Quba Sails
Sage MMS Integrated ecommerce
Quba Sails is a Salcombe-based clothing company specialising in the manufacture
of garments from sail cloth. It started trading in 1999 and now employs
50 people. In the last two years, turnover has doubled to £1.7M. Quba
has seven shops around the country and supplies wholesale to 60 other shops.
It also operates by mail order and has had a first generation ecommerce
web site for five years.
Quba's internal IT was a mixture of till systems and spreadsheets with
the main accounting done using Sage Line 50. The company's existing growth
and future ambitions meant that it needed to improve its IT. We worked with
epostills.com of Truro to put together an integrated solution based on Sage
MMS Retail Edition, Sage PayPoint and our Shopfront ecommerce product. This solution provides a single system for Accounting, Purchasing, Retail, Wholesale, Mail Order and Web Sales.
Our ecommerce software integrates with the 'Product Matrix' technology
in MMS Retail which gives flexibility to structure a product that has 'variants'
associated with it, such as size, colour and style. These products are added
to the site via a drag and drop interface retaining all the variant information
so that customers can select the right garment. Descriptions, prices and
other information necessary for the web site are also taken directly from
MMS. The web site queries MMS in real time via broadband so that out of
stock items are not unintentionally sold. The global stock position which
MMS gives over retails stores, however, means that a much sought after jacket
can be supplied from Quba's Lymington shop because the web site can 'see'
the stock held there. Once the credit card is cleared the order is immediately
placed in MMS for fulfilment and dispatch.
Internet marketing is very important. Our Shopfront
ecommerce product is personalised through the 'My Quba' section. Customer
enquiries, brochure requests, newsletter opt-in and sales data are all passed
to ACT! in real time over broadband providing the information needed to
maximise campaign efficiency.
Future developments will include a 'Design Your Own Jacket' feature with
the order being passed to MMS for processing; and carrier integration to
automate the dispatch process.
"Aspidistra's software is so straightforward to use. They are a great company to work with; they demistify the technology and continue to respond to our needs, delivering a superb product."
Jim Hartley - the director responsible for the project
Quba Sails were the first company to deploy Sage MMS Retail Edition. With
this proven solution using our ecommerce product, future MMS Retail customers
can add or upgrade ecommerce from day one.