Striving for e-commerce synergy

In the past, the company would have three or four orders with backordered items each day. "Now it has come down to one order a day that has a backorder of some sort, which is not our fault, and that's the big difference," says Grant. "Sailrite is easily saving $10,000 to $15,000 a year in costs."

Tracking about 5,000 unique items in inventory was tough with the previous system, especially items that were part of a kit. One item with one part number could actually consist of as many as 30 other catalog items. Everest now handles that as well. "The biggest thing that has helped the bottom line is the kit feature--a real boon to selling upgrades and a capability we never had before," Grant says.

Sailrite has also increased its average order value. Now a customer can see the products in a click of a button and enhance the sailmaker's sewing machine kit with add-ons and see the price change instantly. Sailrite has increased its sales through the Web site by 35 percent with its integrated e-commerce solution.

"We can populate the Web with videos and other things that people just can't communicate over the phone," he says. "It's hard to describe the 15 colors of an item over the phone. The Web site has taken a huge burden off of our people taking orders on the telephone. We've almost eliminated mail and fax orders."

Today, Sailrite has improved profitability overall since switching to Everest, and the business is also more productive. "I can pull up financials for both companies at any given time. We cut mailing costs by a good $7,000, which is a decent percentage of the loss on shipping," says Grant.

Protecting against fraud

While any online store is a potential target for fraud, US Digital Media, a global online distributor of optical media products, is especially attractive to thieves due to the nature of its business. The company sells equipment and supplies for duplicating CDs.

The company had tight security measures in place, such as random manual verification of orders and making sure that the credit card number matches the ZIP code on the billing address. The company also scrutinizes large orders marked next-day delivery, especially if the order is coming from a new or unrecognized customer, says Alane Pignotti, general manager of US Digital Media. But even with those measures in place, the company was losing money on fraudulent orders. Because all orders were processed manually before being transferred to shipping, there was a chance that a fraudulent order could be missed.

After evaluating several options, US Digital Media deployed the Ignify eCommerce platform because of its automation and screening capabilities. It can automatically flag orders by cross-referencing a list of indicators signaling a potentially fraudulent purchase. Over time, the system is designed to learn buying patterns of customers, adding an additional layer of security.

"The system looks at a number of fraud indicators," Pignotti says. "Some of the main ones are if the purchase is over $1,000, overnight or expedited shipping is requested, or the billing address doesn't match the address on the credit card. It is then put over to a person to examine."

While the system is putting another layer of protection in place against fraud, it is also eliminating steps, thereby doubling the number of transactions that can be processed daily and freeing two employees to focus on other tasks, Pignotti says.

"We wanted a truly Web-based system that was integrated with our accounting system and that didn't require re-keying of Web orders," she says. "The customer now hits submit, and barring anything that needs a live person to intervene, the order goes directly to the warehouse for fulfillment. We have been able to double the number of orders we can process in a day without additional personnel."