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Single supplier vs best-of-breed

A retailer is not often a single entity. It has buyers, shop assistants, floor managers, purchase managers, accountants… Each of these groups of people are specialists, and they all have differing working procedures and styles. The successful retailers bind these specialist groups into a winning company through common attitudes, not by insisting on identikit behaviour.

So what is the chance that a single system is going to appeal to these different groups?

We want StoreTrader to be acknowledged as the best software around for managing the Point of Sale. That’s our entire focus, which means we don’t develop the other systems that a Retailer may need – an accounting system, merchandise management, CRM and so on. Instead, we work with other companies who specialise in these areas, who through their experience and understanding of specific retail markets or applications can help us provide a far better total system than an average single supplier can.

Above all else we don’t treat IT as a form of religion. We use the best software tools for the job at hand, so StoreTrader uses C++ and Java, Vbscripts and XML, MFC and .NET and several other programming tools where they work best.

Of course to make this approach work well StoreTrader has to interface well with other systems. It does this at two levels:

Data interchange

StoreTrader provides three ways to get data into and out of the system. You can select the method which best suits the interface you’re trying to create:

Column Separated Variable (csv) files – useful for loading and modifying the base system files

ODBC – useful for taking detailed data from StoreTrader to another database or Excel spreadsheet. This can be done either in periodic ‘snapshots’ – for example at end of day – or as often as required

XML – useful for capturing the most basic details of all StoreTrader activities in real time, across a network.

Transaction management

StoreTrader offers structured interfaces to other applications.

Accounting Link – provides logical accounting records to allow an accounting system to create Nominal, Customer and Stock accounts, and defined postings to these accounts. StoreTrader can also use this link to access defined records in the accounting system, to check Customer and Stock balances at the point of sale, for example. The StoreTrader Sage Line 50 interface module uses the Accounting Link.

Transaction Link – allows another application (such as a Sales order Processing system) to create a sale transaction and then pass it to StoreTrader. StoreTrader then manages all aspects of the payment process at any PoS terminal, including Chip & Pin card payment, and generates the appropriate Stock, Customer and accounting entries.

All of which illustrates our belief that if you want a job done well, ask an expert!