New technology from Prologic will underpin fashion retailers’ multi-channel strategies as home shopping accelerates.

At Retail Solutions 2008, Prologic, the business solution provider for the fashion & lifestyle industry, will be launching its new CIMS eCommerce Portal, designed to help fashion retail brands to implement effective multi-channel retail strategies that will drive new revenue streams. 

Niche fashion & lifestyle brands and medium-sized retailers have been slow to embrace e-tailing to date. However, according to recent figures from Nielsen, 97% of British web users now shop online and over one third (36%) of these buy clothes – an increase of 40% in the last two years. Whilst larger retailers now have an established web presence and have successfully integrated all of their sales channels, smaller players have not been able to afford the multi-million pound price tag associated with fully integrated, multi-channel retailing. With the new CIMS eCommerce Portal solution, Prologic makes this functionality accessible and affordable to the mid-market for the first time.

Sam Jackson, Managing Director of Prologic, says, “Customers shopping from home seek convenience and speed, but they also want integration with other sales channels and instant information on product, stock and prices. Today, a fashion retail website needs to be an extension of a traditional store, offering the whole product range. Customers want to be able to see what stock is available at any outlet; they want to be able to order an item over the web but have the option to return it at their local store and they want to use the same gift and loyalty cards regardless of which channel they choose to buy through.”

Jackson continues, “Our CIMS eCommerce Portal enables fashion & lifestyle retailers to do all of these things and, critically, it provides them with one version of the truth. Our multi-channel retail customers have a single product catalogue, a single customer loyalty system, a single payment system and, most importantly, a single stock system. This delivers a level of cross channel integration previously unavailable to all but the largest retailers.”

Prologic’s CIMS eCommerce Portal is more than a conventional content management system. It is a fully integrated and highly flexible website management system which has been designed and developed from the ground up to meet the demanding needs of the fashion & lifestyle sector. It was a priority at every stage to consult, review, design, develop and jointly test and implement the solution with real fashion & lifestyle customers. The outcome is a solution that allows business users without any IT knowledge to manage and manipulate their front-end web stores with unparalleled speed and flexibility and access up-to-the-minute product information from the CIMS core. At the same time, retailers are able to take direct advantage of all the back-end power of the CIMS supply chain, warehousing and fulfillment capabilities.

Jackson concludes, “Multi-channel retailing demands accurate measurement – both on and offline. Retailers need to understand the effect of online sales on in-store activity, assess which product types sell better or worse online or offline, and also track trends in returns. It is only by integrating this information into the entire process of designing and buying goods and delivering them through an increasingly complex supply chain, that brands can truly assess the value of multi-channel retail.”

About Prologic

Stock market-listed, Prologic is a specialist provider of software, services and consultancy to the fashion & lifestyle sector. The company’s enterprise software application, CIMS, is a web-deployed, single solution, multi-channel business system designed to meet the complex needs of the sector. Modules include planning, merchandising, store systems, sourcing, warehousing, wholesale, franchise, eCommerce and reporting.

Prologic’s approach of delivering its software as a single version, single database product, based on continuous customer-driven improvement, provides distinct advantages over the traditional practice of interfacing disparate point solutions.

With a track record extending over two decades, Prologic has supported the growth of many of the UK's best known and most successful brands. Customers include Aquascutum, Fat Face, Hobbs, Liberty, Paul Smith, Ted Baker, TM Lewin, White Stuff and many other high street names.

Released: 7 April 2008