available, from small to multi-user systems,running the whole business from warehousing to website. The trick is to find the right one that suits you,at the right cost. An accurate spec is essential .Do not under-estimate the data transfer costs with such a large inventory .On a personal note we found reliable advice very hard to get,most packages do not deliver what you expect/are told .ECMod would be a good place to look, or the Ebiz magazine.

[J-Wholesale]

The short answer is no. You won't find an off the shelf package that meets your specific needs. You'll find a generic package that meets 80%-90% of your needs, but the problem is, for every company, that final 20% or 10% is going to be different or unique.

The only real solution is a custom built solution. This solution can use an off the shelf package or an open source package as its back bone, but it will involve custom development, and an ongoing relationship and investment in a web development company or individual.

There comes a time when there's simply no way around this, and anyone who says different is simply not selling in your league.

[VA Today]

Here's the info:

iBusiness http://www.probasoftware.com (http://www.probasoftware.com/) . I have been using (only a small part) of this system for a client and it appears to be a catch-all and can be customised. I have not used it extensively but am definitely going to be learning more about it, as if it does everything they say it does, it's got to be good. iBusiness ME section mentions e-commerce capabilities.

Sales Director is Stephen Clark, company based in Hertfordshire (St Albans).

If you search on google for 'complete business system', UK pages, they are the third listing on page 1.

[plainlazy]

thanks for your replies folks. I am certainly going to be looking for a custom system. Netsuite are asking around 20k.... any thoughts?

[TotallySport]

Netsuite isn't a custom system it is their system!!!!

Which mean's you will have to work from waht they think is the perfect solution and may or may not have afeatures missing which you need and many which you won't use, they also don't seem to have ebay and amazon intergration.

You might want to chat to these people:

http://www.giant-systems.co.uk/

Really nice people, have an excellent undertstanding of amazon and ebay, and the will custom change their system to meet your needs where they can. Yes again it's not 100% bespoke so you might have some situations with what you need. Might be a place to look.

Tell them David at Totally Sport suggested them.

At the end of the day it will depend on what you can and cannot live without, how much you can get what you want across and how the other side respond to that information. Oh and how much cash you have.

[davidjgoss87]

Try looking into SAP, they approached us a while ago trying to sell us a package that did accounts "better than Sage" and EPOS and e-commerce all together. Never bothered looking at it because we've got too much else going on, but from what I hear SAP is very expensive to buy and run. Our company currently uses Cybertill which has the EPOS and e-commerce running as one quite effectively (but as with all things it has issues). However, I'd leave it alone for a year or so because they are currently overhauling their whole system and it could be messy.

[TotallySport]

SAP is a stock control system, it isn't a solution for Amazon or ebay or any of the like, then the costs are hugh.

I also think it is an excellent setup and system, the alerts feature I also like, but it is designed for running warehouse, not full blow ecomerce solutions.

[Brightpearl]

We may have what you are looking for! Our system is completely integrated. Give me a call on 0845 003 8935 to discuss or check out our website.

Dee

[TotallySport]

I have just been playing on the demo and I have had a look at your web site and i cannot find any information on intergration on 3rd party venues like amazon and ebay.

I also have another question is this leased or can you purchase it out right, and can that person alter any of the code in house?

I would also point out there are things on the demo web site which simply don't work (front end), and it isn't populated which agian makes some of it hard to see the workings of without alot of messing about. Also I assume not all the plugins are installed so you cannot see the CRM side working

[Brightpearl]

Hi there Totally Sport
Apologies for that - the danger with a freely available demo is that people can go in and change it! We have restored a basic web template which will show you the site working. We only operate a hosted service, but respond rapidly to upgrade requests. eBay integration is not documented yet, but is operational. Amazon is in test phase.
Chris

[TotallySport]

Hi there Totally Sport
Apologies for that - the danger with a freely available demo is that people can go in and change it! We have restored a basic web template which will show you the site working. We only operate a hosted service, but respond rapidly to upgrade requests. eBay integration is not documented yet, but is operational. Amazon is in test phase.
Chris

I would have hoped there were processing place to stop and errors occuring front end, otherwise customers will be put off. (but it is working and looks alot better) There is an site which offers free trials like yours and they do an automatic install every 2 hours to stop this, it might also be good advertising

http://www.opensourcecms.com/

Your system was looking OK but with us not being able to alter code etc, it limits us to grow and develop the system in house which puts me off. It also restricts the user to what you think is the future which agian doesn't suit some. There are other problems which make it unsuitable for us, but would love to know what the costs are :D

[First in Retail]

you will not find a "out of box" you are now entrenched in what you want and how you want it to work, the only route is bespoke.

Solutions such as cybertill are so restrictive they will be of little use, whatever you choose is going to cost a few quid.

Good luck.