Apparel Retailers!! Read this! We need an inventory solution

[Brandon Eley]

If you sell apparel on your ShopSite website, please read this!

I own 2BigFeet.com, retailer of large shoes for men and women. Since we
opened we have used ShopSite software and love it.

However, we have never been able to accurately track inventory through
ShopSite because we sell apparel. ShopSite only tracks inventory on a
per item level... i.e. a pair of shoes. But the problem comes in when
you have several different sizes/colors of the SAME shoe. You only have
one product, but might sell out of a certain size.

This has plagued us since we opened. We stock all our own inventory, so
we have the hardest time keeping up with what's in stock and what's not.
With thousands of pairs of shoes on the shelves, having to manually
handle inventory is so time consuming that's about all we do.

WHAT WE NEED::

We need ShopSite to help us create an option-level inventory management
system, and we are willing to help pay for it. If other retailers want
this functionality we could split the costs and possibly get this
completed faster.

If we don't find something to handle our inventory before the Christmas
shopping season (nov/dec) we're going to be in big trouble...

So if you're interested, please contact me to discuss: (that includes
anyone from ShopSite as well)

Email: brandon@2bigfeet.com
MSN Messenger: brandon@hotmail.com
AOL Messenger: NetBizOwner

Thanks,

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com

[Phil]

We use Ecom Assembler to build our pages
http://www.stoneedge.com/ecomassembler.htm

When a product becomes out-of-stock, this program will build and update the
page(s) with that product(s) on it. We remove the order button and replace
it with a out-of-stock notice. It also updates when product becomes
available again.

It's almost completely automatic and saves a lot of time and hassle.

thanks,
Phil
http://www.FlexYourMuscles.com


Brandon Eley wrote:

If you sell apparel on your ShopSite website, please read this!

I own 2BigFeet.com, retailer of large shoes for men and women. Since we
opened we have used ShopSite software and love it.

However, we have never been able to accurately track inventory through
ShopSite because we sell apparel. ShopSite only tracks inventory on a
per item level... i.e. a pair of shoes. But the problem comes in when
you have several different sizes/colors of the SAME shoe. You only have
one product, but might sell out of a certain size.

This has plagued us since we opened. We stock all our own inventory, so
we have the hardest time keeping up with what's in stock and what's not.
With thousands of pairs of shoes on the shelves, having to manually
handle inventory is so time consuming that's about all we do.

WHAT WE NEED::

We need ShopSite to help us create an option-level inventory management
system, and we are willing to help pay for it. If other retailers want
this functionality we could split the costs and possibly get this
completed faster.

If we don't find something to handle our inventory before the Christmas
shopping season (nov/dec) we're going to be in big trouble...

So if you're interested, please contact me to discuss: (that includes
anyone from ShopSite as well)

Email: brandon@2bigfeet.com
MSN Messenger: brandon@hotmail.com
AOL Messenger: NetBizOwner

Thanks,

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com

[Brandon Eley]

Does the E-Com Assebmler handle option-level inventory? If so how?

Thanks,
Brandon

Phil wrote:

We use Ecom Assembler to build our pages
http://www.stoneedge.com/ecomassembler.htm

When a product becomes out-of-stock, this program will build and update the
page(s) with that product(s) on it. We remove the order button and replace
it with a out-of-stock notice. It also updates when product becomes
available again.

It's almost completely automatic and saves a lot of time and hassle.

thanks,
Phil
http://www.FlexYourMuscles.com


Brandon Eley wrote:


If you sell apparel on your ShopSite website, please read this!

I own 2BigFeet.com, retailer of large shoes for men and women. Since we
opened we have used ShopSite software and love it.

However, we have never been able to accurately track inventory through
ShopSite because we sell apparel. ShopSite only tracks inventory on a
per item level... i.e. a pair of shoes. But the problem comes in when
you have several different sizes/colors of the SAME shoe. You only have
one product, but might sell out of a certain size.

This has plagued us since we opened. We stock all our own inventory, so
we have the hardest time keeping up with what's in stock and what's not.
With thousands of pairs of shoes on the shelves, having to manually
handle inventory is so time consuming that's about all we do.

WHAT WE NEED::

We need ShopSite to help us create an option-level inventory management
system, and we are willing to help pay for it. If other retailers want
this functionality we could split the costs and possibly get this
completed faster.

If we don't find something to handle our inventory before the Christmas
shopping season (nov/dec) we're going to be in big trouble...

So if you're interested, please contact me to discuss: (that includes
anyone from ShopSite as well)

Email: brandon@2bigfeet.com
MSN Messenger: brandon@hotmail.com
AOL Messenger: NetBizOwner

Thanks,

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com

[Barney Stone]

Brandon -

The ECom Assembler works with your Product Manager and Order Manager (all
from Stone Edge Technologies, www.StoneEdge.com). It uses the Parent- and
Sub- SKUs that you probably already have set up in the Product Manager. The
Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level (specific
colors, sizes, etc.) You can tell the ECom Assembler to hide options that
are out of stock. To use that, you would probably put all of your color and
size options for each pair of shoes into a single option list (6 1/2 Brown,
6 1/2 Black, 7 Brown, 7 Black, etc., all in one list). The Assembler would
simply leave any out-of-stock options out of the drop-down list when it
builds your pages. You then re-build pages and upload them frequently (e.g.
nightly) to keep them close to your actual inventory.

Also see my suggestion in your earlier thread on the same subject for a
Web-based real-time inventory system that we could add to ShopSite.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bfubrm$4h7$1@support.shopsite.com...

Does the E-Com Assebmler handle option-level inventory? If so how?

Thanks,
Brandon

Phil wrote:
We use Ecom Assembler to build our pages
http://www.stoneedge.com/ecomassembler.htm

When a product becomes out-of-stock, this program will build and update
the
page(s) with that product(s) on it. We remove the order button and
replace
it with a out-of-stock notice. It also updates when product becomes
available again.

It's almost completely automatic and saves a lot of time and hassle.

thanks,
Phil
http://www.FlexYourMuscles.com


Brandon Eley wrote:


If you sell apparel on your ShopSite website, please read this!

I own 2BigFeet.com, retailer of large shoes for men and women. Since we
opened we have used ShopSite software and love it.

However, we have never been able to accurately track inventory through
ShopSite because we sell apparel. ShopSite only tracks inventory on a
per item level... i.e. a pair of shoes. But the problem comes in when
you have several different sizes/colors of the SAME shoe. You only have
one product, but might sell out of a certain size.

This has plagued us since we opened. We stock all our own inventory, so
we have the hardest time keeping up with what's in stock and what's not.
With thousands of pairs of shoes on the shelves, having to manually
handle inventory is so time consuming that's about all we do.

WHAT WE NEED::

We need ShopSite to help us create an option-level inventory management
system, and we are willing to help pay for it. If other retailers want
this functionality we could split the costs and possibly get this
completed faster.

If we don't find something to handle our inventory before the Christmas
shopping season (nov/dec) we're going to be in big trouble...

So if you're interested, please contact me to discuss: (that includes
anyone from ShopSite as well)

Email: brandon@2bigfeet.com
MSN Messenger: brandon@hotmail.com
AOL Messenger: NetBizOwner

Thanks,

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com

[Brandon Eley]

Barney, see the quote below:

" The Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level
(specific colors, sizes, etc."

By that do you mean the e-com assembler or the order manager for
shopsite? We currently have both the order manager and product manager,
but they do not track inventory on a order-option level (i.e. the
color/size dropdowns).

I have talked to both you and Shopsite who said this was possible with
complicated templates and by using sub-products/cross-sell features. I
am open to anything, but can't just figure it out on my own. ShopSite
sent me a template that just simply doesn't work. I'm willing to spend
money, but only for a SOLUTION. I don't want to spend a thousand dollars
only to find out it won't work for us.

Our entire goal is to SAVE TIME. When the x-mas shopping season hits
we'll spend literally 5-6 hours a day just packing and shipping orders
and updating inventory/website. That doesn't leave much time to answer
the phone, answer customer inquiries, process returns, reorder shoes, etc.

Anyway, if you think the E-Com Assembler will work, we should get
together and talk about it.

Thanks,
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:

Brandon -

The ECom Assembler works with your Product Manager and Order Manager (all
from Stone Edge Technologies, www.StoneEdge.com). It uses the Parent- and
Sub- SKUs that you probably already have set up in the Product Manager. The
Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level (specific
colors, sizes, etc.) You can tell the ECom Assembler to hide options that
are out of stock. To use that, you would probably put all of your color and
size options for each pair of shoes into a single option list (6 1/2 Brown,
6 1/2 Black, 7 Brown, 7 Black, etc., all in one list). The Assembler would
simply leave any out-of-stock options out of the drop-down list when it
builds your pages. You then re-build pages and upload them frequently (e.g.
nightly) to keep them close to your actual inventory.

Also see my suggestion in your earlier thread on the same subject for a
Web-based real-time inventory system that we could add to ShopSite.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bfubrm$4h7$1@support.shopsite.com...

Does the E-Com Assebmler handle option-level inventory? If so how?

Thanks,
Brandon

Phil wrote:

We use Ecom Assembler to build our pages
http://www.stoneedge.com/ecomassembler.htm

When a product becomes out-of-stock, this program will build and update

the

page(s) with that product(s) on it. We remove the order button and

replace

it with a out-of-stock notice. It also updates when product becomes
available again.

It's almost completely automatic and saves a lot of time and hassle.

thanks,
Phil
http://www.FlexYourMuscles.com


Brandon Eley wrote:



If you sell apparel on your ShopSite website, please read this!

I own 2BigFeet.com, retailer of large shoes for men and women. Since we
opened we have used ShopSite software and love it.

However, we have never been able to accurately track inventory through
ShopSite because we sell apparel. ShopSite only tracks inventory on a
per item level... i.e. a pair of shoes. But the problem comes in when
you have several different sizes/colors of the SAME shoe. You only have
one product, but might sell out of a certain size.

This has plagued us since we opened. We stock all our own inventory, so
we have the hardest time keeping up with what's in stock and what's not.
With thousands of pairs of shoes on the shelves, having to manually
handle inventory is so time consuming that's about all we do.

WHAT WE NEED::

We need ShopSite to help us create an option-level inventory management
system, and we are willing to help pay for it. If other retailers want
this functionality we could split the costs and possibly get this
completed faster.

If we don't find something to handle our inventory before the Christmas
shopping season (nov/dec) we're going to be in big trouble...

So if you're interested, please contact me to discuss: (that includes
anyone from ShopSite as well)

Email: brandon@2bigfeet.com
MSN Messenger: brandon@hotmail.com
AOL Messenger: NetBizOwner

Thanks,

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com

[Barney Stone]

Brandon -

There are two parts to inventory tracking:

1. For internal purposes: this lets YOU know what is in stock or out of
stock, but not your customers. The combination of the Stone Edge Product
Manager and Order Manager will do that for you, down to the specific color,
size, etc. You have to set up everything to work together. Your customer
orders a "Parent SKU" and selects one or more options. The Order Manager
converts those to a "Sub SKU" when the order is imported from ShopSite. The
Sub SKU is put into the order in the Order Manager and is used for inventory
tracking and re-ordering, etc. None of this information is available on your
Website. It is for internal use only. This has been available from us for
several years now.

2. For your Website: this can either hide out-of-stock products and/or
options, or prevent them from being ordered, or allow them to be ordered but
notify the customer that they are currently unavailable. Newer versions of
ShopSite can do this for you, but not at the product option level. There is
also no practical way for a program like the Order Manager to notify
ShopSite of changes in inventory levels, as we can with some other shopping
carts. We have discussed this with ShopSite, and hopefully someday they will
work with us to add that functionality.

What I suggested in another discussion thread is that we could provide a way
to test each item as it is ordered to see if it is in stock (including
options like color and size). If the specific item that was ordered is not
available, your customer would be notified, and based on your configuration,
either returned to the previous page or given a choice of whether to order
the item anyway. All of this would happen before the item ever reaches the
ShopSite shopping cart.

Another alternative would be a button (or perhaps a hover controlled pop-up
or something like that) that the customer could click to find out current
inventory status.

Either option would gets its data from a separate Web server that we would
provide. The quantity on hand information would be kept up to date in real
time: as you receive new inventory, handle returns and exchanges, make
non-Web sales, etc., the changes in QOH would be updated on the server
within seconds. We already provide a very similar service for Yahoo!Store
merchants, so most of the pieces are already in place and working. We
currently charge $350 per year for that service for up to 10,000 SKUs, $700
per year for up to 50,000 and $1,000 per year for up to 100,000. The SKU
count includes all Sub SKUs, so a shoe that is available in 8 sizes and 2
colors would result in 17 SKUs (the parent SKU plus 2*8=16 Sub SKUs).

Anyone who is interested in such a service should feel free to give me a
call to discuss it.

For anyone who is not familiar with Stone Edge Technologies, we are a small
company that offers high-powered tools for small-to-medium ecommerce
companies at prices they can afford, and with the level of personal service
that merchants want and need.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bg4ef5$vpd$1@support.shopsite.com...

Barney, see the quote below:

" The Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level
(specific colors, sizes, etc."

By that do you mean the e-com assembler or the order manager for
shopsite? We currently have both the order manager and product manager,
but they do not track inventory on a order-option level (i.e. the
color/size dropdowns).

I have talked to both you and Shopsite who said this was possible with
complicated templates and by using sub-products/cross-sell features. I
am open to anything, but can't just figure it out on my own. ShopSite
sent me a template that just simply doesn't work. I'm willing to spend
money, but only for a SOLUTION. I don't want to spend a thousand dollars
only to find out it won't work for us.

Our entire goal is to SAVE TIME. When the x-mas shopping season hits
we'll spend literally 5-6 hours a day just packing and shipping orders
and updating inventory/website. That doesn't leave much time to answer
the phone, answer customer inquiries, process returns, reorder shoes, etc.

Anyway, if you think the E-Com Assembler will work, we should get
together and talk about it.

Thanks,
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:
Brandon -

The ECom Assembler works with your Product Manager and Order Manager
(all
from Stone Edge Technologies, www.StoneEdge.com). It uses the Parent-
and
Sub- SKUs that you probably already have set up in the Product Manager.
The
Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level (specific
colors, sizes, etc.) You can tell the ECom Assembler to hide options
that
are out of stock. To use that, you would probably put all of your color
and
size options for each pair of shoes into a single option list (6 1/2
Brown,
6 1/2 Black, 7 Brown, 7 Black, etc., all in one list). The Assembler
would
simply leave any out-of-stock options out of the drop-down list when it
builds your pages. You then re-build pages and upload them frequently
(e.g.
nightly) to keep them close to your actual inventory.

Also see my suggestion in your earlier thread on the same subject for a
Web-based real-time inventory system that we could add to ShopSite.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bfubrm$4h7$1@support.shopsite.com...

Does the E-Com Assebmler handle option-level inventory? If so how?

Thanks,
Brandon

Phil wrote:

We use Ecom Assembler to build our pages
http://www.stoneedge.com/ecomassembler.htm

When a product becomes out-of-stock, this program will build and update

the

page(s) with that product(s) on it. We remove the order button and

replace

it with a out-of-stock notice. It also updates when product becomes
available again.

It's almost completely automatic and saves a lot of time and hassle.

thanks,
Phil
http://www.FlexYourMuscles.com


Brandon Eley wrote:



If you sell apparel on your ShopSite website, please read this!

I own 2BigFeet.com, retailer of large shoes for men and women. Since
we
opened we have used ShopSite software and love it.

However, we have never been able to accurately track inventory through
ShopSite because we sell apparel. ShopSite only tracks inventory on a
per item level... i.e. a pair of shoes. But the problem comes in when
you have several different sizes/colors of the SAME shoe. You only
have
one product, but might sell out of a certain size.

This has plagued us since we opened. We stock all our own inventory,
so
we have the hardest time keeping up with what's in stock and what's
not.
With thousands of pairs of shoes on the shelves, having to manually
handle inventory is so time consuming that's about all we do.

WHAT WE NEED::

We need ShopSite to help us create an option-level inventory
management
system, and we are willing to help pay for it. If other retailers want
this functionality we could split the costs and possibly get this
completed faster.

If we don't find something to handle our inventory before the
Christmas
shopping season (nov/dec) we're going to be in big trouble...

So if you're interested, please contact me to discuss: (that includes
anyone from ShopSite as well)

Email: brandon@2bigfeet.com
MSN Messenger: brandon@hotmail.com
AOL Messenger: NetBizOwner

Thanks,

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com

[Brandon Eley]

Barney, I appreciate your help. Your idea sounds intriguing but I don't
want to rely on another web server for anything, if it went down what
would happen? Would an item even be added to our cart or woudl the
customer just hang and our site would be down as well?

I would really like a solution on the ShopSite end... it would of course
have a trickle down effect to your programs should you decide to
incorporate the features also. Our MAIN concern is time. We're a
two-person operation and are so busy we can't get everything done... our
customers are suffering because we can't update inventory fast enough
manually... and we're losing sales because those customers might have
selected another size/color instead.

I already own ShopSite, Order Manager and Product Manager... which I
consider to be a pretty good sized investment. If we can't come up with
an affordable solution for option-level inventory management I'll need
to start over completely... which is obviously counter-productive.

Would there be any way to keep the inventory levels on OUR web server?
Either through flat text files or through a database such as MySQL?
Also, how are we going to have to udpate our inventory? Would this be
through the Order Manager? Product Manager? We want some system that
integrates... and saves us time. If we have to do more steps than
previously then it won't be much of a benefit.

I'll talk with Neil and get a specific spec for what we will need and
send it to both you and ShopSite... maybe we can get a 'proposal' for
what it would cost to integrate. If some of the people here are
interested we could split the cost among us.

Thanks
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:

Brandon -

There are two parts to inventory tracking:

1. For internal purposes: this lets YOU know what is in stock or out of
stock, but not your customers. The combination of the Stone Edge Product
Manager and Order Manager will do that for you, down to the specific color,
size, etc. You have to set up everything to work together. Your customer
orders a "Parent SKU" and selects one or more options. The Order Manager
converts those to a "Sub SKU" when the order is imported from ShopSite. The
Sub SKU is put into the order in the Order Manager and is used for inventory
tracking and re-ordering, etc. None of this information is available on your
Website. It is for internal use only. This has been available from us for
several years now.

2. For your Website: this can either hide out-of-stock products and/or
options, or prevent them from being ordered, or allow them to be ordered but
notify the customer that they are currently unavailable. Newer versions of
ShopSite can do this for you, but not at the product option level. There is
also no practical way for a program like the Order Manager to notify
ShopSite of changes in inventory levels, as we can with some other shopping
carts. We have discussed this with ShopSite, and hopefully someday they will
work with us to add that functionality.

What I suggested in another discussion thread is that we could provide a way
to test each item as it is ordered to see if it is in stock (including
options like color and size). If the specific item that was ordered is not
available, your customer would be notified, and based on your configuration,
either returned to the previous page or given a choice of whether to order
the item anyway. All of this would happen before the item ever reaches the
ShopSite shopping cart.

Another alternative would be a button (or perhaps a hover controlled pop-up
or something like that) that the customer could click to find out current
inventory status.

Either option would gets its data from a separate Web server that we would
provide. The quantity on hand information would be kept up to date in real
time: as you receive new inventory, handle returns and exchanges, make
non-Web sales, etc., the changes in QOH would be updated on the server
within seconds. We already provide a very similar service for Yahoo!Store
merchants, so most of the pieces are already in place and working. We
currently charge $350 per year for that service for up to 10,000 SKUs, $700
per year for up to 50,000 and $1,000 per year for up to 100,000. The SKU
count includes all Sub SKUs, so a shoe that is available in 8 sizes and 2
colors would result in 17 SKUs (the parent SKU plus 2*8=16 Sub SKUs).

Anyone who is interested in such a service should feel free to give me a
call to discuss it.

For anyone who is not familiar with Stone Edge Technologies, we are a small
company that offers high-powered tools for small-to-medium ecommerce
companies at prices they can afford, and with the level of personal service
that merchants want and need.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bg4ef5$vpd$1@support.shopsite.com...

Barney, see the quote below:

" The Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level
(specific colors, sizes, etc."

By that do you mean the e-com assembler or the order manager for
shopsite? We currently have both the order manager and product manager,
but they do not track inventory on a order-option level (i.e. the
color/size dropdowns).

I have talked to both you and Shopsite who said this was possible with
complicated templates and by using sub-products/cross-sell features. I
am open to anything, but can't just figure it out on my own. ShopSite
sent me a template that just simply doesn't work. I'm willing to spend
money, but only for a SOLUTION. I don't want to spend a thousand dollars
only to find out it won't work for us.

Our entire goal is to SAVE TIME. When the x-mas shopping season hits
we'll spend literally 5-6 hours a day just packing and shipping orders
and updating inventory/website. That doesn't leave much time to answer
the phone, answer customer inquiries, process returns, reorder shoes, etc.

Anyway, if you think the E-Com Assembler will work, we should get
together and talk about it.

Thanks,
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:

Brandon -

The ECom Assembler works with your Product Manager and Order Manager

(all

from Stone Edge Technologies, www.StoneEdge.com). It uses the Parent-

and

Sub- SKUs that you probably already have set up in the Product Manager.

The

Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level (specific
colors, sizes, etc.) You can tell the ECom Assembler to hide options

that

are out of stock. To use that, you would probably put all of your color

and

size options for each pair of shoes into a single option list (6 1/2

Brown,

6 1/2 Black, 7 Brown, 7 Black, etc., all in one list). The Assembler

would

simply leave any out-of-stock options out of the drop-down list when it
builds your pages. You then re-build pages and upload them frequently

(e.g.

nightly) to keep them close to your actual inventory.

Also see my suggestion in your earlier thread on the same subject for a
Web-based real-time inventory system that we could add to ShopSite.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bfubrm$4h7$1@support.shopsite.com...


Does the E-Com Assebmler handle option-level inventory? If so how?

Thanks,
Brandon

Phil wrote:


We use Ecom Assembler to build our pages
http://www.stoneedge.com/ecomassembler.htm

When a product becomes out-of-stock, this program will build and update

the


page(s) with that product(s) on it. We remove the order button and

replace


it with a out-of-stock notice. It also updates when product becomes
available again.

It's almost completely automatic and saves a lot of time and hassle.

thanks,
Phil
http://www.FlexYourMuscles.com


Brandon Eley wrote:




If you sell apparel on your ShopSite website, please read this!

I own 2BigFeet.com, retailer of large shoes for men and women. Since

we

opened we have used ShopSite software and love it.

However, we have never been able to accurately track inventory through
ShopSite because we sell apparel. ShopSite only tracks inventory on a
per item level... i.e. a pair of shoes. But the problem comes in when
you have several different sizes/colors of the SAME shoe. You only

have

one product, but might sell out of a certain size.

This has plagued us since we opened. We stock all our own inventory,

so

we have the hardest time keeping up with what's in stock and what's

not.

With thousands of pairs of shoes on the shelves, having to manually
handle inventory is so time consuming that's about all we do.

WHAT WE NEED::

We need ShopSite to help us create an option-level inventory

management

system, and we are willing to help pay for it. If other retailers want
this functionality we could split the costs and possibly get this
completed faster.

If we don't find something to handle our inventory before the

Christmas

shopping season (nov/dec) we're going to be in big trouble...

So if you're interested, please contact me to discuss: (that includes
anyone from ShopSite as well)

Email: brandon@2bigfeet.com
MSN Messenger: brandon@hotmail.com
AOL Messenger: NetBizOwner

Thanks,

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com

[Brandon Eley]

Also, I would like, if possible, to not have to create "Sub-Skus" for
every product because it would be quite confusing and would create much
more work when we get new products in... and would also make our current
product list about 25X larger.

Thanks,
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:

Brandon -

There are two parts to inventory tracking:

1. For internal purposes: this lets YOU know what is in stock or out of
stock, but not your customers. The combination of the Stone Edge Product
Manager and Order Manager will do that for you, down to the specific color,
size, etc. You have to set up everything to work together. Your customer
orders a "Parent SKU" and selects one or more options. The Order Manager
converts those to a "Sub SKU" when the order is imported from ShopSite. The
Sub SKU is put into the order in the Order Manager and is used for inventory
tracking and re-ordering, etc. None of this information is available on your
Website. It is for internal use only. This has been available from us for
several years now.

2. For your Website: this can either hide out-of-stock products and/or
options, or prevent them from being ordered, or allow them to be ordered but
notify the customer that they are currently unavailable. Newer versions of
ShopSite can do this for you, but not at the product option level. There is
also no practical way for a program like the Order Manager to notify
ShopSite of changes in inventory levels, as we can with some other shopping
carts. We have discussed this with ShopSite, and hopefully someday they will
work with us to add that functionality.

What I suggested in another discussion thread is that we could provide a way
to test each item as it is ordered to see if it is in stock (including
options like color and size). If the specific item that was ordered is not
available, your customer would be notified, and based on your configuration,
either returned to the previous page or given a choice of whether to order
the item anyway. All of this would happen before the item ever reaches the
ShopSite shopping cart.

Another alternative would be a button (or perhaps a hover controlled pop-up
or something like that) that the customer could click to find out current
inventory status.

Either option would gets its data from a separate Web server that we would
provide. The quantity on hand information would be kept up to date in real
time: as you receive new inventory, handle returns and exchanges, make
non-Web sales, etc., the changes in QOH would be updated on the server
within seconds. We already provide a very similar service for Yahoo!Store
merchants, so most of the pieces are already in place and working. We
currently charge $350 per year for that service for up to 10,000 SKUs, $700
per year for up to 50,000 and $1,000 per year for up to 100,000. The SKU
count includes all Sub SKUs, so a shoe that is available in 8 sizes and 2
colors would result in 17 SKUs (the parent SKU plus 2*8=16 Sub SKUs).

Anyone who is interested in such a service should feel free to give me a
call to discuss it.

For anyone who is not familiar with Stone Edge Technologies, we are a small
company that offers high-powered tools for small-to-medium ecommerce
companies at prices they can afford, and with the level of personal service
that merchants want and need.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bg4ef5$vpd$1@support.shopsite.com...

Barney, see the quote below:

" The Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level
(specific colors, sizes, etc."

By that do you mean the e-com assembler or the order manager for
shopsite? We currently have both the order manager and product manager,
but they do not track inventory on a order-option level (i.e. the
color/size dropdowns).

I have talked to both you and Shopsite who said this was possible with
complicated templates and by using sub-products/cross-sell features. I
am open to anything, but can't just figure it out on my own. ShopSite
sent me a template that just simply doesn't work. I'm willing to spend
money, but only for a SOLUTION. I don't want to spend a thousand dollars
only to find out it won't work for us.

Our entire goal is to SAVE TIME. When the x-mas shopping season hits
we'll spend literally 5-6 hours a day just packing and shipping orders
and updating inventory/website. That doesn't leave much time to answer
the phone, answer customer inquiries, process returns, reorder shoes, etc.

Anyway, if you think the E-Com Assembler will work, we should get
together and talk about it.

Thanks,
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:

Brandon -

The ECom Assembler works with your Product Manager and Order Manager

(all

from Stone Edge Technologies, www.StoneEdge.com). It uses the Parent-

and

Sub- SKUs that you probably already have set up in the Product Manager.

The

Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level (specific
colors, sizes, etc.) You can tell the ECom Assembler to hide options

that

are out of stock. To use that, you would probably put all of your color

and

size options for each pair of shoes into a single option list (6 1/2

Brown,

6 1/2 Black, 7 Brown, 7 Black, etc., all in one list). The Assembler

would

simply leave any out-of-stock options out of the drop-down list when it
builds your pages. You then re-build pages and upload them frequently

(e.g.

nightly) to keep them close to your actual inventory.

Also see my suggestion in your earlier thread on the same subject for a
Web-based real-time inventory system that we could add to ShopSite.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bfubrm$4h7$1@support.shopsite.com...


Does the E-Com Assebmler handle option-level inventory? If so how?

Thanks,
Brandon

Phil wrote:


We use Ecom Assembler to build our pages
http://www.stoneedge.com/ecomassembler.htm

When a product becomes out-of-stock, this program will build and update

the


page(s) with that product(s) on it. We remove the order button and

replace


it with a out-of-stock notice. It also updates when product becomes
available again.

It's almost completely automatic and saves a lot of time and hassle.

thanks,
Phil
http://www.FlexYourMuscles.com


Brandon Eley wrote:




If you sell apparel on your ShopSite website, please read this!

I own 2BigFeet.com, retailer of large shoes for men and women. Since

we

opened we have used ShopSite software and love it.

However, we have never been able to accurately track inventory through
ShopSite because we sell apparel. ShopSite only tracks inventory on a
per item level... i.e. a pair of shoes. But the problem comes in when
you have several different sizes/colors of the SAME shoe. You only

have

one product, but might sell out of a certain size.

This has plagued us since we opened. We stock all our own inventory,

so

we have the hardest time keeping up with what's in stock and what's

not.

With thousands of pairs of shoes on the shelves, having to manually
handle inventory is so time consuming that's about all we do.

WHAT WE NEED::

We need ShopSite to help us create an option-level inventory

management

system, and we are willing to help pay for it. If other retailers want
this functionality we could split the costs and possibly get this
completed faster.

If we don't find something to handle our inventory before the

Christmas

shopping season (nov/dec) we're going to be in big trouble...

So if you're interested, please contact me to discuss: (that includes
anyone from ShopSite as well)

Email: brandon@2bigfeet.com
MSN Messenger: brandon@hotmail.com
AOL Messenger: NetBizOwner

Thanks,

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com

[Barney Stone]

Brandon -

You can't have it both ways. If you want to track your inventory (locally or
on the Web or both) down to the specific color/size option, you have to have
a separate record for each option that you sell (e.g. Black, 9 1/2). In our
programs, we create a separate "product" for each of those. Some other
system might have different types of records for the "parent" sku and the
available options, but some kind of record must exist for them in order to
track them.

Note that with our system only the "parent" skus are loaded into ShopSite or
whatever shopping cart you are using. The Sub SKUs are only used internally
within the Order Manager. The Web database that we use for inventory
tracking includes all SKUs, but only has a couple of fields (I think just
SKU and quantity on hand), so it can handle tens of thousands of SKUs and
Sub SKUs without getting too large.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com



"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bg9cs8$ain$2@support.shopsite.com...

Also, I would like, if possible, to not have to create "Sub-Skus" for
every product because it would be quite confusing and would create much
more work when we get new products in... and would also make our current
product list about 25X larger.

Thanks,
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:

Brandon -

There are two parts to inventory tracking:

1. For internal purposes: this lets YOU know what is in stock or out of
stock, but not your customers. The combination of the Stone Edge Product
Manager and Order Manager will do that for you, down to the specific
color,
size, etc. You have to set up everything to work together. Your customer
orders a "Parent SKU" and selects one or more options. The Order Manager
converts those to a "Sub SKU" when the order is imported from ShopSite.
The
Sub SKU is put into the order in the Order Manager and is used for
inventory
tracking and re-ordering, etc. None of this information is available on
your
Website. It is for internal use only. This has been available from us
for
several years now.

2. For your Website: this can either hide out-of-stock products and/or
options, or prevent them from being ordered, or allow them to be ordered
but
notify the customer that they are currently unavailable. Newer versions
of
ShopSite can do this for you, but not at the product option level. There
is
also no practical way for a program like the Order Manager to notify
ShopSite of changes in inventory levels, as we can with some other
shopping
carts. We have discussed this with ShopSite, and hopefully someday they
will
work with us to add that functionality.

What I suggested in another discussion thread is that we could provide a
way
to test each item as it is ordered to see if it is in stock (including
options like color and size). If the specific item that was ordered is
not
available, your customer would be notified, and based on your
configuration,
either returned to the previous page or given a choice of whether to
order
the item anyway. All of this would happen before the item ever reaches
the
ShopSite shopping cart.

Another alternative would be a button (or perhaps a hover controlled
pop-up
or something like that) that the customer could click to find out
current
inventory status.

Either option would gets its data from a separate Web server that we
would
provide. The quantity on hand information would be kept up to date in
real
time: as you receive new inventory, handle returns and exchanges, make
non-Web sales, etc., the changes in QOH would be updated on the server
within seconds. We already provide a very similar service for
Yahoo!Store
merchants, so most of the pieces are already in place and working. We
currently charge $350 per year for that service for up to 10,000 SKUs,
$700
per year for up to 50,000 and $1,000 per year for up to 100,000. The SKU
count includes all Sub SKUs, so a shoe that is available in 8 sizes and
2
colors would result in 17 SKUs (the parent SKU plus 2*8=16 Sub SKUs).

Anyone who is interested in such a service should feel free to give me a
call to discuss it.

For anyone who is not familiar with Stone Edge Technologies, we are a
small
company that offers high-powered tools for small-to-medium ecommerce
companies at prices they can afford, and with the level of personal
service
that merchants want and need.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bg4ef5$vpd$1@support.shopsite.com...

Barney, see the quote below:

" The Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level
(specific colors, sizes, etc."

By that do you mean the e-com assembler or the order manager for
shopsite? We currently have both the order manager and product manager,
but they do not track inventory on a order-option level (i.e. the
color/size dropdowns).

I have talked to both you and Shopsite who said this was possible with
complicated templates and by using sub-products/cross-sell features. I
am open to anything, but can't just figure it out on my own. ShopSite
sent me a template that just simply doesn't work. I'm willing to spend
money, but only for a SOLUTION. I don't want to spend a thousand dollars
only to find out it won't work for us.

Our entire goal is to SAVE TIME. When the x-mas shopping season hits
we'll spend literally 5-6 hours a day just packing and shipping orders
and updating inventory/website. That doesn't leave much time to answer
the phone, answer customer inquiries, process returns, reorder shoes,
etc.

Anyway, if you think the E-Com Assembler will work, we should get
together and talk about it.

Thanks,
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:

Brandon -

The ECom Assembler works with your Product Manager and Order Manager

(all

from Stone Edge Technologies, www.StoneEdge.com). It uses the Parent-

and

Sub- SKUs that you probably already have set up in the Product Manager.

The

Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level (specific
colors, sizes, etc.) You can tell the ECom Assembler to hide options

that

are out of stock. To use that, you would probably put all of your color

and

size options for each pair of shoes into a single option list (6 1/2

Brown,

6 1/2 Black, 7 Brown, 7 Black, etc., all in one list). The Assembler

would

simply leave any out-of-stock options out of the drop-down list when it
builds your pages. You then re-build pages and upload them frequently

(e.g.

nightly) to keep them close to your actual inventory.

Also see my suggestion in your earlier thread on the same subject for a
Web-based real-time inventory system that we could add to ShopSite.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bfubrm$4h7$1@support.shopsite.com...


Does the E-Com Assebmler handle option-level inventory? If so how?

Thanks,
Brandon

Phil wrote:


We use Ecom Assembler to build our pages
http://www.stoneedge.com/ecomassembler.htm

When a product becomes out-of-stock, this program will build and
update

the


page(s) with that product(s) on it. We remove the order button and

replace


it with a out-of-stock notice. It also updates when product becomes
available again.

It's almost completely automatic and saves a lot of time and hassle.

thanks,
Phil
http://www.FlexYourMuscles.com


Brandon Eley wrote:




If you sell apparel on your ShopSite website, please read this!

I own 2BigFeet.com, retailer of large shoes for men and women. Since

we

opened we have used ShopSite software and love it.

However, we have never been able to accurately track inventory
through
ShopSite because we sell apparel. ShopSite only tracks inventory on
a
per item level... i.e. a pair of shoes. But the problem comes in
when
you have several different sizes/colors of the SAME shoe. You only

have

one product, but might sell out of a certain size.

This has plagued us since we opened. We stock all our own inventory,

so

we have the hardest time keeping up with what's in stock and what's

not.

With thousands of pairs of shoes on the shelves, having to manually
handle inventory is so time consuming that's about all we do.

WHAT WE NEED::

We need ShopSite to help us create an option-level inventory

management

system, and we are willing to help pay for it. If other retailers
want
this functionality we could split the costs and possibly get this
completed faster.

If we don't find something to handle our inventory before the

Christmas

shopping season (nov/dec) we're going to be in big trouble...

So if you're interested, please contact me to discuss: (that
includes
anyone from ShopSite as well)

Email: brandon@2bigfeet.com
MSN Messenger: brandon@hotmail.com
AOL Messenger: NetBizOwner

Thanks,

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com

[Barney Stone]

Brandon -

Our system runs off of our own server, and yes, there is always an added
risk of downtime. Obviously, the best alternative would be to get ShopSite
to add support for inventory tracking at the option level, then give us a
way to synchronize those levels with the Order Manager. Then we could either
tell ShopSite "here is a list of products and their current quantity on
hand" for bulk update purposes, or "we just sold 2 extra large purple
widgets off-line, so please subtract them from the current quantity on hand"
or "we just received a dozen thingies, so add them to QOH" for day-to-day
purposes. Hopefully they will add the ability for us to do that sometime
soon.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com



"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bg9cpe$ain$1@support.shopsite.com...

Barney, I appreciate your help. Your idea sounds intriguing but I don't
want to rely on another web server for anything, if it went down what
would happen? Would an item even be added to our cart or woudl the
customer just hang and our site would be down as well?

I would really like a solution on the ShopSite end... it would of course
have a trickle down effect to your programs should you decide to
incorporate the features also. Our MAIN concern is time. We're a
two-person operation and are so busy we can't get everything done... our
customers are suffering because we can't update inventory fast enough
manually... and we're losing sales because those customers might have
selected another size/color instead.

I already own ShopSite, Order Manager and Product Manager... which I
consider to be a pretty good sized investment. If we can't come up with
an affordable solution for option-level inventory management I'll need
to start over completely... which is obviously counter-productive.

Would there be any way to keep the inventory levels on OUR web server?
Either through flat text files or through a database such as MySQL?
Also, how are we going to have to udpate our inventory? Would this be
through the Order Manager? Product Manager? We want some system that
integrates... and saves us time. If we have to do more steps than
previously then it won't be much of a benefit.

I'll talk with Neil and get a specific spec for what we will need and
send it to both you and ShopSite... maybe we can get a 'proposal' for
what it would cost to integrate. If some of the people here are
interested we could split the cost among us.

Thanks
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:
Brandon -

There are two parts to inventory tracking:

1. For internal purposes: this lets YOU know what is in stock or out of
stock, but not your customers. The combination of the Stone Edge Product
Manager and Order Manager will do that for you, down to the specific
color,
size, etc. You have to set up everything to work together. Your customer
orders a "Parent SKU" and selects one or more options. The Order Manager
converts those to a "Sub SKU" when the order is imported from ShopSite.
The
Sub SKU is put into the order in the Order Manager and is used for
inventory
tracking and re-ordering, etc. None of this information is available on
your
Website. It is for internal use only. This has been available from us
for
several years now.

2. For your Website: this can either hide out-of-stock products and/or
options, or prevent them from being ordered, or allow them to be ordered
but
notify the customer that they are currently unavailable. Newer versions
of
ShopSite can do this for you, but not at the product option level. There
is
also no practical way for a program like the Order Manager to notify
ShopSite of changes in inventory levels, as we can with some other
shopping
carts. We have discussed this with ShopSite, and hopefully someday they
will
work with us to add that functionality.

What I suggested in another discussion thread is that we could provide a
way
to test each item as it is ordered to see if it is in stock (including
options like color and size). If the specific item that was ordered is
not
available, your customer would be notified, and based on your
configuration,
either returned to the previous page or given a choice of whether to
order
the item anyway. All of this would happen before the item ever reaches
the
ShopSite shopping cart.

Another alternative would be a button (or perhaps a hover controlled
pop-up
or something like that) that the customer could click to find out
current
inventory status.

Either option would gets its data from a separate Web server that we
would
provide. The quantity on hand information would be kept up to date in
real
time: as you receive new inventory, handle returns and exchanges, make
non-Web sales, etc., the changes in QOH would be updated on the server
within seconds. We already provide a very similar service for
Yahoo!Store
merchants, so most of the pieces are already in place and working. We
currently charge $350 per year for that service for up to 10,000 SKUs,
$700
per year for up to 50,000 and $1,000 per year for up to 100,000. The SKU
count includes all Sub SKUs, so a shoe that is available in 8 sizes and
2
colors would result in 17 SKUs (the parent SKU plus 2*8=16 Sub SKUs).

Anyone who is interested in such a service should feel free to give me a
call to discuss it.

For anyone who is not familiar with Stone Edge Technologies, we are a
small
company that offers high-powered tools for small-to-medium ecommerce
companies at prices they can afford, and with the level of personal
service
that merchants want and need.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bg4ef5$vpd$1@support.shopsite.com...

Barney, see the quote below:

" The Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level
(specific colors, sizes, etc."

By that do you mean the e-com assembler or the order manager for
shopsite? We currently have both the order manager and product manager,
but they do not track inventory on a order-option level (i.e. the
color/size dropdowns).

I have talked to both you and Shopsite who said this was possible with
complicated templates and by using sub-products/cross-sell features. I
am open to anything, but can't just figure it out on my own. ShopSite
sent me a template that just simply doesn't work. I'm willing to spend
money, but only for a SOLUTION. I don't want to spend a thousand dollars
only to find out it won't work for us.

Our entire goal is to SAVE TIME. When the x-mas shopping season hits
we'll spend literally 5-6 hours a day just packing and shipping orders
and updating inventory/website. That doesn't leave much time to answer
the phone, answer customer inquiries, process returns, reorder shoes,
etc.

Anyway, if you think the E-Com Assembler will work, we should get
together and talk about it.

Thanks,
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:

Brandon -

The ECom Assembler works with your Product Manager and Order Manager

(all

from Stone Edge Technologies, www.StoneEdge.com). It uses the Parent-

and

Sub- SKUs that you probably already have set up in the Product Manager.

The

Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level (specific
colors, sizes, etc.) You can tell the ECom Assembler to hide options

that

are out of stock. To use that, you would probably put all of your color

and

size options for each pair of shoes into a single option list (6 1/2

Brown,

6 1/2 Black, 7 Brown, 7 Black, etc., all in one list). The Assembler

would

simply leave any out-of-stock options out of the drop-down list when it
builds your pages. You then re-build pages and upload them frequently

(e.g.

nightly) to keep them close to your actual inventory.

Also see my suggestion in your earlier thread on the same subject for a
Web-based real-time inventory system that we could add to ShopSite.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bfubrm$4h7$1@support.shopsite.com...


Does the E-Com Assebmler handle option-level inventory? If so how?

Thanks,
Brandon

Phil wrote:


We use Ecom Assembler to build our pages
http://www.stoneedge.com/ecomassembler.htm

When a product becomes out-of-stock, this program will build and
update

the


page(s) with that product(s) on it. We remove the order button and

replace


it with a out-of-stock notice. It also updates when product becomes
available again.

It's almost completely automatic and saves a lot of time and hassle.

thanks,
Phil
http://www.FlexYourMuscles.com


Brandon Eley wrote:




If you sell apparel on your ShopSite website, please read this!

I own 2BigFeet.com, retailer of large shoes for men and women. Since

we

opened we have used ShopSite software and love it.

However, we have never been able to accurately track inventory
through
ShopSite because we sell apparel. ShopSite only tracks inventory on
a
per item level... i.e. a pair of shoes. But the problem comes in
when
you have several different sizes/colors of the SAME shoe. You only

have

one product, but might sell out of a certain size.

This has plagued us since we opened. We stock all our own inventory,

so

we have the hardest time keeping up with what's in stock and what's

not.

With thousands of pairs of shoes on the shelves, having to manually
handle inventory is so time consuming that's about all we do.

WHAT WE NEED::

We need ShopSite to help us create an option-level inventory

management

system, and we are willing to help pay for it. If other retailers
want
this functionality we could split the costs and possibly get this
completed faster.

If we don't find something to handle our inventory before the

Christmas

shopping season (nov/dec) we're going to be in big trouble...

So if you're interested, please contact me to discuss: (that
includes
anyone from ShopSite as well)

Email: brandon@2bigfeet.com
MSN Messenger: brandon@hotmail.com
AOL Messenger: NetBizOwner

Thanks,

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com

[Brandon Eley]

Well, in the apparel industry it's called a "matrix" (or color/size
matrix). It looks like a table with sizes and colors and cells are
filled with quantities. All POS software for the apparel industry
already supports inventory matrixes... as everything in apparel is based
on color/size combinations.

If you asked the owner of Bloomingdales to create a different SKU for
every color/size variation of every item in his store he would just
simply laugh. The apparel industry is HUGE and I can't see how no one
even wants to accomodate this at all.

I've been looking at systems specifically targeted towards the apparel
industry. I would much rather ShopSite get involved because we have
spent a lot of time and money in the last 4 years on ShopSite and all
Barney's programs. I am willing to pay for this... it's not like we want
it done for free. There have been others here that want it also.

SHOPSITE... if you're interested please contact me at
brandon@2bigfeet.com so we can talk. I really think it's got to start
with ShopSite first... and work it's way down to the other third-party
programs.

Thanks,
Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com


Barney Stone wrote:

Brandon -

You can't have it both ways. If you want to track your inventory (locally or
on the Web or both) down to the specific color/size option, you have to have
a separate record for each option that you sell (e.g. Black, 9 1/2). In our
programs, we create a separate "product" for each of those. Some other
system might have different types of records for the "parent" sku and the
available options, but some kind of record must exist for them in order to
track them.

Note that with our system only the "parent" skus are loaded into ShopSite or
whatever shopping cart you are using. The Sub SKUs are only used internally
within the Order Manager. The Web database that we use for inventory
tracking includes all SKUs, but only has a couple of fields (I think just
SKU and quantity on hand), so it can handle tens of thousands of SKUs and
Sub SKUs without getting too large.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com



"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bg9cs8$ain$2@support.shopsite.com...

Also, I would like, if possible, to not have to create "Sub-Skus" for
every product because it would be quite confusing and would create much
more work when we get new products in... and would also make our current
product list about 25X larger.

Thanks,
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:


Brandon -

There are two parts to inventory tracking:

1. For internal purposes: this lets YOU know what is in stock or out of
stock, but not your customers. The combination of the Stone Edge Product
Manager and Order Manager will do that for you, down to the specific

color,

size, etc. You have to set up everything to work together. Your customer
orders a "Parent SKU" and selects one or more options. The Order Manager
converts those to a "Sub SKU" when the order is imported from ShopSite.

The

Sub SKU is put into the order in the Order Manager and is used for

inventory

tracking and re-ordering, etc. None of this information is available on

your

Website. It is for internal use only. This has been available from us

for

several years now.

2. For your Website: this can either hide out-of-stock products and/or
options, or prevent them from being ordered, or allow them to be ordered

but

notify the customer that they are currently unavailable. Newer versions

of

ShopSite can do this for you, but not at the product option level. There

is

also no practical way for a program like the Order Manager to notify
ShopSite of changes in inventory levels, as we can with some other

shopping

carts. We have discussed this with ShopSite, and hopefully someday they

will

work with us to add that functionality.

What I suggested in another discussion thread is that we could provide a

way

to test each item as it is ordered to see if it is in stock (including
options like color and size). If the specific item that was ordered is

not

available, your customer would be notified, and based on your

configuration,

either returned to the previous page or given a choice of whether to

order

the item anyway. All of this would happen before the item ever reaches

the

ShopSite shopping cart.

Another alternative would be a button (or perhaps a hover controlled

pop-up

or something like that) that the customer could click to find out

current

inventory status.

Either option would gets its data from a separate Web server that we

would

provide. The quantity on hand information would be kept up to date in

real

time: as you receive new inventory, handle returns and exchanges, make
non-Web sales, etc., the changes in QOH would be updated on the server
within seconds. We already provide a very similar service for

Yahoo!Store

merchants, so most of the pieces are already in place and working. We
currently charge $350 per year for that service for up to 10,000 SKUs,

$700

per year for up to 50,000 and $1,000 per year for up to 100,000. The SKU
count includes all Sub SKUs, so a shoe that is available in 8 sizes and

2

colors would result in 17 SKUs (the parent SKU plus 2*8=16 Sub SKUs).

Anyone who is interested in such a service should feel free to give me a
call to discuss it.

For anyone who is not familiar with Stone Edge Technologies, we are a

small

company that offers high-powered tools for small-to-medium ecommerce
companies at prices they can afford, and with the level of personal

service

that merchants want and need.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bg4ef5$vpd$1@support.shopsite.com...


Barney, see the quote below:

" The Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level
(specific colors, sizes, etc."

By that do you mean the e-com assembler or the order manager for
shopsite? We currently have both the order manager and product manager,
but they do not track inventory on a order-option level (i.e. the
color/size dropdowns).

I have talked to both you and Shopsite who said this was possible with
complicated templates and by using sub-products/cross-sell features. I
am open to anything, but can't just figure it out on my own. ShopSite
sent me a template that just simply doesn't work. I'm willing to spend
money, but only for a SOLUTION. I don't want to spend a thousand dollars
only to find out it won't work for us.

Our entire goal is to SAVE TIME. When the x-mas shopping season hits
we'll spend literally 5-6 hours a day just packing and shipping orders
and updating inventory/website. That doesn't leave much time to answer
the phone, answer customer inquiries, process returns, reorder shoes,

etc.

Anyway, if you think the E-Com Assembler will work, we should get
together and talk about it.

Thanks,
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:


Brandon -

The ECom Assembler works with your Product Manager and Order Manager

(all


from Stone Edge Technologies, www.StoneEdge.com). It uses the Parent-

and


Sub- SKUs that you probably already have set up in the Product Manager.

The


Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level (specific
colors, sizes, etc.) You can tell the ECom Assembler to hide options

that


are out of stock. To use that, you would probably put all of your color

and


size options for each pair of shoes into a single option list (6 1/2

Brown,


6 1/2 Black, 7 Brown, 7 Black, etc., all in one list). The Assembler

would


simply leave any out-of-stock options out of the drop-down list when it
builds your pages. You then re-build pages and upload them frequently

(e.g.


nightly) to keep them close to your actual inventory.

Also see my suggestion in your earlier thread on the same subject for a
Web-based real-time inventory system that we could add to ShopSite.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bfubrm$4h7$1@support.shopsite.com...



Does the E-Com Assebmler handle option-level inventory? If so how?

Thanks,
Brandon

Phil wrote:



We use Ecom Assembler to build our pages
http://www.stoneedge.com/ecomassembler.htm

When a product becomes out-of-stock, this program will build and

update

the



page(s) with that product(s) on it. We remove the order button and

replace



it with a out-of-stock notice. It also updates when product becomes
available again.

It's almost completely automatic and saves a lot of time and hassle.

thanks,
Phil
http://www.FlexYourMuscles.com


Brandon Eley wrote:





If you sell apparel on your ShopSite website, please read this!

I own 2BigFeet.com, retailer of large shoes for men and women. Since

we


opened we have used ShopSite software and love it.

However, we have never been able to accurately track inventory

through

ShopSite because we sell apparel. ShopSite only tracks inventory on

a

per item level... i.e. a pair of shoes. But the problem comes in

when

you have several different sizes/colors of the SAME shoe. You only

have


one product, but might sell out of a certain size.

This has plagued us since we opened. We stock all our own inventory,

so


we have the hardest time keeping up with what's in stock and what's

not.


With thousands of pairs of shoes on the shelves, having to manually
handle inventory is so time consuming that's about all we do.

WHAT WE NEED::

We need ShopSite to help us create an option-level inventory

management


system, and we are willing to help pay for it. If other retailers

want

this functionality we could split the costs and possibly get this
completed faster.

If we don't find something to handle our inventory before the

Christmas


shopping season (nov/dec) we're going to be in big trouble...

So if you're interested, please contact me to discuss: (that

includes

anyone from ShopSite as well)

Email: brandon@2bigfeet.com
MSN Messenger: brandon@hotmail.com
AOL Messenger: NetBizOwner

Thanks,

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com

[Keith Petty]

Your problem is only the tip of the iceberg.

I sell jewelry and do consulting for two other brick and mortar jewelry companies
who have started to sell over the internet.

We have an even more complex product "matrix" than you do.

Here is an example of only one of the "matrix" problems that I deal with?
Ladies' size 6-1/2 yellow gold solitaire ring with .72 carat round brilliant cut
diamond rated:
VVSI clarity - E color - wide table - thin polished girdle - deep pavilion -
finely polished.

That example is just a solitaire and when we get into wedding sets with multiple
types of stones plus the color, clarity etc. on each one... you get the picture?
All you have to worry about on a given style is size and color.

I have found life to be much easier when each and every item has it's own "SKU"
and then simply an option menu for the size.

The key to keeping track of your inventory is to have all important information
encoded into your "SKU".
Yes... that does mean that you should at least have a "SKU" for each style and
color combination and then list the sizes as an option.

If you are not now using some other software to maintain your inventory then you
should be.
If you are... then run a report for your out of stock product and use it to
update your ShopSite database.

I would not expect ShopSite to run to your aid to solve your product "matrix"
problem when there are so many variations to this type of problem which would need
to be taken into consideration before a task, which you seem to think is so
simple, of this monumental a proportion would undertaken.

Keith

Brandon Eley wrote:

Well, in the apparel industry it's called a "matrix" (or color/size
matrix). It looks like a table with sizes and colors and cells are
filled with quantities. All POS software for the apparel industry
already supports inventory matrixes... as everything in apparel is based
on color/size combinations.

If you asked the owner of Bloomingdales to create a different SKU for
every color/size variation of every item in his store he would just
simply laugh. The apparel industry is HUGE and I can't see how no one
even wants to accomodate this at all.

I've been looking at systems specifically targeted towards the apparel
industry. I would much rather ShopSite get involved because we have
spent a lot of time and money in the last 4 years on ShopSite and all
Barney's programs. I am willing to pay for this... it's not like we want
it done for free. There have been others here that want it also.

SHOPSITE... if you're interested please contact me at
brandon@2bigfeet.com so we can talk. I really think it's got to start
with ShopSite first... and work it's way down to the other third-party
programs.

Thanks,
Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com

Barney Stone wrote:
Brandon -

You can't have it both ways. If you want to track your inventory (locally or
on the Web or both) down to the specific color/size option, you have to have
a separate record for each option that you sell (e.g. Black, 9 1/2). In our
programs, we create a separate "product" for each of those. Some other
system might have different types of records for the "parent" sku and the
available options, but some kind of record must exist for them in order to
track them.

Note that with our system only the "parent" skus are loaded into ShopSite or
whatever shopping cart you are using. The Sub SKUs are only used internally
within the Order Manager. The Web database that we use for inventory
tracking includes all SKUs, but only has a couple of fields (I think just
SKU and quantity on hand), so it can handle tens of thousands of SKUs and
Sub SKUs without getting too large.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com



"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bg9cs8$ain$2@support.shopsite.com...

Also, I would like, if possible, to not have to create "Sub-Skus" for
every product because it would be quite confusing and would create much
more work when we get new products in... and would also make our current
product list about 25X larger.

Thanks,
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:


Brandon -

There are two parts to inventory tracking:

1. For internal purposes: this lets YOU know what is in stock or out of
stock, but not your customers. The combination of the Stone Edge Product
Manager and Order Manager will do that for you, down to the specific

color,

size, etc. You have to set up everything to work together. Your customer
orders a "Parent SKU" and selects one or more options. The Order Manager
converts those to a "Sub SKU" when the order is imported from ShopSite.

The

Sub SKU is put into the order in the Order Manager and is used for

inventory

tracking and re-ordering, etc. None of this information is available on

your

Website. It is for internal use only. This has been available from us

for

several years now.

2. For your Website: this can either hide out-of-stock products and/or
options, or prevent them from being ordered, or allow them to be ordered

but

notify the customer that they are currently unavailable. Newer versions

of

ShopSite can do this for you, but not at the product option level. There

is

also no practical way for a program like the Order Manager to notify
ShopSite of changes in inventory levels, as we can with some other

shopping

carts. We have discussed this with ShopSite, and hopefully someday they

will

work with us to add that functionality.

What I suggested in another discussion thread is that we could provide a

way

to test each item as it is ordered to see if it is in stock (including
options like color and size). If the specific item that was ordered is

not

available, your customer would be notified, and based on your

configuration,

either returned to the previous page or given a choice of whether to

order

the item anyway. All of this would happen before the item ever reaches

the

ShopSite shopping cart.

Another alternative would be a button (or perhaps a hover controlled

pop-up

or something like that) that the customer could click to find out

current

inventory status.

Either option would gets its data from a separate Web server that we

would

provide. The quantity on hand information would be kept up to date in

real

time: as you receive new inventory, handle returns and exchanges, make
non-Web sales, etc., the changes in QOH would be updated on the server
within seconds. We already provide a very similar service for

Yahoo!Store

merchants, so most of the pieces are already in place and working. We
currently charge $350 per year for that service for up to 10,000 SKUs,

$700

per year for up to 50,000 and $1,000 per year for up to 100,000. The SKU
count includes all Sub SKUs, so a shoe that is available in 8 sizes and

2

colors would result in 17 SKUs (the parent SKU plus 2*8=16 Sub SKUs).

Anyone who is interested in such a service should feel free to give me a
call to discuss it.

For anyone who is not familiar with Stone Edge Technologies, we are a

small

company that offers high-powered tools for small-to-medium ecommerce
companies at prices they can afford, and with the level of personal

service

that merchants want and need.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bg4ef5$vpd$1@support.shopsite.com...


Barney, see the quote below:

" The Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level
(specific colors, sizes, etc."

By that do you mean the e-com assembler or the order manager for
shopsite? We currently have both the order manager and product manager,
but they do not track inventory on a order-option level (i.e. the
color/size dropdowns).

I have talked to both you and Shopsite who said this was possible with
complicated templates and by using sub-products/cross-sell features. I
am open to anything, but can't just figure it out on my own. ShopSite
sent me a template that just simply doesn't work. I'm willing to spend
money, but only for a SOLUTION. I don't want to spend a thousand dollars
only to find out it won't work for us.

Our entire goal is to SAVE TIME. When the x-mas shopping season hits
we'll spend literally 5-6 hours a day just packing and shipping orders
and updating inventory/website. That doesn't leave much time to answer
the phone, answer customer inquiries, process returns, reorder shoes,

etc.

Anyway, if you think the E-Com Assembler will work, we should get
together and talk about it.

Thanks,
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:


Brandon -

The ECom Assembler works with your Product Manager and Order Manager

(all


from Stone Edge Technologies, www.StoneEdge.com). It uses the Parent-

and


Sub- SKUs that you probably already have set up in the Product Manager.

The


Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level (specific
colors, sizes, etc.) You can tell the ECom Assembler to hide options

that


are out of stock. To use that, you would probably put all of your color

and


size options for each pair of shoes into a single option list (6 1/2

Brown,


6 1/2 Black, 7 Brown, 7 Black, etc., all in one list). The Assembler

would


simply leave any out-of-stock options out of the drop-down list when it
builds your pages. You then re-build pages and upload them frequently

(e.g.


nightly) to keep them close to your actual inventory.

Also see my suggestion in your earlier thread on the same subject for a
Web-based real-time inventory system that we could add to ShopSite.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bfubrm$4h7$1@support.shopsite.com...



Does the E-Com Assebmler handle option-level inventory? If so how?

Thanks,
Brandon

Phil wrote:



We use Ecom Assembler to build our pages
http://www.stoneedge.com/ecomassembler.htm

When a product becomes out-of-stock, this program will build and

update

the



page(s) with that product(s) on it. We remove the order button and

replace



it with a out-of-stock notice. It also updates when product becomes
available again.

It's almost completely automatic and saves a lot of time and hassle.

thanks,
Phil
http://www.FlexYourMuscles.com


Brandon Eley wrote:





If you sell apparel on your ShopSite website, please read this!

I own 2BigFeet.com, retailer of large shoes for men and women. Since

we


opened we have used ShopSite software and love it.

However, we have never been able to accurately track inventory

through

ShopSite because we sell apparel. ShopSite only tracks inventory on

a

per item level... i.e. a pair of shoes. But the problem comes in

when

you have several different sizes/colors of the SAME shoe. You only

have


one product, but might sell out of a certain size.

This has plagued us since we opened. We stock all our own inventory,

so


we have the hardest time keeping up with what's in stock and what's

not.


With thousands of pairs of shoes on the shelves, having to manually
handle inventory is so time consuming that's about all we do.

WHAT WE NEED::

We need ShopSite to help us create an option-level inventory

management


system, and we are willing to help pay for it. If other retailers

want

this functionality we could split the costs and possibly get this
completed faster.

If we don't find something to handle our inventory before the

Christmas


shopping season (nov/dec) we're going to be in big trouble...

So if you're interested, please contact me to discuss: (that

includes

anyone from ShopSite as well)

Email: brandon@2bigfeet.com
MSN Messenger: brandon@hotmail.com
AOL Messenger: NetBizOwner

Thanks,

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com

[Brandon Eley]

While you're right that there are too many different industries to
accomodate for them all, I think the "apparel" industry is big enough
and has enough merchants to warrant an addition. Especially since we're
willing to PAY FOR IT!

Anyway, who knows... it'll probably never happen anyway...

Keith Petty wrote:

Your problem is only the tip of the iceberg.

I sell jewelry and do consulting for two other brick and mortar jewelry companies
who have started to sell over the internet.

We have an even more complex product "matrix" than you do.

Here is an example of only one of the "matrix" problems that I deal with?
Ladies' size 6-1/2 yellow gold solitaire ring with .72 carat round brilliant cut
diamond rated:
VVSI clarity - E color - wide table - thin polished girdle - deep pavilion -
finely polished.

That example is just a solitaire and when we get into wedding sets with multiple
types of stones plus the color, clarity etc. on each one... you get the picture?
All you have to worry about on a given style is size and color.

I have found life to be much easier when each and every item has it's own "SKU"
and then simply an option menu for the size.

The key to keeping track of your inventory is to have all important information
encoded into your "SKU".
Yes... that does mean that you should at least have a "SKU" for each style and
color combination and then list the sizes as an option.

If you are not now using some other software to maintain your inventory then you
should be.
If you are... then run a report for your out of stock product and use it to
update your ShopSite database.

I would not expect ShopSite to run to your aid to solve your product "matrix"
problem when there are so many variations to this type of problem which would need
to be taken into consideration before a task, which you seem to think is so
simple, of this monumental a proportion would undertaken.

Keith

Brandon Eley wrote:


Well, in the apparel industry it's called a "matrix" (or color/size
matrix). It looks like a table with sizes and colors and cells are
filled with quantities. All POS software for the apparel industry
already supports inventory matrixes... as everything in apparel is based
on color/size combinations.

If you asked the owner of Bloomingdales to create a different SKU for
every color/size variation of every item in his store he would just
simply laugh. The apparel industry is HUGE and I can't see how no one
even wants to accomodate this at all.

I've been looking at systems specifically targeted towards the apparel
industry. I would much rather ShopSite get involved because we have
spent a lot of time and money in the last 4 years on ShopSite and all
Barney's programs. I am willing to pay for this... it's not like we want
it done for free. There have been others here that want it also.

SHOPSITE... if you're interested please contact me at
brandon@2bigfeet.com so we can talk. I really think it's got to start
with ShopSite first... and work it's way down to the other third-party
programs.

Thanks,
Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com

Barney Stone wrote:

Brandon -

You can't have it both ways. If you want to track your inventory (locally or
on the Web or both) down to the specific color/size option, you have to have
a separate record for each option that you sell (e.g. Black, 9 1/2). In our
programs, we create a separate "product" for each of those. Some other
system might have different types of records for the "parent" sku and the
available options, but some kind of record must exist for them in order to
track them.

Note that with our system only the "parent" skus are loaded into ShopSite or
whatever shopping cart you are using. The Sub SKUs are only used internally
within the Order Manager. The Web database that we use for inventory
tracking includes all SKUs, but only has a couple of fields (I think just
SKU and quantity on hand), so it can handle tens of thousands of SKUs and
Sub SKUs without getting too large.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com



"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bg9cs8$ain$2@support.shopsite.com...


Also, I would like, if possible, to not have to create "Sub-Skus" for
every product because it would be quite confusing and would create much
more work when we get new products in... and would also make our current
product list about 25X larger.

Thanks,
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:



Brandon -

There are two parts to inventory tracking:

1. For internal purposes: this lets YOU know what is in stock or out of
stock, but not your customers. The combination of the Stone Edge Product
Manager and Order Manager will do that for you, down to the specific

color,


size, etc. You have to set up everything to work together. Your customer
orders a "Parent SKU" and selects one or more options. The Order Manager
converts those to a "Sub SKU" when the order is imported from ShopSite.

The


Sub SKU is put into the order in the Order Manager and is used for

inventory


tracking and re-ordering, etc. None of this information is available on

your


Website. It is for internal use only. This has been available from us

for


several years now.

2. For your Website: this can either hide out-of-stock products and/or
options, or prevent them from being ordered, or allow them to be ordered

but


notify the customer that they are currently unavailable. Newer versions

of


ShopSite can do this for you, but not at the product option level. There

is


also no practical way for a program like the Order Manager to notify
ShopSite of changes in inventory levels, as we can with some other

shopping


carts. We have discussed this with ShopSite, and hopefully someday they

will


work with us to add that functionality.

What I suggested in another discussion thread is that we could provide a

way


to test each item as it is ordered to see if it is in stock (including
options like color and size). If the specific item that was ordered is

not


available, your customer would be notified, and based on your

configuration,


either returned to the previous page or given a choice of whether to

order


the item anyway. All of this would happen before the item ever reaches

the


ShopSite shopping cart.

Another alternative would be a button (or perhaps a hover controlled

pop-up


or something like that) that the customer could click to find out

current


inventory status.

Either option would gets its data from a separate Web server that we

would


provide. The quantity on hand information would be kept up to date in

real


time: as you receive new inventory, handle returns and exchanges, make
non-Web sales, etc., the changes in QOH would be updated on the server
within seconds. We already provide a very similar service for

Yahoo!Store


merchants, so most of the pieces are already in place and working. We
currently charge $350 per year for that service for up to 10,000 SKUs,

$700


per year for up to 50,000 and $1,000 per year for up to 100,000. The SKU
count includes all Sub SKUs, so a shoe that is available in 8 sizes and

2


colors would result in 17 SKUs (the parent SKU plus 2*8=16 Sub SKUs).

Anyone who is interested in such a service should feel free to give me a
call to discuss it.

For anyone who is not familiar with Stone Edge Technologies, we are a

small


company that offers high-powered tools for small-to-medium ecommerce
companies at prices they can afford, and with the level of personal

service


that merchants want and need.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bg4ef5$vpd$1@support.shopsite.com...



Barney, see the quote below:

" The Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level
(specific colors, sizes, etc."

By that do you mean the e-com assembler or the order manager for
shopsite? We currently have both the order manager and product manager,
but they do not track inventory on a order-option level (i.e. the
color/size dropdowns).

I have talked to both you and Shopsite who said this was possible with
complicated templates and by using sub-products/cross-sell features. I
am open to anything, but can't just figure it out on my own. ShopSite
sent me a template that just simply doesn't work. I'm willing to spend
money, but only for a SOLUTION. I don't want to spend a thousand dollars
only to find out it won't work for us.

Our entire goal is to SAVE TIME. When the x-mas shopping season hits
we'll spend literally 5-6 hours a day just packing and shipping orders
and updating inventory/website. That doesn't leave much time to answer
the phone, answer customer inquiries, process returns, reorder shoes,

etc.


Anyway, if you think the E-Com Assembler will work, we should get
together and talk about it.

Thanks,
Brandon

Barney Stone wrote:



Brandon -

The ECom Assembler works with your Product Manager and Order Manager

(all



from Stone Edge Technologies, www.StoneEdge.com). It uses the Parent-

and



Sub- SKUs that you probably already have set up in the Product Manager.

The



Order Manager tracks your inventory down to the sub SKU level (specific
colors, sizes, etc.) You can tell the ECom Assembler to hide options

that



are out of stock. To use that, you would probably put all of your color

and



size options for each pair of shoes into a single option list (6 1/2

Brown,



6 1/2 Black, 7 Brown, 7 Black, etc., all in one list). The Assembler

would



simply leave any out-of-stock options out of the drop-down list when it
builds your pages. You then re-build pages and upload them frequently

(e.g.



nightly) to keep them close to your actual inventory.

Also see my suggestion in your earlier thread on the same subject for a
Web-based real-time inventory system that we could add to ShopSite.

- Barney Stone, President
Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.
215-641-1837
www.ECommerceUtilities.com


"Brandon Eley" <brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote in message
news:bfubrm$4h7$1@support.shopsite.com...




Does the E-Com Assebmler handle option-level inventory? If so how?

Thanks,
Brandon

Phil wrote:




We use Ecom Assembler to build our pages
http://www.stoneedge.com/ecomassembler.htm

When a product becomes out-of-stock, this program will build and

update


the




page(s) with that product(s) on it. We remove the order button and

replace




it with a out-of-stock notice. It also updates when product becomes
available again.

It's almost completely automatic and saves a lot of time and hassle.

thanks,
Phil
http://www.FlexYourMuscles.com


Brandon Eley wrote:






If you sell apparel on your ShopSite website, please read this!

I own 2BigFeet.com, retailer of large shoes for men and women. Since

we



opened we have used ShopSite software and love it.

However, we have never been able to accurately track inventory

through


ShopSite because we sell apparel. ShopSite only tracks inventory on

a


per item level... i.e. a pair of shoes. But the problem comes in

when


you have several different sizes/colors of the SAME shoe. You only

have



one product, but might sell out of a certain size.

This has plagued us since we opened. We stock all our own inventory,

so



we have the hardest time keeping up with what's in stock and what's

not.



With thousands of pairs of shoes on the shelves, having to manually
handle inventory is so time consuming that's about all we do.

WHAT WE NEED::

We need ShopSite to help us create an option-level inventory

management



system, and we are willing to help pay for it. If other retailers

want


this functionality we could split the costs and possibly get this
completed faster.

If we don't find something to handle our inventory before the

Christmas



shopping season (nov/dec) we're going to be in big trouble...

So if you're interested, please contact me to discuss: (that

includes


anyone from ShopSite as well)

Email: brandon@2bigfeet.com
MSN Messenger: brandon@hotmail.com
AOL Messenger: NetBizOwner

Thanks,

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com