STORES Magazine - November 2008 - (Page 44)

NUTS AND BOLTS / CUSTOM SOFTWARE tions, helping workers keep track of textbook inventory, purchasing and receiving and buyback transactions. At the home office, CourseTracks provides a lot more control. Follett is now able to maintain “perpetual inventory mode” and is able to process close to three million records on an average day. “Previously, it was hard to know inventory levels for certain textbooks, what kind of buyback volume there would be,” says Don Peterson, another Clarity principal. “But CourseTracks has that built in. Throughout the day, periodically, it synchronizes the data with corporate, and then all of the different departments have access to that information, as well.” Two areas, in particular, provided unique challenges. The system developed for the stores had to be “easy for someone to train on,” Peterson says, due to the nature of college bookstore employee turnover. And then there was the ability to support remote buyback. “Typically buybacks are done in the campus bookstore, but they can also be done remotely, wherever it’s more convenient for the students,” Peterson says. “Store personnel may go to a dorm and set up shop there. So we needed to develop a system that could run completely offline, with no networking ability, since Wi-Fi access isn’t available at every campus, and still make sure that there was no overbuying or buying of books that have no used market value.” Sneaker net options The answer was to provide several update options for the store — jokingly referred to in IT terms as “sneaker net” options — in which machines could either be deployed to the site and then returned to the store periodically for updates, or data could be transferred to CDs or USB devices that could be brought back to the store and uploaded to the system at the end of the day. Though CourseTracks is a fully custom solution, there are portions of the application that Clarity considers core development features and may be “repeatable,” Gilmer says. They can serve as a base that the company hopes to package for new clients as a time- and moneysaver in the custom development process. “But I think it’s important for our clients to understand, before they talk to us, how they do things differently, what the value proposition is and how it will manifest in the applications that are being built,” Gilmer says. “They have to ask, ‘Am I going to be able to deliver on my brand promise by buying something out of the box, or will I exceed it by investing dollars and building it myself?’ “The actual investment is a lot smaller than it used to be,” he says. “And if you start factoring in those things, you see that the equation has changed.” StORES Fiona Soltes, who splits her time between “retail therapy” and freelance writing, lives near Nashville, Tenn. Kenstan LOCK COMPANY Manufacturer of Fine Showcase and Cabinet Locks YOU SEE JEWELRY IN THE SHOWCASE. CRIMINALS SEE CASH! $$ Our Standard Lock Housings are NOW AVAILABLE with & High Security Keyways Call us at 1-800-859-7874 or order on the web @ www.kenstan.com http://www.kenstan.com http://www.kenstan.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - November 2008

STORES Magazine - November 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Every Cup Counts What Shoppers Think Less Park Time, More Shop Time 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Retail Held Captive First Look Concept2Watch Marketing Technology Custom Software PCI Compliance Data Security Arts Update Newsbeat LP Issues: Q&A Cover Story Surveillance Systems Online Fraud Industry Perspective LOEB Retail Letter Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - November 2008

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