RMS

[Josh]

I have searched around for awhile and I haven't had any luck finding what I am looking for. I work for a medium/large company and we are in the process of updating our current website. We are currently using StoreLogic, but we have been running into problems with inventory. We currently have 2000+ items on our site and there will be no way for me to constantly update the inventory on the items. For our our POS and inventory in store we use Retail Management System by Microsoft. There are a few shopping carts that you can combine the two together for inventory purpose. If anyone could show me the right direction to take that you be great. Thank you

[fidel]

I would like to assist, as I am working with retailers and manufacturers for which I am modifying and integrating various types of databases, including the online stores, but what specifically is your question?

Also, please provide some links or examples to the software and/or objectives.

[Josh]

Our website is www.generalsway.com/, with the intergration of RMS and a shopping cart RMS will automatically update inventory, price, images, and description. All we really need is it to update inventory, price and images are not a must, but if possible would be nice. http://www.newestech.com/ is a website that offers the intergration software for X-Cart, however, an X-Cart host wants to charge $100+ a month for a webserver. As for expamples of the software I don't think I can offer that. I do know that Microsoft offers a free 30 day trial on Retail Mangement Sytem.

[fidel]

SEMI-OFF TOPIC

I like the way your current cart displays sub-categories. I'm sure that does well on the search engines.

INVENTORY / INVOICING SOFTWARE

Which inventory and invoicing software are you using? Also, are you doing drop shipping on some of your products? What cart are you currently using?

OPINION

While I am not familiar with the specifics of your operation, I tend to shy away from those commercial operations, since they then have a certain amount of control over you when you sign the dotted line and subject yourself to their fees.

Understand, my bias in favor of open source, Joomla and Virtuemart. I am currently working toward integrating a means of updating inventory and pricing via CSV from various accounting/inventory software applications. This is possible through a manual import, using CSV and/or SQL. Once I accomplish this, which isn't too hard to perform this operation daily or even weekly, I will look toward having this operation done automatically, but that is beyond my capabilities and specific to certain software applications and network parameters, which I do not know much about.

[Josh]

We do drop ship to our customers. I was hoping that VirtureMart allows me to add the DHL API for the customers to see their shipping charges. The shopping cart we are currenyly using is Storelogic...... I prosonally don't like this...reason 1. $$$$$ 2. Customization/Expandibality 3. Interface 4. I cant do what I want to do with it.
Open Source is def. the direction I tend to go, however, I get a little scared with using this program (virturemart) due the hacker/exploiters (sp?). I do have massaive amounts of trust within this program, but I am still scared. As for our inventory program we are using Retail Management System, as well as for POS and reports and such. I can export a list of all items to a .csv file from RMS. http://www.simretail.com/sim_int.htm is another peice of software the does the linking between a few carts... they offer it for osCommerce witch is also and open source, but I like VirtueMart better. I hope that's a litte for information for ya. Thanks again

[fidel]

1. $$$$$ 2. Customization/Expandibality 3. Interface 4. I cant do what I want to do with it.

We don't necissarily need more shopping cart solutions, we need better shopping cart solutions that serve the criteria you've listed above, in addition to a few other parameters.

The SIM Retail solution looks okay. There are no prices, and I have contacted them via email. I'm not into off shore solutions, though, due to patriotic and logical reason. Though, with SIM, you can do OSCommerce within Joomla. I too would be concerned, as your choice hinges on a lot of dollars.

Virtuemart is a lot easier to use. I'm not familiar with Microsoft's RMS. All I can say there, is that I am sure it is possible, but I have no experience in that department.