Jones Apparel Group Ramps Up with VendorNet StoreNet Manager

JNY | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- VendorNet, a supply chain collaboration solutions provider, announced that it has launched Jones Apparel Group as a new user of its e-commerce and in-store collaboration technology, VendorNet StoreNet Manager.

According to the company, the application enables the automated fulfillment of e-commerce orders utilizing bricks and mortar store inventory essentially making corporate-wide inventory available for sale on the web.

"The implementation of VendorNet StoreNet Manager is part of Jones Apparel Group's overall strategy to fulfill sales on our e-commerce platform by optimizing our current inventory to meet online demand and deliver best-in-class customer service," said Ron Offir, President of E-commerce for Jones Apparel Group. "We are very excited about our partnership with VendorNet. Its technology is helping us improve service to our customers by showing web shoppers inventory across all channels and capturing demand that may otherwise have been a lost opportunity."

Jones Apparel Group rolled out VendorNet StoreNet Manager to its Nine West stores in a six -week period this summer. It expects to have more than 500 stores across all its brands live by the end of 2008, including its newly e-commerce enabled Jones New York website, the company said.

VendorNet StoreNet Manager, according to the company, interfaces with Jones Apparel Group's order management, e-commerce, and retail merchandising systems. Online orders that cannot be fulfilled from warehouse inventory are electronically transmitted to VendorNet StoreNet Manager, which routes the order to the best available store for fulfillment based on Jones-defined store allocation rules. Store personnel access the orders complete with pick list, packing slip, and shipping label through a VendorNet-enabled web portal. Store personnel pick the items, and confirm the picked quantities in VendorNet StoreNet Manager. This triggers printing of the packing slips with UPS shipping labels, and ultimately the transmission of shipping manifests to UPS notifying the carrier that packages are staged for pickup. In the event a store is unable to fulfill all items/orders, the whole or partial order is automatically allocated to the next best available store.

Upon receipt of the shipment by UPS, VendorNet StoreNet Manager obtains pick-up scans confirming carrier possession, and sends a ship transaction including tracking number back to Jones' host order management system triggering a charge to the consumer's credit card. Each night, VendorNet StoreNet Manager obtains updated store inventory counts from Jones' retail inventory management system, and transmits the aggregate item inventory counts across all stores and the warehouse to Jones' e-commerce system, the company said.

"As a result of our partnership with Jones Apparel Group we have created a new, innovative product for the retail marketplace that seizes new e-commerce sales opportunities without adding personnel or inventory overhead to the supply chain," said Sharon Gardner, President of VendorNet. "VendorNet StoreNet Manager is based on VendorNet's core supply chain management platform that facilitates order fulfillment for retailers with tens of thousands of their suppliers via the Internet. We were able to extend this proven technology foundation to retail stores to create a product that bolsters e-commerce sales and delivers efficiencies in personnel and inventory utilization."

"This all began with our vision to capture lost e-commerce sales and demand by leveraging in-store inventory for direct to the consumer fulfillment," said Offir. "Our vision led us to VendorNet and the creation of VendorNet StoreNet Manager. VendorNet is an excellent partner, highly responsive, and incredibly knowledgeable about the direct-to-consumer industry, Internet-based technologies, and their partnership with our shipping carrier, UPS. We also appreciate VendorNet's willingness to embrace our vision and help us expand on it. It's nice to work with a company that has the creativity to develop and implement what we collectively believed was going to be a big idea. VendorNet truly leveraged its technology and know-how to turn our innovative approach to growing our web business into a robust, easy-to-use reality."

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