Setting up Magento please advise

by tbk125
13 replies
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I need to solve the following problems-

Accounting
Inventory management
Integrating with shipping or shipstation (currently using)
Multi-channel selling eBay, Amazon, etc
Possibly a POS in the future

This cannot be that unique of a proposition. Could anyone please share what they currently use to accomplish this or what would be the most common & robust solution.
#accounting #advise #magento #multi-channel selling #setting
  • Profile picture of the author NRabosa
    I think Magento closed down already...
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  • Profile picture of the author tbk125
    I'm talking about Magento CE no Magento GO
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  • Profile picture of the author serpyre
    Read this http://www.warriorforum.com/ecommerc...ml#post9559368 - the fundamentals of multi-channel. It comes down to how much efficiency you want to gain - the more you want the higher the quality of solution architecture you need.

    You can mix and match, but any mistakes and it negates your efficiency gains back to zero - which is the whole reason you are wanting to do it in the first place. So everything is possible, but it depends on your end goals. The simple fact is that the small business solutions only provide up to 100-200% efficiency - Google and customers are looking towards 300%+ at the moment so people are starting to panic.

    If you're happy with 100-200% than would suggest you look towards linnworks and it competitors. Plus make sure you don't spend months doing it - the whole thing should be weeks otherwise you are going to lose efficiency.
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    • Profile picture of the author tbk125
      Originally Posted by AnthonyCapetola View Post

      Whats your product type? How many products will you have?
      apparel and athletic goods, under 1k for time being but I have intentions to scale to 10k + some day
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      • Profile picture of the author serpyre
        Originally Posted by tbk125 View Post

        apparel and athletic goods, under 1k for time being but I have intentions to scale to 10k + some day
        Magento CE for growth - WooCommerce/Prestashop for static, but 1,000 products is too small for an apparel store unless it is very niche. For the multi-channel you should process them by Excel uploads, the return on investment is not there at that level. For products 5,000 is the next level but the sweet spot is 30,000 (end products not the options that make it up).

        Now, apparel is our speciality. We are working with a company on a project that is designed to make Magento act like ATG, Websphere to take on Net-A-Porter & Asos. The whole architecture was designed as the forex/futures market has been flat and the hedge fund was bored - so they used SAP architects to design the architecture - Rocket Internet style.

        We have access to the achitecture but the volatility is coming back to the stock market which we have also been waiting for - so are considering whether to move forward or not with a commerce site based on it. It was a $2mil project as a play thing for the architects - @benmarks confirmed the largest Magento installs in the world are $2-5mil - normally they deal with $10s-$100s millions project but did spend the last 1yr explaining some of it to us.

        So the knowledge is there if you want any of it (within reason), we were going to introduce retailers to the fund/architecture but small business has no idea what SAP business processes are that generate 700-1,000% efficiency gains compared to normal small business 100-200% - so we're playing with the forex market at the moment while we decide what to do.
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  • Profile picture of the author webdeveloperindia
    Check out Warrior for Hire section where few guys like me will help you to setup everything in Magento CE for you in very resonoble price!
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  • Hey! I remember your icon. Your dog is so cool.

    I work for ecomdash, a multichannel inventory management tool, and I think we may be a possible solution for you. I'll go down your list and let you know what we could offer you.

    Accounting - We track costing information and can help you determine gross profit % and margins. However, we aren't as robust as QuickBooks.

    Inventory management - We track your inventory in real time to keep in updated across all channels. Ecomdash pulls in sales orders automatically, and then "kills" the listing on the marketplace, so that your inventory on sales channels reflects a true value. You can also set low inventory thresholds in our tool, and we will notify you when an item is running low and need to be reordered.

    Integrating with shipping or shipstation (currently using) - We have our own shipping management built in. You can create pick lists, packing slips and shipping labels, and buy postage through either of our integration partners, Stamps.com or Endicia. But, we know people really love ShipStation, and our tool works seamlessly alongside theirs.

    Multi-channel selling eBay, Amazon, etc - We integrate with Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopify, Bigcommerce, Magento, Zencart and 3Dcart.

    Possibly a POS in the future- We've recognized the need for POS functionality for businesses looking to scale, so we're working on developing that.


    You may want to check out WebRetailer for more suggestions, if you're still not finding something you like. Run free trials, test everything, and ask lots of questions. Hope you find something that works for you.

    Good luck!
    Tiana
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  • Profile picture of the author serpyre
    Just to clarify as there are quite a few SaaS multi-channel providers on here. There is nothing wrong with these and can indeed work quite well, the problem is that small business retailers and/or service providers have a habit of fiddling with the base install thinking it increases the business value/exposure.

    This means the integration becomes complex, which reduces the efficiency gains and defeats the who purpose of the solutions in the first place. So they can work, but as a retailer you need to keep clean installs everywhere - which goes against service providers general approach - the further you go from the clean install the greater the impact each mistake will have on efficiency.

    It's not any one solution or platform - it's the whole small business eco-system that is starting to implode on itself as Google and visitors become more informed/careful about who they are dealing with. The means that the service providers need to provide higher efficiency solutions to compensate for the complete architecture and business processes being inefficient - but they don't have any available so it all becomes rather difficult for everyone involved!
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  • Profile picture of the author kjamesnv
    For Multi-Channel check out M2EPro. Its 100% free and allows Magento listings on Amazon and eBay. For the price its almost unbeatable.

    For inventory/ shipping there are many options. However check out Embedded ERP. Its fulling integrated with Magento and powerful.
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    • Profile picture of the author tbk125
      Originally Posted by kjamesnv View Post

      For Multi-Channel check out M2EPro. Its 100% free and allows Magento listings on Amazon and eBay. For the price its almost unbeatable.

      For inventory/ shipping there are many options. However check out Embedded ERP. Its fulling integrated with Magento and powerful.
      hmm sounds pretty good, can the Embedded ERP sync up with quickbooks or something for accounting? Would you suggest still using shipstation with it? How about a POS?
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      • Profile picture of the author kjamesnv
        Originally Posted by tbk125 View Post

        hmm sounds pretty good, can the Embedded ERP sync up with quickbooks or something for accounting? Would you suggest still using shipstation with it? How about a POS?
        We use shipstation and it works fine. Embedded ERP has direct integration with Shipworks but we have not used it yet.

        Embedded ERP does have a POS module sold separately. I have not used it however so can't comment on it.

        There are many different ways to use QB with Magento.
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