Blitz Sport Accelerates Sales Across Multiple Customer Touchpoints With NetSuite SuiteCommerce

LONDON, Sept. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- NetSuite Inc. (NYSE: N), the industry's leading provider of cloud-based financials / ERP software suites, today announced that Blitz Sport, the UK's leading retailer of martial arts equipment, has adopted the new NetSuite SuiteCommerce platform as a complete cloud commerce solution, spanning eCommerce and multi-channel sales across in-store retail, B2B, B2C, mail-order, telesales and marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay. Blitz Sport uses NetSuite SuiteCommerce to run eCommerce, financials, inventory management, point of sales (POS), order management, distribution, customer relationship management, marketing promotions, and other core processes—all without a dedicated IT staff. NetSuite has streamlined Blitz Sport's operational efficiency, unifying B2B and B2C commerce into a single site that is natively integrated to NetSuite's industry leading order management system, allowing the company to expand into other European markets without the operational bottlenecks of traditional on-premise software. In addition, because the website and the POS are on the same system, shoppers can buy items online and return them at Blitz Sport's retail store. The deployment of NetSuite has led to doubled turnover and a tenfold increase in international sales.

"Prior to adopting NetSuite, we had a number of systems running different parts of the business, including separate software for mail order management and B2C and B2B, eCommerce, inventory management and delivery," said John Nimick, President, Squash Engine, Inc.  "However, with very quick turn-around levels on stock, and inventory levels only being updated periodically, we couldn't achieve a real-time view of stock levels across our different retail channels, resulting in customer orders being processed for out-of-stock items."

By replacing Sage Line 50 and Dydacomp Mail Order Manager, and unifying their multichannel commerce operations in the cloud on NetSuite SuiteCommerce, Blitz has completely transformed their business, streamlining operations while delivering a much higher quality experience for their consumers and business customers. Ultimately, this has enabled the martial arts retailer to increase sales year-on-year, despite the recent recession in the UK and other European markets.

NetSuite's SuiteCommerce platform is at the heart of NetSuite Commerce as a Service (CaaS), and enables businesses to manage interactions with other businesses and directly with consumers via a cloud platform that delivers an enhanced customer experience, on multiple touchpoints (website, smart phone, tablet, in-store, social media site, etc.), directly on the core NetSuite ERP/CRM business management application. This technology transcends the limitations and complexity of first-generation eCommerce systems to deliver new efficiencies for merchants and a superior experience for customers. For more information about SuiteCommerce please visit www.netsuite.co.uk/suitecommerce.

"Blitz Sport faced a common problem; a diverse multichannel commerce model but disparate, non-integrated systems. NetSuite SuiteCommerce has not only addressed that challenge but paved the way for international growth and expansion," comments Andy Lloyd, General Manager of Commerce Products for NetSuite.

In addition to CRM, marketing promotions, order and inventory management, warehousing and distribution, and financials, Blitz Sport has also been able to launch an international offering because of the multi-currency and multi-lingual capabilities of NetSuite SuiteCommerce. The retailer now has a French and German website, which has increased international orders tenfold, while all sales processes are still managed centrally from one platform at its UK office. The strong integration capabilities of NetSuite's solution also enables Blitz Sport to utilise marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay, which has helped the company boost sales and raise brand awareness even further. NetSuite SuiteCommerce allows Blitz Sport's staff members to access the system 24/7 through a mobile device or PC, where they can achieve a single view of the entire multi-channel business operations, enabling them to react immediately to any issues remotely, rather than suffering downtime. This real-time view is also essential for order forecasting, and Blitz Sport relies heavily on NetSuite to help place purchase orders with suppliers and keep track of stock in order to meet customer demand.

Among its many capabilities, SuiteCommerce Order Management is paramount in enabling commerce transactions regardless of touchpoint or currency. The SuiteCommerce Order Management System (OMS) offers unmatched billing capabilities such as payment capture, refunds, invoiced billing, usage-based, and recurring billing to support any type of desired customer interaction for B2B and B2C environments.  In addition, SuiteCommerce OMS provides a robust, rules-based workflow technology to manage the lifecycle of a transaction – order-to-fulfillment-to-payment capture-to-repurchase. It reduces fraudulent orders and the amount of time spent reviewing them by providing intelligent review and exception capabilities that will raise red flags and place a hold on orders.  It provides powerful back-office technology such as warehouse management capabilities including bin and lot tracking, pick/pack/ship fulfillment process, support for multiple warehouse locations, and the intelligence to select the appropriate warehouse based on each business' business logic. And SuiteCommerce is natively integrated with local carriers such as Royal Mail and Parcelforce to generate real-time rates, print shipping labels, and automatically send package tracking information to shoppers. And all of these capabilities are delivered with the multi-currency and multi-tax support required to deliver seamless global commerce.

Following the success Blitz Sport has achieved from using SuiteCommerce, the retailer is looking to leverage NetSuite SuiteCommerce's mobile commerce capabilities, developing a website specifically optimised for mobile use. It also has plans to launch a US site in early 2013, while further increasing sales in France and Germany.

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For more information about NetSuite, please visit www.netsuite.co.uk.

NOTE: NetSuite and the NetSuite logo are service marks of NetSuite Inc. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between NetSuite and any other company.

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SOURCE NetSuite Inc.