Despite all her new found enthusiasm for the extra sales the web could bring, Mrs Carter had come to see that adding products onto her website was no easy matter. Camisole with ten sizes in four colours required 40 separate products to be created on the site. Bra’s were similar but worse … they too had sizes and colours but they also had eight cup sizes; so one bra by itself could be over 320 size/colour combinations.

It was taking days of work just to put one complete product style onto the web site so Mrs Carter had had to postpone her dream of riches. Some months later however she once more recruited Mrs Equus as her assistant, but this time to work harder and also smarter. Mrs Equus was to start pre-delivery and work three hours per day adding product details to the site; but now only to create products that came in limited sizes and colours. Mrs Carter knew from her previous experience that this was a better, more workable, solution than previously and when Mrs Equus asked  “so why is deliberately limiting our product range a good plan” Mrs Carter felt she was being somewhat obstructive.

To Mrs Carter gleeful satisfaction, Mrs Equus did indeed make more headway than before so, that by the time the deliveries started to arrive the Carters web site had over 150 products. Mrs Carter spent some time doing a stock check and Mrs Equus spent a day or two entering the stock data and then the Carters Lingerie web site went live.

In the first month things went better than expected and they made quite a few web sales. Mrs Carter began to think that the hard work, and the £180 per week Mrs Equus costs, had been worth it all. She even began to imagine how successful they would be when they had 400 and then 600 products on the site. Later that month however Mrs Carter had to make a difficult phone call. A lady had made a purchase from her website but the stock was not available – when Mrs Carter called to explain, the customer had been far from understanding, she would not wait; she had demanded her money back and promised never to use the Carter web site again.

When this had happened a second and a third time Mrs Carter realised that she needed to focus much more on keeping her web site stock accurate or she was going to have to refund a great deal more money in the years ahead. She took Mrs Equus off product creation and, after two or three days of stock checking and data entry work, the Carters web site was once more fairly accurate.

Carters however had no way of knowing when stock was running low or had run out, and as the weeks wore on the gaps in the shops stock range rapidly increased. This had never seemed a vital problem for the shop, but for the web site it was absolutely critical. To keep the web site accurate, as well as to place top-up orders, the time between stock checks had to become shorter and shorter.

To make this possible, staff were taken away from serving shop customers whenever possible. Mrs Equus was so preoccupied co-ordinating stock checks and stock entry that she had no time to add any new products and after three or four months Mrs Carter found that the number of products on the site had remained stuck between 150 and 200. It became increasingly clear that the time taken in ever more frequent stock checks made it impossible to expand the webs product range.

Mrs Carters wage bill had risen, her shop staff were distracted, she had lost numerous potential web sales, and she had managed to alienate quite a number of web customers who would never shop with her again. Mrs Carter began to see that this was going to be a long job. Mrs Equus had a certain “I told you so” glint in her eye.

Horse sense: Stock management is not an “extra add-on”, but a key part of a web strategy.
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In this series of articles Michael Bloom, of specialist stock management company Top to Toe, looks at the difference technology can make to how you run your day to day business. The emphasis is on the practical; as well as the time and effort saved with the right approach.
Top to Toe can be contacted on 0845 130 3535 or info@toptotoe.com.

MICHAEL BLOOM, of specialist stock management company Top to Toe, offers a regular quirky look at the difference technology can make to your business.

Carter Lingerie was a fairly traditional lingerie retail business. It had struggled with the “to web or not to web” issue for some time before deciding a website was inevitable. Clients had been asking for the web address, and people on the phone had said they would purchase if only there was a website. It was an unavoidable reality that they were losing business without one.
Mrs Carter swung into action and found a local web company whose previous work she liked; she was even fortunate enough to have Mrs Equus, a part-time employee, who was very comfortable with computers. Now she would enter the internet age. Things went a bit slower than she anticipated with the web company, but overall she was happy; the only person who did not seem happy was Mrs Equus, who kept being difficult about the whole project.
Mrs Carter understood her point: the key requirement for selling on the web was that you knew you could supply what your web customers bought, whereas at Carter Lingerie they had a vast range but detailed information on sizes, colours and fit availability was something of a hit-and- miss affair. The point, however, was not to get it perfect but to get the site up and running. After all, they had managed for many years as they were and no doubt would be able to manage that way for many more. They had fallen behind for too long; now it was important to make up the ground as quickly as possible.
So Mrs Carter ploughed on and eventually the site was ready, and it looked great. In fact she began to get excited since she knew, from her own first-hand experience in the shop, that once a client saw her product range they very often found something they wanted to buy. Now she had a potential market of millions and she began to think maybe the web shop was going to make a lot of money – after all, it worked for so many others.
But Mrs Equus was still something of a problem. Mrs Carter began to think she was dragging her feet. True Mrs Equus was working the extra hours they had agreed, but very little seemed to be happening on the web site. An extra hour a day was probably costing around £60 per week but there were still so few products online.
When tackled, Mrs Equus said she was only following instructions: she had put on 10 camisoles. But as each style of camisole came in 10 sizes and four colours, she had to go to the site and create 40 products per style. For 10 camisoles she had had to make 400 different size/colour combinations.
One week’s work for 10 camisoles was obviously not going to get Mrs Carter very far, or very fast, so she decided to up her game. She paid Mrs Equus £120 per week to work for two hours per day inputting stock into the web site. This would halve the time it would take before she had a good variety of merchandise on her web site. Mrs Equis got started on the bras.
As with camisoles, each bra came in 10 sizes and four colours – but also eight cup sizes, so one bra by itself was 320 size/colour combinations. So one bra took the time it had previously taken for eight camisoles. Mrs Equus could only create one or two bras per week on the website and Mrs Carter began to see that this was going to be a very long process. Mrs Equus had a certain “I told you so” glint in her eye.
Horse sense: to utilise modern technology it’s critical to have a way of making multiple sizes, colours and fits very easily and very quickly.

Contact Top to Toe on 0845 130 3535 or info@toptotoe.com

The Cart before the Horse: Mrs Carter makes her first attempt to create a web site

Carter Lingerie was a traditional lingerie retail business. They had struggled with the ‘to-web-or-not-to-web’ issue for sometime before deciding that a website was inevitable. Clients had come into the shop asking for the shops website, and people on the phone had said they would purchase if only there was a website. It was becoming an unavoidable reality that their customers expected a web site and that they were losing business without one. All in all a website could not be avoided and Mrs Carter accepted that it was a move they had to make.

Having decided, Mrs Carter swung into action, and found a local web company whose previous work she liked, who were enthusiastic and seemed to know a great deal about the internet; she was even fortunate enough to have Mrs Equus, a part time employee who was very comfortable with computers and could help – now she would enter the internet age. Things went a bit slower than she anticipated with the web company but overall she was happy; the only person who did not seem happy was Mrs Equus, who kept being difficult about the whole project.

Mrs Carter understood her point; the key requirements for selling on the web was that you knew you could supply what your web customers bought, whereas at Carter Lingerie they had a vast range but detailed information on sizes, colours and fit availability was something of a hit and miss affair. The point, however, was not to get it perfect but to get the site up and running, after all they had managed for many years as they were and no doubt would be able to manage that way for many more. They had fallen behind for too long; now it was important to make up the ground as quickly as possible – perhaps even to forge ahead.

So Mrs Carter ploughed on and eventually the site was ready, and it looked great. In fact she began to get excited since she knew, from her own firsthand experience in the shop, that once a client saw her product range they very often found something they wanted to buy. Now she had a potential market of millions and she began to think that maybe the web shop was going to make a lot of money – after all, if it worked for so many others why not her?

Mrs Equus however was still something of a problem, in fact Mrs Carter began to think that she was dragging her feet. True Mrs Equus was working the extra hours they had agreed but very little seemed to be happening on the web site; an extra hour a day was probably costing around £60 per week but there were still so few products on the site.

When she eventually tackled her, Mrs Equus explained that she was only following instructions; she had put on ten camisoles. But as each style of camisole came in ten sizes and four colours she had to go to the site and create 40 products for each style. For ten camisoles she had had to make 400 different size/colour combinations.

One weeks work for 10 camisoles was obviously not going to get Mrs Carter very far, or very fast, so she decided to up her game. She paid Mrs Equus £120 per week to work for two hours per day inputting stock into the web site. This would halve the time it would take before she had a reasonable variety of merchandise on her web site. So Mrs Equis got started on the bras.

As with camisoles each bra had came in ten sizes and four colours… but also eight cup sizes – so one bra by itself was 320 size/colour combinations. So one bra took the time it had previously taken for eight camisoles. Even having doubling her input time Mrs Equus could only create one or two bras per week on the web site. Mrs Carter began to see that this was going to be a long job, a very long job. Mrs Equus had a certain “I told you so” glint in her eye.

Horse sense: To utilise modern technology it’s critical to have a way of making multiple sizes, colours (and where appropriate fits) very easily and very quickly

———————————————————————————————————————
In this series of articles Michael Bloom, of specialist stock management company Top to Toe, looks at the difference technology can make to how you run your day to day business. The emphasis is on the practical; as well as the time and effort saved with the right approach.

Top to Toe can be contacted on 0845 130 3535 or info@toptotoe.com.

This article reviews the other side of the “it’s easy” coin – the
“it’s so powerful” claim. Being able to put different sizes/colours into
a system speedily and to be able to find all the sizes and colours in
one action is not enough. There is the time factor; what does “quickly
find and assess that complete product” mean. Imagine if the underlying
system was designed to deal with products where there was just one
number for each product’s overall stock quantity – where the system was
not really designed to handle situations where one product has 20-60
variations of size and colour.

In this situation it could take 5 seconds to 5 minutes for all the
information you need for a product to appear on your screen. Faster
computer hardware will of course speed this up, but if the software was
not designed for the job of handling size/colour then as you add more
and more data it will go slower and slower. But does this matter? Yes,
very much is the answer.

When you have a lot to do you need to move through things quickly,
you do not want to spend more time waiting than actually working. Just
to get an idea of how frustrating a five second delay can be try reading
from the next semi colon with a five second wait between each word; it will drive you mad with frustration. The few words (starting at “;it will…”)
that could normally be read in two seconds will take over 30 seconds –
it’s definitely not how you want to spend the next few years of you
retail management life!

Imagine this effect multiplied by the minutes, hours, days and months
you will be using a system. If on a well designed system you could do
all you need in an hour or two a day; in the “not designed for
sportswear” system you could work for eight hours every day of the week
and still have work to do when you go home. Being realistic, you will
simply start cutting more and more corners, get through less work, get
less analysis and make less money.

And the problem does not get any better when you consider that you
also need to keep all your sales data by size/colour, plus all your
order information. In addition there is the issue of sizes and colours
at your branches, which adds still more data.

It is vital that you test the system with a typical data load. For a
sports retailer this is, say 1500 to 5,000 products with stock, sales
and orders by size/colour – all multiplied by the number of outlets you
have. See if it’s as fast as the initial demo, see if the
frustration-lag time delay is below one second or above 3 seconds.

At least now we have the beginnings of an “easy v powerful”
definition for the sportswear retailer. “Easy” is the ability to enter
many size/colour combinations for a single product within a matter of
seconds. “Powerful” is the ability to retrieve this data at near instant
speeds for stock, sales and orders by product, size and colour.

But although this is a good beginning it is not enough. The two
elements come together when you look at the issue of how the information
is presented – so our next article looks at the question of clarity and
we will examine the “it’s really clear” claim.