Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice
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@scottalanmiller said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
it's anything but trivial.
Understatement!
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@pchiodo
Ya that's never going to happen.
We ship around 500 orders a month. It's just enough for us to handle "manually" without needing a full ERP.A product like ShipStation is perfectly suitable for our warehouse to get packages out. Where it fails is one step back, at the order management level. We need to do all the things with orders before it's ready to process for shipment.
This involves nothing more than good "notes" as far as most of us are concerned.
- When did order get placed?
- What products were in stock? Are they now pulled/allocated?
- If not in stock, are they on order? If so, connected to what PO from what vendor? When can we expect delivery?
- Does a line item need customization? If so do we have it out yet? Where? When expected to return? Are we waiting for a PO AND customizing?
- Does a line item require customer to send US something? If so, have they sent it? Have we received it? Is it out for assembly or customizing? When is it expected to be done?
- What is the most current status of the order? That is, the thing it needs immediately before further processing?
- Who is in charge of processing current steps with the order? Perhaps multiple people.
- Can orders be auto-tagged when certain conditions are met, or certain products involved. For example X product always need customizing, so it could be auto tagged with certain processes or todo right away.
At the end of the day, all of that is just a whole lot of notes. They could be statuses, or categories, or tags, or text fields. As long as the software makes if VERY easy to see at a glance what orders need what, what they are pending on, what's happening, etc.
The boss wants a constant overview of all pending orders like "12 orders need that thing, 8 orders need that, 3 orders are waiting on that PO, 12 orders are out for customizing at X vendor", etc etc etc. Customizable views for employees so each one can see the set of filters and tags most relevant to them.Again, a lot of this can be accomplished simply with a robust set of tagging and categorizing and notes.
I don't believe we need full ERP suites with accounting and CRM to accomplish this. All this is, is a bit of enhancement on top of order processing before going to fulfillment. Once we establish "all the things are now allocated and in stock", the order moves on for fulfillment and shipping through something like ShipStation or just the Stamps and UPS software. If they are combined, that's what I'm looking for.
ShipStation is really meant for "those people who ship". What I'm looking for, is more like, something all employees use to process orders, take notes when customers contact us, make changes, etc.
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I've personally always had a hard time knowing when it was the right move to bail on a current solution and move whole sale to another to provide myself the best solution. But then I've never been a big business either.
From what I've seen posted here, it sounds like your company needs to migrate away from BigC to a different product that gives you want you want. You're currently paying $1600/month of that, toss in another $400-500 for the added features and you're now at $2100/month total new single product better integration, etc.
it's all about getting management to understand that at the end of the pain, the payoff will be huge.
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@guyinpv said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
@pchiodo
Ya that's never going to happen.
We ship around 500 orders a month. It's just enough for us to handle "manually" without needing a full ERP.A product like ShipStation is perfectly suitable for our warehouse to get packages out. Where it fails is one step back, at the order management level. We need to do all the things with orders before it's ready to process for shipment.
This involves nothing more than good "notes" as far as most of us are concerned.
- When did order get placed?
- What products were in stock? Are they now pulled/allocated?
- If not in stock, are they on order? If so, connected to what PO from what vendor? When can we expect delivery?
- Does a line item need customization? If so do we have it out yet? Where? When expected to return? Are we waiting for a PO AND customizing?
- Does a line item require customer to send US something? If so, have they sent it? Have we received it? Is it out for assembly or customizing? When is it expected to be done?
- What is the most current status of the order? That is, the thing it needs immediately before further processing?
- Who is in charge of processing current steps with the order? Perhaps multiple people.
- Can orders be auto-tagged when certain conditions are met, or certain products involved. For example X product always need customizing, so it could be auto tagged with certain processes or todo right away.
At the end of the day, all of that is just a whole lot of notes. They could be statuses, or categories, or tags, or text fields. As long as the software makes if VERY easy to see at a glance what orders need what, what they are pending on, what's happening, etc.
The boss wants a constant overview of all pending orders like "12 orders need that thing, 8 orders need that, 3 orders are waiting on that PO, 12 orders are out for customizing at X vendor", etc etc etc. Customizable views for employees so each one can see the set of filters and tags most relevant to them.Again, a lot of this can be accomplished simply with a robust set of tagging and categorizing and notes.
I don't believe we need full ERP suites with accounting and CRM to accomplish this. All this is, is a bit of enhancement on top of order processing before going to fulfillment. Once we establish "all the things are now allocated and in stock", the order moves on for fulfillment and shipping through something like ShipStation or just the Stamps and UPS software. If they are combined, that's what I'm looking for.
ShipStation is really meant for "those people who ship". What I'm looking for, is more like, something all employees use to process orders, take notes when customers contact us, make changes, etc.
It sounds like you need a small Access, or other DB with an active dashboard. I cannot think of a package that would do what you're asking. If you can define the full scope of your needs, you can probably get it programmed within your budget.
I would guess, that once you deploy an initial solution, the boss will ask for 20 other things he didn't tell you about.
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The budget is always a concern.
Previously they used a shopping cart costing only about $400/m. The cart allowed custom order statuses so all orders could have arbitrary statuses, but only one status at a time. This was barely useful, but worked. All vendors/POs are still managed by friggin spreadsheets in Box.
Our new BigCommerce Enterprise blows the previous cart out of the water, but does NOT have custom statuses or tags of any kind. It's already taking us from $400/m to $1600/m just for the cart alone.
That hit the boss hard, so now I'm going to ask for another $500 to $6000 a month for some over developed ERP solution that does 20 cool things we'll never use? They won't go for it! That's just life.
What really pains me during this whole thing is that we move from an outdated crummy cart that is literally down up to 15 hours a month, to a best-in-class "Enterprise" cart that's 3x as much, yet ONE feature is missing in BigC that is a game changer.
In management's eyes, this one feature is YUUUGE, and thus makes BigC seems like the inferior product in their eyes, cause not only did it cost 3x more, but now I have to pay even MORE to use another piece of software to try and get back that one missing feature.All of this is just so ugly. They are used to the shopping cart essentially handling everything. Now that we are bigger, the company can't run off just a shopping cart, but they still think it can. Always asking for a better cart, for better price, with more and more back office features.
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@guyinpv said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
The budget is always a concern.
It's IT, it's the context of our lives.
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@guyinpv said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
The budget is always a concern.
That is a large part of the problem right there.
@guyinpv said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
Our new BigCommerce Enterprise blows the previous cart out of the water, but does NOT have custom statuses or tags of any kind. It's already taking us from $400/m to $1600/m just for the cart alone.
Sounds like a wrong decision was made here to begin with. Why buy in on a product that does not do what is needed?
@guyinpv said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
That hit the boss hard, so now I'm going to ask for another $500 to $6000 a month for some over developed ERP solution that does 20 cool things we'll never use? They won't go for it! That's just life.
No, that is not life, it is bad management. Also you are already against any new solution claiming it is over developed. You are not even open to new ideas at this point.
@guyinpv said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
What really pains me during this whole thing is that we move from an outdated crummy cart that is literally down up to 15 hours a month, to a best-in-class "Enterprise" cart that's 3x as much, yet ONE feature is missing in BigC that is a game changer.
In management's eyes, this one feature is YUUUGE, and thus makes BigC seems like the inferior product in their eyes, cause not only did it cost 3x more, but now I have to pay even MORE to use another piece of software to try and get back that one missing feature.Again this is a management mistake. The product should have never been purchased if it did not do what was needed.
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Based Jared!
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@JaredBusch said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
That is a large part of the problem right there.
It always is. Money doesn't grow off the walls around here.
@JaredBusch said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
Sounds like a wrong decision was made here to begin with. Why buy in on a product that does not do what is needed?
It did 80 other things we wanted. No other solution could be found with the right mix of features.
@JaredBusch said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
No, that is not life, it is bad management. Also you are already against any new solution claiming it is over developed. You are not even open to new ideas at this point.
You mean management, not myself. I am far more aware of the temperament of the business owner than you are. If I walk in and say, well it's time to get rid of quickbooks, spreadsheets, printed papers, shopping cart, shipping software, cloud accounts, and EVERY method and process you've developed over the last 10 years running this business, and buy this all-in-one thing for $5000 a month to run the whole company. I will immediately be fired.
The expectation here is that "boss wants X", everybody must deliver X at the price they want. If not, temper tantrums. They will start looking for somebody else who WILL deliver what they want.
@JaredBusch said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
Again this is a management mistake. The product should have never been purchased if it did not do what was needed.
Nonsense. It's entirely possible that NO software exactly meets every requirement. We have to settle on getting as close as possible within budget and time constraints.
The requirement was "our shopping cart sucks, we need a new one by November". So I had to find carts, but very few off-the-shelf carts within price range could do what we needed. BigC simply got closest. We went through the trial, the demo, had live sessions, Q&As. But at the end of the day, it's a few features shy, and we have hope that the feature we want is on their near roadmap for development. Choices had to be made.The idea was to upgrade the cart, and then switch to better fulfillment software, and then use the features of the fulfillment software to organize and manage the orders, rather than the shopping cart. Hence ShipStation and the like. Hence running in to a bottle neck of fulfillment software at $40-$80/m versus ERM at $1000-$6000/m. Hence I asked in the OP, where is the middle ground? Where is the $200/m software that does ShipStation+few other things? I just can't find it.
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@guyinpv said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
Nonsense. It's entirely possible that NO software exactly meets every requirement. We have to settle on getting as close as possible within budget and time constraints.
Now you just have to get management to understand this and be happy with the solution that you have and the additional add ons or whatever that are required.
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@scottalanmiller said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
@guyinpv said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
Nonsense. It's entirely possible that NO software exactly meets every requirement. We have to settle on getting as close as possible within budget and time constraints.
Now you just have to get management to understand this and be happy with the solution that you have and the additional add ons or whatever that are required.
Yes that's the ticket right there.
I'm just surprised to not find any solutions that fill this particular market, or niche if you will. Makes me want to start a software company!
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@guyinpv said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
@scottalanmiller said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
@guyinpv said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
Nonsense. It's entirely possible that NO software exactly meets every requirement. We have to settle on getting as close as possible within budget and time constraints.
Now you just have to get management to understand this and be happy with the solution that you have and the additional add ons or whatever that are required.
Yes that's the ticket right there.
I'm just surprised to not find any solutions that fill this particular market, or niche if you will. Makes me want to start a software company!
I get that feeling all of the time. I can't believe how often people tell me that they can't find any software for a given need.
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Or that they can but what they find is terrible.
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@scottalanmiller said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
Or that they can but what they find is terrible.
Regarding shopping carts, this.
Poor handling of variations/SKUs. Can manage payment options right, do refunds or whatever. Completely lack normal business data like what the store paid for an item. How can they even do a profit statement if they don't allow store cost?
Weird limits, like can't export more than 200 of something. Limited products, limited variations, limited orders per month, limited revenue limits.
Poor API abilities or lack of addons or apps.
Bad uptime. Bad support contracts.
Lack of multi-user security features.
Lack of payment options (the one we need)
Lack of good shipping controls.
Lack of good themes and theme-editing abilities.
Lack of mobile responsiveness.
Bad checkout experience.
Bad profit model (they give cart away cheap, then have to pay for all the basic features as addons)List goes on.
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@guyinpv said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
Our new BigCommerce Enterprise blows the previous cart out of the water, but does NOT have custom statuses or tags of any kind. It's already taking us from $400/m to $1600/m just for the cart alone.
That hit the boss hard, so now I'm going to ask for another $500 to $6000 a month for some over developed ERP solution that does 20 cool things we'll never use? They won't go for it! That's just life.
This sounds like the sunk cost fallacy. You already spent the money on a product, and now no one wants to look bad that it was the wrong decision.
If I walk in and say, well it's time to get rid of quickbooks, spreadsheets, printed papers, shopping cart, shipping software, cloud accounts, and EVERY method and process you've developed over the last 10 years running this business, and buy this all-in-one thing for $5000 a month to run the whole company. I will immediately be fired.
But it really sounds like the business needs exactly that. They are doing things hodge podge. Of course this is completely normal, it's organic growth. But once you reach a certain level, you need to scrap all that and move to a method more like how the big boys play. Who knows, you might be able to do a staff reduction (aka cost savings) when you move to a more unified ERP solution.
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@Dashrender said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
But it really sounds like the business needs exactly that. They are doing things hodge podge. Of course this is completely normal, it's organic growth. But once you reach a certain level, you need to scrap all that and move to a method more like how the big boys play. Who knows, you might be able to do a staff reduction (aka cost savings) when you move to a more unified ERP solution.
I think part of the question is "is there a big boy solution" in this space? Maybe, I don't really know. But that's the question.
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@scottalanmiller said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
@Dashrender said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
But it really sounds like the business needs exactly that. They are doing things hodge podge. Of course this is completely normal, it's organic growth. But once you reach a certain level, you need to scrap all that and move to a method more like how the big boys play. Who knows, you might be able to do a staff reduction (aka cost savings) when you move to a more unified ERP solution.
I think part of the question is "is there a big boy solution" in this space? Maybe, I don't really know. But that's the question.
It sounds like he's found one or more already. They just have 20 things that he doesn't need.
Also when looking at costs, remember, you're ditching QB (more cost savings or rather cost moving) etc. What other processes can be streamlined, what software gotten rid of because the company moves to a more holistic ERP?
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@guyinpv - Take a look at www.erpnext.com
It has great features that tick a lot of the boxes you are requesting. Best part it's open source - (free if self hosted). They even have a VM preloaded with the software.
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@Dashrender said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
@scottalanmiller said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
@Dashrender said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
But it really sounds like the business needs exactly that. They are doing things hodge podge. Of course this is completely normal, it's organic growth. But once you reach a certain level, you need to scrap all that and move to a method more like how the big boys play. Who knows, you might be able to do a staff reduction (aka cost savings) when you move to a more unified ERP solution.
I think part of the question is "is there a big boy solution" in this space? Maybe, I don't really know. But that's the question.
It sounds like he's found one or more already. They just have 20 things that he doesn't need.
Also when looking at costs, remember, you're ditching QB (more cost savings or rather cost moving) etc. What other processes can be streamlined, what software gotten rid of because the company moves to a more holistic ERP?
Yes, but, cost.
NetSuite is kind of an "industry standard" but base price for us is $5k.
Is it completely worth it? Well when everything is integrated and mixed with their marketing features and all the employees are trained on it and we understand its features and automations, it probably IS worth it. I wouldn't be able to build a strong enough ROI to try to convince them to spend the extra $4k and change all their methods.I'm not an ERP guy, so really I need a consultant or at least some kind of in-person live demo sales presentation or something. Let them sell the boss on their solution.
From my perspective, I'm looking at people whose mouths drop when I say cloud storage is $5 per user. Or O365 is $10 per user. Or project management is $3 per user. Or antivirus is $2 per user.
Anyway, ERP definitely IS the "type" of solution we need, but so is Big Commerce. ERPs tend to be great in the back office but the front end stuff I've never been impressed with.
In any case, the only "middle" I've found is BrightPearl, which would be around $525 a month. Even that would be a hard sell I'm afraid.
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@guyinpv said in Anybody in online retail and warehousing I need ERP advice:
NetSuite is kind of an "industry standard" but base price for us is $5k.
A month, I assume you mean?
