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Welcome to today's Java Break with BASIS. Today we will be exploring the creation of a web store using BASIS building blocks.
My name is Paul Yeomans and I'll be joined today by Nico Spence, our Chairman and CEO.
Let's take a brief look at our agenda today.
I'll be starting out by setting the scene for what led to the web store that we are going to use as our example today.
It started out with a business challenge
and of course the solution was the web store.
We will talk about what those benefits were and then their second phase of an implementation was an expansion of the original solution.
Then I'll hand it off to Nico Spence who will start covering the feature details of the web store
including the technology upon which it is based, the database options that you have
and then we'll wrap it up with a summary and take your questions. Let's get started.
BASIS International owns a European organization called BASIS Europe Professional Services.
Back in 2002, they were approached by an organization called paperCompetence.
They are a national industry association of 12 stationary supply wholesalers. Those 12 wholesalers supported 12,000 small,
independent stationary retailers with hundreds of thousands of customers and they had a
business challenge. Multi-national, big box office supply stores were moving into Germany.
Those box stores were dominant in selection and the depth of their inventory. This in turn negatively affected the sales for those small retailers those
retailers - those 12,000 retailers. It also, in turn, negatively affected the wholesalers' business. That was the business challenge.
The solution, a web-based store. A B-to-B solution built on PRO/5
and delivered out the door in 2003. The solution had some excellent benefits.
First of all, the entire group benefited from a common platform, in those days, PRO/5.
Retailers were able to order and replenish their supplies and inventories from their office on their own computers
thereby shortening the supply chain and reducing costs for all parties both the retailer and wholesaler.
It also streamlined their sales order processing.
The web solution facilitated marketing campaigns whereby wholesalers could promote seasonal goods
and offer special pricing and special offers for retailers to promote to their customers. And in general, it allowed these small retailers...
it gave them some assistance with their general business management.
More benefits were that the virtual stores enabled a greatly expanded selection. There was integration directly with the wholesaler.
Those retailers had no inventory holding costs of their own and it facilitated drop ship delivery thereby further increasing the cost savings
element. Because it was a web solution - 27/7 availability and real time import of data.
It also allowed those wholesalers to be individualized so that their store actually had its own identity. Each of the wholesale distributors
had their own corporate identities all available through the web.
The web also provided multiple payment options and because it was a SaaS offering, it insured
speed regardless of the geography or placement of that individual retailer or for that matter
the individual wholesaler. The solution served its purpose for a time, but then it was time to expand the solution. The expansion took the
form of having retailers with their own web stores, an entity called paperPlace.
And this was the next phase... they moved from B-to-B to B-to-C. It was a natural extension of the existing solution that had been in place for
a number of years and it allowed, at the retail level, an expanded product range to tens of thousands of items
thereby increasing sales opportunities. Wholesalers were able to maintain and hold that inventory and much of the packing and
shipping was done at the wholesale end as opposed to in the individual small store.
It positioned the small stores against the other online retailers that were just starting to flourish. The expanded solution also at new benefits.
Fast data access...
an attractive website design that included product pictures and product details.