Specialty Retail

As a manufacturer of image apparel and uniforms an important part of your job is to ensure the final product you deliver not only meets customers’ quality expectations, but also their specific apparel program guidelines.  In addition to the apparel program ‘rules,’ each individual item must be manufactured to meet a unique combination of fit-related and personalization details designated by the individual employee.

With myriad combinations for each individual within a customer group, multiplied by numerous groups of customers, the complexity of the order entry process can seriously impact a manufacturer’s ability to reliably and efficiently deliver employee uniforms that meet customer expectations.  When the rules of mass customization are complex, a technology-enabling order processing solution that streamlines company-customer interaction and supports the customization of products makes good business sense.

Uniform, identity, and image apparel market segments served:

• Public Safety Agencies – fire, emergency management personnel (ems), law enforcement – police, sheriff, state highway patrol,
• Government & Public Services – military, public municipalities, corrections, public school maintenance & transportation
• Hospitality – hotels, restaurants
• Entertainment – theme parks, theaters, stadiums, arenas
• Commercial enterprises – security firms, financial institutions, real estate, property management, security services
• Transportation industry – airlines, cruise ships, transit

Market Needs

• Order entry through easy to use branded web interface, customized for customer group, user group and individual user.
• Sales & marketing support – communications, order processing, and collateral material that supports in-house and channel partner selling.
• Seamlessly manage complex shopping cart with programatically-enforced business logic and rules that prevent accidental ordering of the wrong item.
• Support customized billing and reporting on contract-related and service-level data and information.
• Streamlined online order entry that eliminates redundant data entry of silo’d information and supports operational efficiency improvements.
• Fully integrated system that supports customer-level customization without sacrificing production efficiencies.

Key Features

• Interactive Web Ordering – online interface provides secure access where users can place orders, review purchase history, even generate an instant catalog for emailing or printing offline.  System automatically generates order confirmation and shipment notifications which are sent by email or fax based on user communication preferences. We even embed specifications for labeling, item packaging, and shipment packaging details according to your specifications.  We provide web-based order status tracking during the production process, and optional 3rd party tracking after shipment leaves our facility.
• Interface Customized for Individual Customers and Customer Groups – multi-faceted customer interface supports customized views for groups and individual users.  For example, within your customers’ group there will be restrictions based on specific criteria like rank for law enforcement personnel, or position like doorman, bell hop for the hospitality industry.  Using business rules based on customer-supplied data, individual users are limited to viewing and selecting items from a finite number of products and categories that they are ‘qualified’ to purchase.
• Apparel Program Administration – add value to your customer service program and save valuable staff time with easy contract management and reporting tools.  Reports include: account summary, employee detail, item detail, blanket purchase order tracking, open-order status, sales history, sales forecast, or we offer the option of designing customized reports to your specifications.
• Sales & Marketing Integration – supports instant creation of marketing collateral materials (e.g. catalogs, flyers, datasheets) of entire product offering, or segmented by product, category, or customer-specific product groupings.  Learn more about instant catalog publishing.
• Distribution Channel Support – extends customized web interface, order processing interface, and instant collateral material production to your channel partners.  Resellers, agents, distributors and other channel partners appreciate the value-added benefits they receive when they can enhance the user experience for their customers by tapping into core functionality that would normally be priced well beyond their budgets.
• Multiple Payment Methods – support for full or partial payment processing via credit card, web payment (e.g. PayPal), or standard payment terms.
• ERP Integration – full integration with Enterprise Resource Planning software supports an integrated approach to data and information sharing that prevents information silos and the need for redundant data entry.  Real-time data and information means internal and external stakeholders will be in the loop faster and with more accurate decision-making information to support the production of customized goods while improving production efficiencies.  Streamlined, effective communications reduces errors and has a positive impact on people and the bottom line.  Learn more about ERP integration.
• Customized to Unique Business Requrements – there is no cookie cutter approach to the requirements for online specialty retailing for the uniform and image apparel industry.  Each customer requires a different combination of tools and processes to support the needs of the markets they serve and to compliment their existing internal processes.  A technology assessment process is a first step in identifying how your existing IT infrastructure can be complimented to support a customized online order entry system.  Learn more about our Technology Assessments.