Retail software products contain complete retail management systems. These products have a variety of integrated components necessary to run an entire retail business from sales to customer's doorstep.
Some components included are:
- Multi-Channel Sales management
- eCommerce and Online stores
- Point-of-Sale software
- Catalog call centers
- Pricing/promotions
- Order Lifecycle management
- Drop & ship from multiple locations
- Warehouse pick/pack
- Integrated payment
- Integrated shipping
- Inventory and supply management
- Integrated purchasing and receiving
- RFP/RFI
- Reorder management
- Vendor management
- Multiple warehouse locations
- Barcode management
- CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
- Email tool
- Customer service tools
- Customer information tracking
These robust software packages help retail organization run their business efficiently with tools to help ensure customer satisfaction. Because these programs are specifically geared towards the retail sector, they meet many of the unique needs of this business. Many software solutions offer innovative yet practical solutions to the problems facing the retail industry today.
Some retail packages provide complete business solutions, but other providers of these software packages generally offer integration services with other business software. Most programs come with training, and support packages.
Major Vendors:
- SAS
- CoreSense
- RPE Solutions
Some factors to consider when selecting software for your retail management needs include:
- What your competitors are doing
- Ease of installation – will it interrupt business
- Is support offered to help with integrations, interfaces and troubleshooting
- Does it integrate completely with your other software packages
- Will it handle unique needs of your products or style of business
- System resources: Not usually an issue, but sometimes small business environments are on over-taxed hardware already.