Making Furniture Retail Easier

Furniture Retailers are doing it tough at the moment across the board – and one of the toughest things to do is have to let go good people that know your products well and can sell.

It is common that the internal systems are getting in the way – if only you could free up internal time of your valuable people so they can spend just 20% more time selling – it would probably be enough.

To do this you need two things

1. A complete system that covers from lead capture through quoting and deposit capture through to fabrication (or outsourcing) to delivery and reference capture (photos and comments)
2. A partner to work with you to get such a system setup and working the way you do business

SaaSplications is that partner

1. We stay connected – expecting your business to change over time
2. We have an online system – easy to setup and get going
3. Customers will love the speed of customisation and pricing
4. Partners (Stylists and other intermediaries) will love building custom items with their customers in a portal knowing their earnings are clear and visible to them.
5. You will love that customers can pay their deposit online on a phone to trigger the order process
6. Your suppliers will love the ease of quoting / updating their progress
7. Your internal manufacturing will flow through the jobs with constraint based planning
8. All information will be in a single system
9. When you grown multiple stores or franchisees it will be easy to administer with transactions flowing through

How SaaSplications works with you

1. Mapping they way you work and want to work
2. Evolving system capabilities to suit your business
3. Ongoing system usability checks and improvement planning

The Scope of the System

A Retail POS with barcode scanning for selling small items and standard items.  Scan and capture payment immediately and simply.

As an example if your store has a chess set, some pillows and some lamps that can be sold from floor stock – you need to be able to simply scan in a POS and capture payment.

Configurable furniture (build to order)

• Configure products while sitting next to customers
• Pricing updates as you configure
• Attach custom drawings ( later used by fabrication internally or externally)
• Create alternative quotes easily different fabric choices etc
• Simple custom quote process ( suppliers or internal fabrication )
• Customer Portal including images and drawings for customer review
• Simple online customer feedback of quotes
• Track visits to online documents ( and follow-up hot prospects that are reviewing the online quotes )
• Take deposits / final payments online (order status updates immediately to start sourcing)
• Track fabrication process internally or externally
• Capture photos of finished product for internal approval
• Capture photos of delivered product in place to use as selling examples and administer warrantee claims
• All Invoices and Bills created while you work – including franchisee/or or multiple store interactions.

Example

You sell a sofa set at a price for the set

• say 3 x 1 seaters and 1x 3 seater
• with choices of material, legs, finishes, cushion fill, protective treatments and some dimension changes. 
• Also needing to provide
  • (1) a quote as above
  • (2) a quote with only 2 x 2 seaters and less pillows
  • and (3) a quote in a different material choice

The customer logs into the portal

• The variants are linked – so the customer can easily review the alternatives online
• You can see what they have viewed
• They can comment /ask questions that attach to the order and show in a list
• The customer can pay a deposit online when ready – or progress payments (requires payment gateway)
• As soon as the customer pays the order moves to sourcing

The sourcing team

• Source any required components sending out PO’s to suppliers with fabrication location address

The Production team

• Track and check on external fabricators
• Manage internal fabrication processes across multiple workcentres
• Track completion and confirm ready to deliver
• Plan deliveries with customers and capture related photos

About SaaSplications

• Our software is built, hosted and supported in Australia from the ground up
• We stay close to our customers to make using it easy
• We make improvements based on customer requirements every week

Do you want run your business with local support who will listen, help troubleshoot and collaborate on improvements ?

How we make it easy to get started:

1. Help you with
   1. Core Setups
      1. Upload supplier list / setup supplier portal logins
      2. Upload purchased and sold product definitions
      3. Upload Images to products and categories and brands
      4. Setup product configuration rules (BOM)
      5. Setup Multiple retail outlets (owned or franchised)
      6. GL Chart of Accounts / control accounts
   2. Retail POS Setup
      1. Link to Credit Card Terminals / payment gateways
      2. Customer Portal features
      3. Partner Portal features (stylists)
   3. Internal Manufacturing Setup (if required)
      1. Build Processes
      2. Work centres
      3. Rosters
   4. Enter existing orders
   5. Train users using the test system

Contact us for a free review of what you do and how we can help you to simplify your business and get on a platform for growth.

Configurable products

Configure multiple products with your customer – examples from a Sofa

• Material – capture supplier, range, colour identifier, view images
• White price (flag items in or out of white price)
  • Legs
  • Seat Cushion Fill
  • Back Cushion Fill
• Options (gas strut and storage, split for small entry, fabric protection etc)

RRP updates as you change selections

Enter dimension changes, attach drawings or photos to create custom quotes requirements with approvals and option to send to suppliers for a quote if fabrication is outsourced.

Closing the Sale

Make it easy for the customer

Some customers like to consider their choices and take time to discuss the options

Sending the customer an online link to a portal view including images and drawings to review and pay a deposit on can also shorten the sales cycles

Keep Salespeople Focussed

Software needs to make it easy to focus on the most likely opportunities, the next steps and schedule callbacks or customer revisits.

Dashboards keep your salespeople focussed

1. Customer Questions (from portal) needing response
2. Customer recent visits to portal view of quote/s
3. Next steps
4. Expected close dates and % chance
5. Monthly expected sales results.

Easy for customer to pay deposit

Deposits can be collected in store, over the phone, by a deposit arriving in the bank or online in the customer portal.

Once the deposit is recorded the software authorises the order, and it appears on the sourcing dashboard.

If a franchise group or multi-entity group is involved the inter-company financial transactions will be created as well.

It all starts with a customer conversation

Create quotes modifying choices as the customer watches and sees the impact on RRP.

To be Confirmed decisions

Flag any choice in the configuration as “Not Final” to indicate to you and the customer where they have not yet decided and to speed up the conversations.

Provide customers with diagrams / drawings in Portal

Attach notes, images or PDF’s at any level that are visible in the customer portal through quoting, ordering, manufacturing and delivery – all available on a phone.

Examples:

• Back Pillow Borders to be piped seams
• Legs to be shortened to 55mm
• Material Manufacturer link or images attached
• Simple modified image markups
• Detailed Drawings attached

Variants

Simply copy any quote to modify the details of a copy (eg different material) to provide the customer multiple variant quotes.

Example

Opening the copy of a quote with a sofa suite of 3,2,1 seaters and an ottoman – then changing one material line to a different material – the system prompts if you want to change all items on the quote to the new material.

Customer Portal

Customer can easily view the quote on a phone then confirm any decisions, provide feedback or make the deposit payment online

Example

Sales rep starts the day seeing 4 quotes were viewed online today and there are two customer comments to followup – also 1 of the quotes had a deposit taken and materials are now being sourced for production

Sourcing

Fabricated in house

Stay on top of requirements using the Sourcing Dashboard to list items that are not stocked and need to be sourced.  Easily email suitable documents for suppliers with the address of the fabrication workshop.

Fabricated by others

Fabricators Supplier Portal provides a place for suppliers to Quote, Accept Orders, update ETA, post any questions / changes required, access documents, push status and upload completion photos for review

Fabricated by others with product supplied by you

Sometimes not all items are sourced by the external fabricator – flag anytime on the order so they remain on the sourcing dashboard (with a delivery address of the supplier) until ordered and delivery confirmed

Fabricated in house required components

The Sourcing Dashboard will list items that are not stocked (eg material, legs, handles) and need to be sourced creating suitable documents for suppliers with the address of the fabrication workshop.

Quality Assurance, Final Payment and Delivery

QA inspection including photo documentation by your workshop floor or supplier attached to the order is critical to reduce possible future issues.

Final payment should be collected from the customer before the furniture is delivered and storage fees may be required if this is delayed.

Delivery and associated photos becomes a proof the delivered product was as ordered and in great condition.

All made easy by software that includes these stopping points and makes it easy to track, record and later use the documentation collected.

In House Furniture Workshop Management

Furniture Production in the software uses a Job Shop approach where each job is prioritised by expected ExWarehouse date (driven by customer end delivery date plus delivery time) making it easy to change priority

Customer products travel together through workstations in series or parallel until completed using build steps

Capacity is viewed comparing scheduled shifts to expected build step times without locking – so adding more shifts or reducing any orders build time will adjust the schedule.

Work centres indicate starting, stopping, materials consumed (like timber or actual material usage) as they move from build step to build step providing confidence of completion dates and future quote eta’s.

External Fabrication Management

Furniture suppliers need comprehensive documents and clear instructions and every step of typing new documents introduces a chance for error.  So our software sends them the details of the original order as a purchase request without creating another document.

Furniture suppliers want to be paid a deposit on acceptance of the order and then will provide manufacturing start and completion dates expected.

Final payment is on accepted photos and the final product is not to be sent to the customer until the customer has paid a final deposit.

These are critical business management steps that are made easy using the supplier dashboard – providing suppliers with an easy access portal to get all information and enter date updates.

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