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Key
features & functionality used
by
ChefShop.com: |
Running
web store
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Real-time integration |
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with back-end
accounting and business operations
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Shopping cart save for |
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a later visit |
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A-Z listing |
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| Accounting |
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General ledger |
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Accounts receivable |
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Accounts payable |
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| Sales |
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Point of Sale |
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Multiple shipping/ |
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contact addresses |
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| Inventory
Control |
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Serial number tracking |
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Graph inventory levels |
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Item images |
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Item grouping/profiling |
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| Purchasing |
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Purchase orders |
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| Shipping
& Receiving |
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Address Labels |
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Multiple
locations/
Remote connectivity |
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Manage multiple |
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locations |
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Direct TCP/IP remote
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login |
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Analyzing
shoppers and
tracking ROI |
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Total web orders taken |
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per defined period |
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| Selling
products online |
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Full product selection |
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Storing of item
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descriptions in HTML |
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| Taking
orders online |
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Real-time order status |
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Company
Background |
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Stirring in the right
ingredients
A small group of friends and food lovers
came together in 1997 and started an
online retail gourmet food business
called ‘The Food Bunch’ named
after a twist on the famous movie titled
“The Wild Bunch.” Today, the
company that later became ChefShop.com
operates out of a warehouse with a retail
storefront in Seattle, and is dedicated
to sourcing and selling the very best
food and ingredients on earth. ChefShop.com
carries the largest collection of sea
salt and vinegars. One of the most unusual
products they offer is a hundred year-old
balsamic vinegar costing $600 for a
100ml bottle. Famous chefs and movie
stars from the U.S. and five other countries
shop online at ChefShop.com. ChefShop.com
runs on Everest.
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The
Challenge |
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Managing inventory in a business
like ChefShop.com takes a lot of time
and effort. ChefShop.com stocks up to
1,200 unique items at the store and
95% of the items are available online.
ChefShop.com used QuickBooks for accounting,
and Wizard, a DOS-based catalog software
system. The primary shortcomings of
QuickBooks were its inability to integrate
inventory information and to reflect
changes made in the system. For the
inventory process, ChefShop.com had
to manually count every item and tally
that with the Wizard system, “which
was always wrong,” explains Tim
Mar, President & CEO of ChefShop.com.
“We continued to have errors; the
system was hard to use and the functionality
to modify or make changes was poor.
We had to start all over to track and
correct the errors manually.”
At one point, ChefShop.com evaluated
Oracle but dismissed it due to its high
costs and the long time required for
implementation. They also considered
PeopleSoft, an online option that charged
a monthly fee, which did not appeal
to Mar. ChefShop.com ran their web store
on Yahoo! Store that turned out to be
initially inexpensive, and time-consuming
to . |
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| modify, and lacked any integration with
inventory and accounting systems It was a
painstaking task for ChefShop.com to maintain
inventory and process orders received through
its Yahoo! Store. When Wizard went out of
business, ChefShop.com started looking for
an integrated solution and discovered Everest.
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The
Solution |
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ChefShop.com now runs its web store on Everest,
allowing them to grow faster than when they
were on Yahoo! Store. The greatest value to
ChefShop.com is having total integration between
all areas of its business centralized under
one system: accounting, e-commerce, point-of-sale,
inventory, and all other areas as well. “The
synergy between inventory and web sales allows
us to manage inventory better than any system.
The fact is that with the integration of POS,
it is an unbeatable combination,” Mar
says. “Everest is the best option out
there. Everest allows us to do everything
we want instantaneously.”
ChefShop.com has cut down on full-time staff,
due to its new ability to significantly increase
productivity. “Everest has allowed us
to do things that we were not able to do before.
We ship out the same volume of orders with
one person, which earlier required five employees.
It allows us to buy and sell gourmet food
– not manage a variety of computer systems.”
The ability to do financial and inventory
analysis has helped ChefShop.com; this was
something they could not do before. Mar adds,
“We did not have the tools and the time.
Everest has enabled us to look at our business
in whole new ways.”
As a retail store, ChefShop.com run their
servers at a remote location; in Mar’s
perception, Everest allows ChefShop.com’s
expansion possibilities to be limitless.
For the web store, ChefShop.com writes detailed
item descriptions and stores them in Everest
one time, making it easy to add and remove
products with changes in supply, demand, and
seasonality. This feature saves ChefShop.com
three person-hours a day.
The company generates UPS labels right out
of Everest for orders being shipped. With
tighter control over inventory and with no
delays in shipping, “now we are able
to make deliveries two days faster than we
could before; our customers are completely
satisfied, and we owe this to our people and
to Everest.
When a customer shops online, ChefShop.com
upsells similar complementary products. ChefShop.com
has an edge over other food sites by using
Everest.
ChefShop.com is able to keep operating costs
down with real-time control of over stock,
and fewer people are needed to keep track
of inventory. “Now our business is growing
faster, as we are able to reach a broader
market with our web store.”
ChefShop.com plans to use Everest’s drop-shipping
functionality to ship Washington cherries
directly from the orchard, and to ship Alaskan
salmon directly from the fishery, which will
save even more time in order fulfillment and
ensure even greater product freshness for
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The
Result |
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Cut 24-48 hours off order fulfillment
process through Everest’s integrated
approach |
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Increased daily online orders by 60-70% |
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Improved productivity and efficiency
five-fold in the shipping department |
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Saved three person-hours daily with
storing item descriptions in HTML |
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Enhanced customer service and competitive
advantage through Everest’s drop-ship
capabilities |
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Enabled seamless inventory management
between purchasing to retail store to
online, limiting |
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unplanned out-of-stock
orders and therefore better customer
satisfaction |
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