tabs-opener

Improving Customer Loyalty and Satisfaction with Epicor eCommerce Integration

Today’s eCommerce applications depend on powerful self-service tools that that improve customer loyalty. Integrating the software provides many B2B benefits for satisfying customers and improving the customer experience. Epicor ERP software offers automatic upgrades so that online organizations always have the latest tools and technology to improve online conversions. Although many of these features work well even when companies implement the software directly out-of-the-box, using all the applications to their fullest capacity depends on the eCommerce integration of front-end CRM software, third-party connections and other internal systems. One Forrester Consulting study found that well-integrated Epicor software delivers an average return of 103 percent when adjusted for risk. The payback period was only 15 months. [1]

Level Up Your Business

The Latest Epicor ERP Software Iteration Includes Fundamental Enhancements

Only a robust and integrated Epicor eCommerce system that automates many processes and customizes the online experience for each customer and decision-maker promises to improve customer satisfaction. Integrating software and automating customer features improve online conversions while streamlining internal accounting and decision-making processes. The latest Epicor software iteration offers improved content management capabilities and extended support for complying with continuously evolving financial and compliance regulations from globally based sales jurisdictions. All software applications are enhanced, and Epicor ERP software offers the following signature business benefits when fully integrated by a skilled vendor: [2]

Scaleable Expanded Cloud Services

Customers can choose from dedicated tenancy, multi-tenancy and single-tenancy cloud hosting options.

Streamlined Streamlined Upgrades

Although the software’s advertising promises streamlined upgrades, no upgrade has ever been glitch-free unless all the associated sources of data are integrated into the system.

Innovative Updated Self-Service Shipping Options for Customers

Customers get expanded options for shipping products with increased direct-connections to more Less-than-Load (LTL) regional carriers. Full integration ensures that customers enjoy a totally automatic process of plotting complex deliveries.

Better Performance Upgraded Training

Integrated Epicor software enables internal staff and customers to receive training in cloud-deployment best practices and detailed specifics of the software’s features. The applications include 40 on-demand videos that any authorized user can access.

Convenient Upgraded Capabilities for Global Customers

The software is available in 36 languages for global marketing, but an integrated eCommerce system is essential for calculating foreign taxes and duties and converting currencies automatically on customer invoices and company records. Customers overwhelmingly prefer getting information in their own languages instead of relying on translations, which can generate inaccuracies. Providing translations in multiple languages can improve customer loyalty by generating a seamless ordering experience.

Accurate Data Increased Tools for Analytics

Epicor’s latest ERP software expands analytics capabilities while making detailed data easier to monitor and use. Successful analytics operations require lots of data about what customers do in addition to information from third-party associates. Integration enables improved visibility and the creation of customized dashboards. Advanced analytics can be used to drive better internal decision-making, improve online conversions and generate more leads for sales staff.

Compliant & Secure Enhanced Compliance

Compliance issues constantly evolve as multiple jurisdictions add or change financial regulations, product guidelines and privacy requirements. Epicor’s ERP software now offers new applications for international financial compliance and a dedicated compliance engine. However, all compliance decisions and internal monitoring depend on communications, internal alerts and high visibility of internal compliance requirements in manufacturing, advertising and storing privileged information. Integrated systems can automate data collection and trigger alerts when compliance issues change or when internal processes violate a given regulation from one of the areas where a company operates.

Automated Efficiency Improved Productivity for Front- and Back-End Processes

One of the big benefits for B2B marketers is the software’s enhanced capabilities for customers to place configure-to-order product designs. Epicor’s configurator tools offer expanded functions for configuring custom products with a 2D Design Visualization Tool. This feature won’t operate at 100-percent efficiency unless integration enables customers to receive instant quotes and approvals and to collaborate with other stakeholders on their designs.

Epicor’s latest software is ideal for the global B2B marketer because it can improve customer loyalty by providing a seamless ordering, browsing and researching experience for each visitor. Integrated systems deliver the kind of robust customer experience that can improve customer satisfaction and enhance internal operations such as inventory management, order fulfillment, manufacturing processes, marketplace platform product sales and distribution operations.

An Econsultancy survey for Digital Marketing Trends found that companies ranked improving the customer experience as the top marketing opportunity in 2017 [3] Integration provides the tools for delivering exceptional customer experiences to each platform visitor.

In another survey, 86 percent marketing executives felt that it was vital to create a seamless customer journey. [4] A third relevant survey found that 80 percent of business buyers expect real-time communication when they need it, and 95 percent of customers complain of poor customer experiences. [5] Integration enables companies to address all these issues instantly including two-way communication options for immediate engagement with customers who have urgent issues.

The Benefits of Full Integration of ERP, CRM and Third-Party Software

The enhanced benefits of integrating all line of business systems into a robust integration API layer include eliminating the problems associated with software upgrades. A reliable developer can create custom endpoints that connect to the software in the API layer. That means that software upgrades won’t affect the abilities of these specialized business-related connections--such as distributing information where it’s needed and validating the data before deploying information from external sources. The benefits of full integration include:

Synchronizing all data across operating systems
Accelerating order-to-shipment times
Improving customer service and self-service
Eliminating duplicate entries
Reducing human errors
Automating many routine process to reduce costs
Isolating data beyond standard security firewalls to improve security
Enhancing performance with real-time updates of externally generated data
Enabling custom quotes that automatically calculate on invoices
Getting more benefits from branded apps
Incorporating project management software for special initiatives

The Value of Outsourcing Development to an Experienced Vendor

15% Business Revenue

20% Costs

20% Customer Satisfaction

It’s an unfortunate fact that any standalone software--no matter how advanced--will quickly become less than optimal over time as bugs develop, data becomes outdated, new marketing trends develop and companies expand their operations into new areas. Hiring a respected vendor makes it easy to develop new methodologies, deploy and test software and find any operating vulnerabilities. A Hewlett Packard internal study discovered the following facts that relate to choosing a developer for integration: [6]

Continuous integration of operating software speeds delivery, deployment and marketing agility. Reductions in development costs average about 40 percent.
Integrated software increases the staff time for creating innovations by 500 percent.
Development costs per program drop an average of 78 percent.
Experienced and trusted vendors can train in-house staff and troubleshoot last-minute glitches even after a full integration is declared complete.
Companies can stay ahead of their competitors by quickly adding new software based on marketing or customer service innovations.

Integrating Epicor ERP Software and Other Applications

You can take advantage of all the features that the latest version of Epicor ERP software offers by integrating all business applications into a robust integration API layer, like Clarity Connect. The best strategy is to hire a trusted developer to provide training, collaboration with in-house staff and continuous integration to meet the challenges of growth and new business trends. A skilled developer can speed eCommerce integration, monitor all your platform’s applications and troubleshoot any problems with new software and upgrades. Clarity's not only got experience with Epicor, we're one of the only integration developers that have successfully integrated Epicor with eCommerce and launched it into production. Give us a call and we'll be happy to discuss your Epicor integration.

References

Blog.etbenterprise.com: Study Shows Customers Recognize 103% ROI with Epicor ERP Software blog.e2benterprise.com/study-shows-customers-recognize-103-roi-with-epicor-erp-software/
Mis-c.com: Latest Version of Epicor ERP Extends Manufacturing Leadership with Launch of Powerful Cloud-Based Analytics and Global Electronic Compliance www.mis-c.com/erp-blog/latest-version-epicor-erp-extends-manufacturing-leadership-launch-powerful-cloud-based-analytics-global-electronic-compliance/
Superoffice.com: 32 Customer Experience Statistics for 2017 www.superoffice.com/blog/customer-experience-statistics/
Spigit.com: 8 Customer Experience Stats Every Leader Needs to Know https://www.spigit.com/8-customer-experience-stats/

Better Insights

Improving sales insights into customer / partner activity

Higher Return Rate

Increasing sales to existing customer (60-70% likely) vs. selling to a new prospect (only 5-20% likely - Marketing Metrics)

Increased Loyalty

Increased customer loyalty - just a 5% reduction in customer decection can increase profits 5-95% (Bain & Company)

Improved Experience

Improve Customer Experience with better data (i.e. order status, online membership renewals, loyalty rewards points programs, etc.)

Effective Marketing

Better / more effective marketing from the information to plan and run targeted campaigns, cross sell / up sell / recommend products, etc.

Improved Sales

Improved Sales - your sales personnel can use the information like YTD Sales, MTD Sales, Accounts Receivable aging, Credit hold, etc.

Smarter Planning

Cross-channel information allows you to better forecast your pipeline and schedule procurement / manufacturing accordingly.

Base eCommerce Website

Expand Panels For More Detail

Core website features

Fixed Price | Incudes: Website + Administrative Portal

tabs-opener

CMS

Clarity works with a number of CMS platforms, and will recommend a specific platform based on the technical requirements of your project and your specified budget. Most complex sites (i.e. sites that require custom development) are built using DNN, since it's based on .NET and very secure and developer friendly. Simple / marketing sites are often done on WordPress.

WYSIWYG editor for easy content creation, editing, updates.
Drag and drop module placement for changing page layouts and designs (requires no coding).
SEO panel for optimizing search engine meta tags.
Unlimited pages, graphics, content (no additional cost).

Site Design

Clarity's designers work with you and / or your team on your site design. This iterative process allows you to see and work with multiple designs from concepts to final mockups, allowing your to review with your team, provide feedback and approval, before any construction on the site begins.

Basic design of home page and an internal page, based on your design requirements.
Light customization of header, footer, menu and color palette for professional presentation.
$100 credit towards free graphics / graphic work to ensure great site imagery.

Responsive Template

Unless specifically building a tablet or phone app, all of Clarity's websites are built on a mobile responsive template. This facilitates an optimal user experience for your visitors, no matter what viewing resolution or device they're on. It also meets Google's mobile experience requirements, to help your site rank higher during keyword searches.

Mobile responsive web site for optimized mobile experience.
Helps Google rankings by being mobile friendly.
Some sites have up to 50% of their visitors on mobile devices.

Mobile Menu

Since each site is mobile responsive, it will need a mobile menu, often visible and referred to as a "hamburger menu." This menu is auto-displayed for smaller viewing resolutions (tablet, smart phone) and facilitates intuitive navigation with little real estate.

Addition of mobile menu. Auto-switches for mobile devices.
Ensures all mobile users can navigate your site properly.
Separate mobile "hamburger" menu included for mobile navigation.

Dev Environment

Clarity works with you to determine the most optimal development platform for your project. Sometimes that may mean that we remotely access your servers, but most of the time, Clarity will create a development instance on our servers, providing secure access to your team during the process. Once the project has passed User acceptance testing, Clarity will provide a launch plan to take the site into production. Finally, a plan for ongoing maintenance, testing and updates will be put in place.

Secure IP blocked environment for development.
IP exceptions for your team means that your team can monitor or participate throughout the entire project - no surprises.
Environment can persist for future update pre-testing and development enhancements.
Like driver's education, we actively train and invite your team to participate, so we can hand-off future site updates.

Core eCommerce Features

Fixed Price | Incudes: eCommerce + Administrative Portal

tabs-opener

Product Catalog

Clarity eCommerce comes with a highly customizable product catalog, which is designed to be customized to help drive traffic, improve user experience and be tailored to your specific business and process needs. So whether you've got products, services, exploded views, custom configurators, and more, Clarity's product catalog's got you covered.

Product image galleries with zoom, default image, and alt tagging.
Unlimited dependent and non-dependent categories (nesting) and product attributes.
Pricing logic (pricing tables) normally sync'd w/ ERP, but can Clarity pricing module for SMB if no ERP.
Unlimited associated products lists - Related or Similar, Up-sell, Cross-sell, Accessories.
Tangible and digital downloadable products.
Ituitive navigation w/ page breadcrumb links.
Custom search engine - parts / model search, predictive auto-fill, search history, index product brochures and PDFs, more.
Product Attributes customizable out-of-the-box for brochures, warranty cards, embedded videos and more.

Cart(s)

Clarity's platform has your shopping cart (where you add / review products), a mini-cart (right sidebar that follows you through checkout) and a micro-cart (in the header, with sub-total and product count). The shopping cart also includes the checkout process, which Clarity extends, allowing you to customize your checkout process, including adding handling fees, up-sell / cross-selling products, guest checkout and much more.

Ability to edit and save carts.
Auto-filled in Billing Address if existing customer (may require CRM or ERP integration for account-based information).
Discounts, Coupons. Create your own promo codes - start/expire dates, combine w/ others, use limits, per order / product and more.
Guest checkout options.
Persistent items in cart with no checkout. Items are saved for your customers' next visit.
Auto-fill in shipping address(es) from address book.
Multiple payment method support (credit card, PayPal, ACH, eCheck, invoice from PO, more*).

Shipping

Clarity has worked with and integrated with more than 50 shipping carriers. Besides the standard carriers (UPS, FedEx, USPS and DHL), since we work with many B2B clients, we've integrated with many LTL carriers. The shipping process can also be customized to facilitate custom handling (i.e. packaging to account for specific layers per palette, etc.) to improve the accuracy of your shipping estimates.

Shipping integration w/ UPS, FedEx, DHL or USPS (optional upgrade to LTL Trucking Companies or Carriers).
Real-time shipping costs calculations.
Can offer free shipping at the order (i.e. orders over $50), or product level (no sales tax on consumables).
Shipping tracking numbers recorded to orders in user dashboard.

Taxes

Clarity has a built in sales tax table, which will calculate simple sales taxes for each state. For more accurate sales tax calculations, address validation and state sales tax submissions, Clarity is a certified Avalara Sales Tax partner and can integrate Avalara tax into your site.

Regional sales tax calculations from table.
Real-time Sales Tax calculations (*with Avalara Sales Tax Integration *certified).
Tax Free Accounts (may require EIN or ERP for account tax status).
Calculated in real-time at checkout.

Customer Portal / User Dashboard

While every Clarity eCommerce implementation is unique, one common feature is the user dashboard. This means that your users can log in and view all their past orders, invoices, quotes, favorites, as well as manage their address book and wallet. Clarity can also customize your dashboard to include user access management (i.e. procurement, invoicing / reporting, ordering, etc.), as well as custom CRO options for upselling close-out items, for example.

Date range control for order history and status.
Single-click re-ordering individual items from past orders.
Date range control for viewing and / or paying Invoices.
Personal / Organization Address Book for multiple shipping locations.
Personal / Organization Wallet (Securely store and manage credit cards - *PCI DSS compliant).

Product Management

Clarity provides a wide variety of product management capabilities to match your company's needs. This includes multiple product import / creation capabilities, unlimited categorization and product attributes, custom SEO meta tags to improve your search rankings, custom pricing tables for multi-tiered pricing, product kits / bundling, multiple variations and much more.

Product import wizard.
Unlimited products, customizable attributes, multi-category assignements.
SEO configuration per product page.
Product kits (Bundles), product variants w/ price uplifting (XXL costs $5 more, etc.).
Activate, de-activate, stage and delete products.

Account Management

For clients with CRM and ERP systems, Clarity integrates your eCommerce implementation with your back-office to help automate and improve account management. For SMB or smaller companies with no back-office system, Clarity has built-in modules to provide basic account management, accounts payable and receivable, sales reports, and pricing tables to handle your different account types.

Full account management with CRM / ERP integration.
Basic accounts / contacts / sales orders / etc. without ERP / CRM integration.
Accounts receivable, sales orders, account status, sales tracking and much more.
Users and role assignment for procurement / orders or paying invoices.

Inventory Management

Most inventory management is automated with an integration to your ERP, however, if your company doesn't have an ERP, or doesn't maintain inventory stock in your ERP, Clarity eCommerce has a built in inventory stock count capability. This features allows you to specify individual warehouses and inventory counts for each product, which are auto-decrimented according to sales orders.

Inventory module to manage stock quantities if no ERP integration.
Out-of-stock and automatic in-stock notifications.
Built-in perpetual inventory tracking per warehouse.
*Custom inventory tracking for kit components required for bundling.

SEO

If you don't already know, your product catalog can be turned into an SEO goldmine. Imagine every product page, optimized so that users searching for a product or service could be driven directly to your product or service page. With Clarity eCommerce, you can. We've included full SEO customization and optimization for every product in the catalog, with the ability to auto-build your XML files for webmaster tools.

Products Sitemap XML auto-generator.
Category Sitemap XML auto-generator.
Configure or import SEO title, Meta Description, Meta Keywords, SEO URL per product.
Configure SEO-friendly category URLs and landing pages.

No Limits or Hidden Fees

Many eCommerce platforms have a base price, manual maintenance, per transaction fees and more. Not Clarity. You pay a one-time fee for only the modules your implementation will use, then a pro-rated license fee when you decide you want to upgrade to a newer version. Your license allows unlimited SKUs, unlimited categories / sub-categories, unlimited product attributes, unlimited transactions, and so on.

No limits on coupons redeemed, number of users / accounts / products, etc.
Unlimited number of categories, sub-categories and product attributes.
No per-transaction fees, monthly usage fees, etc.

Development APIs

Clarity's platform uses only the latest and best technologies. This includes Angular.js, C#, SQL, and much more. Clarity uses Service Stack to expose more than 1,000 endpoints for not only our developers, but yours as well. It allows our clients to highly customize the implementation, matching needs that arise as their business grows and changes.

Service Stack means supports JSV, CSV, XML, SOAP, JSON languages.
Over 1,000 endpoints exposed means full access to system.
Integrated documentation - XSDs, WSDLs included with API.

Hosting

Monthly Fee | Can be self-hosted, 3rd party or through Clarity™

tabs-opener

Development Environment

When you sign up for hosting, it usually means that your site will be one of 80 to 200 sites on that server. Clarity provides hosting options where we limit the number of sites per server to between 10 and 20, to ensure high performance. We also pre-cache high traffic pages of your site, as well as ping your site every 5 minutes. If the site doesn't respond, it pages us 24 x 7, so by the time you know there's a problem, we're either already on it, or have it fixed.

Secure IP blocked environment for development.
IP exceptions for your team means that your team can monitor or participate throughout the entire project - no surprises.
Participating means that, like driver's education, at the end of the project, we hand over the keys and your team can "drive" (i.e. have been trained to handle ongoing maintenance and edits if desired).
Environment can persist for future update pre-testing and development enhancements.

Hardware Requirements

Clarity's eCommerce and Integration platforms run on a standard Windows Server 2012 R2 and newer, running MSSQL 2008 and newer (can use SQL Express), IIS 8.5, .NET 4.6 framework, which is available at any hosting facility. The two platforms can also run independently, for scenarios where the eCommerce site is in the cloud, but Connect needs to be in the client DMZ, for example.

Industry-standards means you can select almost any hosting provider.
Windows Server 2012, IIS, SQL Server, .NET Framework.
Based on traffic, site content, security needs, can specify hard drive space, load balancing, cloud config, back ups, disaster recovery, etc.
Shared or dedicated hosting plans.

Implementation

As above, Clarity eCommerce and Connect can be on the same server in the cloud, on premises, or installed separately for custom installations. It's also architected and tested for Microsoft Azure implementations. The architecture also allows it to be hosted on your company's network if needed. This provides flexibility for custom integration or security requirements (i.e. international, banking, etc.).

Persistent Development Environment (future update testing).
After-hours Production roll-outs.
Optional monitoring and 24-hour paging.
Based on your needs - development -> staging -> production.

Security

Over the course of launching 1,300+ web properties, Clarity has worked with hundreds of hosting providers. Clarity works with each client's project requirements and budget to recommend options for hosting. Clarity also has their own dedicated servers that they've purchased at their favorite hosting providers, giving them better access to provide better support for those clients wanting active monitoring.

State-of-the-art, card access controlled, secure data centers.
Onsite 24/7/365 technical support and security personnel.
Redundant cooling, clean power, air filtration, back-up generators, Tier 1 bandwidth providers.
SSAE-16 / SAS70 / ISO Certifications.

Project Services

Fixed Price | Includes: Basic Discovery, Core Implementation, and Core Project Management & QA

tabs-opener

Strategy Consultation

Every Clarity project begins with a web strategy session, where we define each site's marketing and sales goals, visitor personas, as well as, overall goals and design elements of your project. We also discuss the many analytics tools that are available to you, to ensure that we can define what success is, and what metrics we want to capture to monitor it. Finally, notes from this meeting are provided to both teams, so that any resource that joins the project, can review the document and be "up-to-speed" on what the key goals of the project are.

Visitor / Personna definitions - review content for accuracy.
Sales & Marketing goals and calls-to-action defined.
Site metrics, success definitions.
Conversions, SEO strategy discussed.

Project Managemnet

Each eCommerce, mobile or integration project is assigned a dedicated Project Manager. This person will be responsible for your project's communication and coordination. They will also allocate and monitor all resource and hourly usage and reporting. They will also host your Sprint reviews, as well as, provide ongoing project status reports.

Dedicated Project Manager.
Online Project management portal.
Bi-weekly Sprint reviews.
Monthly Project Status Reports.
Live access to the development site.

Technical Discovery

Simultaneous to the wireframing and design phase, there will be technical resources that will be putting together the project's technical specification, infrastructure design, hosting options and more. Similar to the architect drawing up the blueprints (design), and the construction manager putting together the construction manual (functional spec) of how that design will be actually built, Clarity ensures that before any actual construction, we have an approved design, detailed technical specs, approved / adjusted budget and a detailed Gantt chart.

Multi-track discovery and design process.
Technical research into hosting, security, integration(s), shipping, taxes, business logic and workflow, etc. Output is a functional design specification.
Designer works with team, style guide, ideas and inspirational elements. Output may produce wireframes, prototype and design mockups.
Project Manager reviews all estimates based on completed designs and specifications. Output is updated proposal, Gantt chart and workback schedule.

SEO Consultation

As a full-service firm, Clarity is SEO (search engine optimization) certified and can help to ensure that is you build it, it can be optimized to drive traffic to it. SEO is coupled with an equal effort in CRO (conversion rate optimization), and Clarity can help to design and address the necessary elements to improve site conversions

301 Re-directs to protect existing SEO rankings.
Clarity is SEO certified to help consult on both past performance and future strategies.
Free SEO consultation to discuss auditing, planning, strategies and execution.
Website micro-audits for ongoings site health and performance.
Clarity is happy to either help with auditing, planning, executing or training your team to do the work yourselves.

Team Training

As an extension of your team, Clarity treats the project build time as "driver's ed" so once the site launches, we want your team to be trained and familiar with the site, able to handle daily updates and maintenance. Clarity can, if needed, handle any and all ongoing maintenance and updates, but wants that to be your decision. If at any time your team needs additional training, Clarity is happy to step up and facilitate that.

CMS training included in every project. We enable your team to maintain your site going forward.
*Optional develper training for programming against our API.
*Optional DBA training for SQL report building. Dev Express report builder license included with any purchased eCommerce license.
Training sessions are done by screen-sharing and can be recorded and provided to your team as training videos, for either review or getting new employees up to speed with your site.

Maintenance / Support Plans

Once your project is "in production," ongoing maintenance is done at your agreement's hourly rate. The agreement provides you with a relationship with Clarity where we continue to provide you free estimates and consulting, only billing for actual hours worked as you request. Clarity does have an available SLA (Service Level Agreement), where you can pay for guaranteed response times for site issues, for those companies with critical availability needs.

No ongoing "use it or lose it" fees.
12-months maintenance locked in at project rates.
Only pay for work performed.
*Optional SLA available for guaranteed response times.
*Optional upgrade, security, performance plans.

Bench / Fractional

As a full-service firm, Clarity has resources for everything you may need for your project. This includes designers, SEO and marketing consultants, front-end developers, project managers, back-end developers, integration specialists and testing (QA) engineers. As an extension of your team, you're allowed to "hire" or use only those resources that you need, or that your project will require. So even if we're building you a mobile app, if your marketing team needs an SEO consultant, you've got access to our full technical team.

SEO / CRO consulting.
Wireframes, proto-types, design mockup designers.
Front-end web and mobile app developers.
Back-end, custom coding developers.
Line of Business application integration specialists.

Optional Features

Expand Panels For More Detail

Line of Business Application Integrations (ERP, CRM, EHR/EMR etc.)

Variable | Modules available for fixed cost + services for customization

tabs-opener

Features

Clarity has done thousands of integrations to hundreds of different applications. Each project, even if we've done that integration before, is unique in that it's not the integration that's difficult, it's what we do through the integration to help facilitate improving your site's business processes. The goal being to either help automate and improve business processes, or to help drive and increase business growth.

Real-time and / or batch, secure communication w/ LOB applications.
Automate custom business processes.
Sync to improve data quality - no more manual entry in multiple locations, causing typos, duplicates and dirty data.
Improve UX to drive and close business.

ERPs

ERP's (Enterprise Resource Planning) applications are used by which a company (often a manufacturer) manages and integrates the important parts of their business. An ERP system integrates areas such as planning, purchasing, inventory, sales, marketing, finance and human resources. Facilitating real-time integration of your website (eCommerce site, Portal, mobile app, etc.), allows users to become a part of your business system. This can be from real-time inventory stock counts, automated in-stock notifications, automated sales quotes and orders, and much more.

Automate perpetual inventory.
Sync product meta data.
Pull customer type and pricing class data.
Pull account status updates (is client account on hold?)
Process order fulfillment, sales order processing, and more.

CRMs

CRM's (Customer relationship management) applications are used by companies to capture leads and track them through the sales cycle. This includes all activities related to leads, opportunities, contacts and accounts. The thing that's normally missing from a CRM is actual client activity data that's without typos, etc. Integrating your site to your CRM allows the system itself to record all client activity (visits, product views, forms, downloads, orders, new user sign ups, etc.) and add it as activity records automatically in the CRM. This removes human errors and provides improved sales insight for your company.

CRM can be used as the eCommerce authentication.
Sync account and contact data (can logged in user purchase on account, etc.?)
New purchasers can create new Account / Contact records in CRM.
CRM Contact / Account info can auto-populate shipping / billing addresses.
Contact behavior can be pushed to CRM as activities for Sales Reps.

EHR / EMRs

EHR or EMR's (Electronic Health / Medical Records) are applications used by medical staff to document the health, diagnosis and treatment of patients. The EMR is usually only used within an organization (such as a hospital), whereas the EHR is meant to be used by all clinicians involved in a patient's care, no matter the organization (primary doctor, surgeon, lab, specialist, etc.). Clarity has built a number of HIPAA portals and mobile medical applications that upload data to a patient's record (i.e. daily glucose readings, etc.). Integration with an EHR facilitates the needed flow of data to improve the patient's course of treatment.

Sync patient care, past health and online billing (patient portal).
Share patient health information between providers.
Integrated push / email notifications based on lab results.
Decrease medical coding errors.
Create self-help patient policies, procedures and care instructions.

Supply Chain

A supply chain is a system of organizations, people, activities, information, and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. Integration of your supply chain can facilitate automated inventory management, drop-shipping, and much more. Because there can be many organizations involved in your supply chain, integration can be difficult and sometimes expensive. That's why Clarity Connect supports many connection types (i.e. EDI, XML, API, DB, etc.) so we can facilitate integrating your entire supply chain.

Improve ability to respond to external events quicker.
Streamline your inventory management (decrease inventory requirements).
Reduce costs, drive margins with tighter supply chain management.
Increased efficiency / predictability with more real-time visibility into your suppliers.
Eliminate mistakes in orders, confirmations and invoices with automation.

Databases

Most companies have multiple back-office applications (i.e. CRM, ERP, Finance, HR, etc.), which many times are installed on premises behind their firewall. When their eCommerce or Portal is installed in the cloud, this poses a unique set of communication and security challenges for data collection. So Clarity will often create a caching database (mini-data warehouse) that can be used to collect and cleanse the data from all the line of business applications.

Enrich your data with multiple sources.
Lower dirty data by automated data entry / population.
Provides better reporting since all collected data is in your format (database).
Cleanse, secure, and provide access to your data more easily.

International

Variable | Modules available for fixed cost + services for customization

tabs-opener

International Shipping

International shipping brings with it a myriad of responsibilities and overheads, many of which typically reduce margins and increase lead-times significantly. With the appropriate eCommerce platform and integrations with shipping partners, these overheads can provide you with a strong advantage against competitors in the same space. Clarity eCommerce delivers a fully customizable solution for the following key areas (to show a few) related to international shipping.

International customs documentation
Commercial invoices & Bill of Lading
Picking and packing lists and forms
Restricted International Product (RIP) management

Customs / Duties / Taxes

Customs and Duties require significant effort to get right - specifically because the landscape of international shipping requirements is constantly changing. Due to the dynamic nature of international customs & duties, Clarity eCommerce leverages 3rd party integrations that make the latest international shipping forms, documentation and resources available to each of our international enabled eCommerce projects.

Shipper’s export declarations & forms
Commercial invoices & bill of lading
Export packing lists
Delivery Duties Paid (DDP) and Delivery Duties Unpaid (DDU) Capable

Multi-Lingual Support

Multi-Lingual eCommerce is a key requirement for any international commerce platform that needs to saturate global markets. The multi-lingual architecture of the Clarity eCommerce platform enables Clients to take advantage of fully customizable system languages (with many common defaults) as well as highly customizable content localization options as well. Below are some of the key facets of the multi-lingual commerce platform Clarity offers.

Fully customizable labels, system screens, etc.
Default languages to speed delivery
Robust management screens to enable 3rd party translation groups
Easy to use language selector with different styling and designs
Right to left friendly design
Advanced integration capabilities with Google Translate

Multi-Currency Payments

Multi-Currency eCommerce is a key component of enabling a low-friction interaction throughout international eCommerce transactions. Customers from all over the world will each have different "default" currencies and as a result, the most competitive international eCommerce platforms offer these default currencies to their customers. The Clarity eCommerce platform enables robust delivery of multi-currency eCommerce cabalities including but not limited to the below items.

Currency conversion and periodic rate polling or real-time polling
Detailed logging of sold currency and converted currency
Robust capabilities for integrating language and currency selection options
Advanced multi-currency payment provider partnerships - reducing risk for transactions
Capabilities for escrow and pay-upon-delivery type of options for customers

Multi-Store / Omnichannel

Variable | Modules available for fixed cost + services for customization

tabs-opener

Filtered Catalog

The product catalog system enables multi-store and channel specific filtering. This can be location specific, channel specific, brand, division or site-domain specific (and more). Due to the highly customizable nature of the platform it can effectively deliver a filtering capability based on any data within the system.

Advanced filtering with multi-filtering and infinite category/sub-category capability
Show/hide categories based on store, domain, brand, etc.
Responsive user interface based on device / channel
Specific pricing, availability, inventory locator, etc.

Customer-Branded Portals

The eCommerce platform enables a very robust branding capability by portal/site. This allows Clients to give access to their customers to self brand or for Clients to use their administrative dashboard to customize each of their customer's sites (logo, colors, styles, product availability, pricing, etc.).

Robust customization per customer
Customer specific dashboard to enable logo, branding, content, product customization
Customer specific pricing, inventory management, etc.
Allow customers to set roles within their organization for access to different levels of capability (i.e. view only, finance, purchasing, executive, etc.)

Distributor Stores

Distributor stores typically need the ability to cater the specific content, product data and many times the branding to enable their specific presentation to display as expected.

Distributor-unique store content customization
Capability to upload products specific to the distributor
Branding and design customization per distributor
Inventory, pricing and display rules that are distributor specific

Store within a Store

Marketplace or store within a store (multi-store) allows users to create buyer or seller accounts. The seller accounts are able to upload products and present them for sale within their own customizable store. The system enables aggregate searching across all sellers' offerings - and then store or seller specific filtering

Robust marketplace capabilities with approval process for new content
Advanced filtering and store within a store drill-down
Buyer & seller contact and chat, review order details and escrow-return processes
Seller can specify different payment, shipping, and other options

Franchises

Franchises typically will want to pull in standard sets of content from their corporate marketing team while still being able to cater the offerings and content they show on their site to match their specific franchise. Clarity eCommerce allows Franchises to pull content from their parent organization while enabling Franchise specific overrides and tokenization. The platform also enables Franchises to "subscribe" to receive updates from the corporate or divisional regions for marketing and product data.

Content management to enable subscription (Auto-approve, manual, reject) from parent organization
Advanced tokenization and override capabilities to enable specific fine-tuning of content by franchise
Franchises can "subscribe" to products and product categories to show as well as override pricing and inventory levels
Franchises can specify different payment, shipping, taxes, branding and other options

Design (UI / UX)

Variable | Modules available for fixed cost + services for customization

tabs-opener

Logo / Branding Design

Clarity's branding, design and logo capabilities allow our Clients to engage not just for a technology solution but also a full branding solution.

Overall branding and design discovery
Full branding, style guide and corporate branding guidelines
Logo discovery and design
Logo useage and guidelines

Full Custom Site Design

Clarity's full custom site design work allows your team to explore different site design options with our experienced, seasoned professionals. We deliver on dozens and dozens of projects per year and have delivered on hundreds and hundreds. We'll design a site, with your team's feedback, that delivers on your company's vision.

Experienced design professionals
Complete site customizability
Detailed design and discovery process
We distill our decades of experience into your project

Custom UX Wireframing

Clarity's team of design and user experience experts pour over and study user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) best practices. We're constantly working on improvements that will reduce friction and enable users to take action. As a result we bring these skills into each wireframing and UI/UX process we engage in.

Immersive, friction reducing user experience
Deep industry knowledge to deliver best practices while crafting to your vision
Advanced wireframing tools to help discovery process flow seamlessly
Customizable UI wireframes for standard screens to streamline process for core screens

Content Styling

Content styling is critical to enable improved CRO (conversion rate optimization). As a result, Clarity will bring team members to bear on your project (if you'd like) to help train you/your team or directly execute on content styling work to ensure the site content is compelling and results in action from site visitors.

Conversion rate optimization reviews and recommendations
Content styling training or direct work available from Clarity
Advanced version control and templating to allow re-use of content and recovery from typical scenarios
Action oriented content - leverage calls to action that match your businsses' Clients

Wizards / Product Selectors

Wizards / Product selectors are a vitally important component for many Clients who offer products that aren't commonly known, are challenging to find using traditional means or simply don't make sense to some or all site visitors. Clarity has delivered dozens of wizard/product selector components and will bring those solutions and experiences to bear.

Category, sub-category, product, variant, etc. drill down
Step by steps questionairre possible to drill into detail
Progress indicator and highly customizable design to show very little or significant detail
Final result can show a category, product, catalog display with results or other options

Project Prototyping

Clarity's design and development team will typically recommend a project prototype of some form for any medium-large sized project that involves rather unique or complex functionality. If this is the case, the prototyping allows your team members to review and visit a "mock" version of the site that doesn't have advanced business logic nor live data but that does represent a very similar experience as what site users would find.

Advanced design to show prototyped scenarios
Clickable interface to allow your team to simulate visiting the site and interacting with it
Helps eliminate "bad ideas" before they get out of design and into development
Helps reduce timeline and budget most of the time when used

Marketing (SEO / CRO)

Variable | Modules available for fixed cost + services for customization

tabs-opener

SEO Consulting

Clarity's team of experts have delivered on hundreds of Client projects with organic search engine optimization (SEO) as a major focus. As a result, our team is constantly improving our skillset and brings that to bear on your project - be it eCommerce or otherwise. There are many detailed facets of SEO that include on-page optimization (meta information, indexing, sitemaps, robots.txt, internal linking, etc.), off-page optimization (link building, link monitoring, competitor reviews, keyword rank-tracking, etc.) as well as analytics and reporting.

WYSIWYG editor for easy content creation, editing, updates.
Drag and drop module placement for changing page layouts and designs (requires no coding).
SEO panel for optimizing search engine meta tags.
Unlimited pages, graphics, content (no additional cost).

CRO Consulting

Conversion rate optimization is a key strategy focus to ensure that visitor's friction to taking action is as minimal as possible. There are considerable studies and resources available that our team continuously reviews and keeps up to date with to help make precise recommendations and improvements. We then will help provide tracking and analytics that will monitor for the conversion rate optimizations that yield the best results and continue to orient toward those.

Experienced conversion experts
Recommendations based on industry research and best practices
Detailed A/B and multi-variate testing platform to ensure oriented toward optimal long-term configuration
Streamline flow from visit to results

Marketing Consulting

Clarity's marketing team provides services and support for many Clients who range in their needs from minor recommendations on a quarterly basis to more hands-on consultation where we're engaged in immersive projects and weekly if not daily reporting. No matter where within that spectrum your company's needs may lie, we're happy to bring our decades or marketing (and specifically - digital marketing) experience to bear.

Decades of digital marketing experience
Search Engine Marketing (Pay per click, banner advertising, mobile marketing, social media marketing, etc.)
Email marketing, re-targeting, exit intent marketing, etc.
Robust reporting and analytics to help enable marketing decisions and objectives (target vs. actual with recommendations to ensure moving toward objectives)

BI (Business Intelligence) Reporting

Variable | Modules available for fixed cost + services for customization

tabs-opener

Business Intelligence
Reporting

Business Intelligence

Clarity's business intelligence platform enables robust dashboards and specific, role based access and reporting. Specifically, the platform has advanced counters that can be turned on for any/all business processes as well as very granular site visitor tracking (for example did they view a product detail page but not add an item to the cart, etc.). This level of detail allows Clarity's team to leverage the data obtained in aggregate through the site and per user to offer enhanced results and interactions with the site that leverage personalization and in some cases machine learning.

Robust role based dashboards
Extremely powerful tracking and counter system to monitor specific business workflows and trigger action based on those
Robust user level tracking to determine goal pipelines, provide personalization as well as enable global "intelligence" in the site
Ability to enable internal triggers based on thresholds to notify of low-inventory, low conversion, show higher margin products more often, etc.

Reporting

Clarity's reporting platform enables off-the-shelf standard reports as well as the ability to clone those reports and modify them -or- the ability to create new reports from scratch. The reporting platform has a role based access capability to restrict access to the report builder. For those with access, they can create reports by joining logical entities, applying filters and logic and creating auto-generated reports that get emailed to a distribution list (if desired) or that are available on demand from the dashboard. The reporting tools will also export to standard formats including but not limited to Excel, CSV, PDF, Word, etc.

Advanced reporting engine with report builder
Auto-email distribution list at periodic intervals (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, etc.)
Export formats include Excel, CSV, PDF, Word, etc.
Robust role based security capability

So, What Does It Look Like?

Components, modules, structure, and all the fun tech that plays together

Clarity Connect™ was built to speak to all of the various APIs that a seamless integration requires to be successful, and to translate the information for use on your front-end website, portal or eCommerce store-marketplace. These APIs allow for the integration to be scalable and secure. Clarity Connect’s architecture provides a robust platform that allows your front-end web property to be connected to your line-of-business applications, which allows you to automate and improve both data sharing, as well as automating business processes.

The architecture is a queue-based model that can cache data for validation or translation when being transferred between the applications. The robust API speaks many languages so integrations with databases, supply chains, databases, web services, APIs and more are all out-of-the-box, supported connection types.

For each new application that is connected to, a connector is created. This connector provides the mapping schema for the application, the connection type that is needed (i.e. REST, SOAP, JSON, XML, etc.) and any translate-transform code needed. This means that someone could purchase a product from an online store, like a prescription, and it could be automatically converted to HL7v2, and inserted into the patient record in their doctor’s portal for approval.

Storefronts &
Marketplaces
Mobile
Apps
Portals &
Communities
Custom
Applications
Custom
Connector

Storefronts & Marketplaces

Sub Applications

Services (API)

Business Logic

Providers (Modules)

Models & Mapping

Interfaces

Data Access

Oracle
My SQL
MS SQL
Azure

What's in our core?

Components, modules, structure, and all the fun tech that plays together

Caching
Encryption
Registry Loading
Utilities
Files
Paging
Sorting
Filtering
Grouping
Tagging
Searching
Name Value Pairing
Serializable
Type
Status
State

Plus Much More!

Get a first hand look by scheduling a private demo

Request A Demo

Using The Data

The Data Access layer enable an ODBC compatible database storage capability. MS SQL is the default database type supported with the platform, however, the Data Access layer architecture enables it to support MySQL, Oracle, Azure, NoSQL for specific use cases, and more...

Providers

The Provider (Modules) layer enables robust customization of the core business logic layers without directly modifying the platform's code. It includes:

Shipping

We’ve partnered with the most trusted names in shipping & logistics

Payment Providers

Confidently run your online business knowing that payments are secure

Taxes

Our integrated tax partner has done all the hard work so you can start selling faster

Pricing
Files
Memberships
Sites & More

Services

The Services (API) layer enables a robust set of over 2,000 endpoints which expose REST, SOAP, and other protocols for integration. The services also have a robust security, tracking & caching, capability & thus a very rich integration experience. The APIs are also documented and examples provided to enable extensibility & integration to other applications...

User Interfaces

The User Interface (UI) layer incorporates open source frameworks such as AngularJS, Bootstrap, JQuery and others to consume the services APIs. The UI enables core storefront features as well as marketplace, mobile apps, portals and communities. The UI also incorporates an override model that allows complete cusotmization of this layer.

Sub Applications

The Sub Applications layer enables for integration to and creation of robust external applications. In addition to being able to directly integrate with the platform, Clarity also offers "Clarity Connect", which enables a robust queue based integration platform that has proven integrations into dozens of line of business (LOB) applications and more...

Integration Videos

It’s time to stop wasting your resources on the “one size fits all” approach and invest in a platform that will support your current and future business needs properly. The Clarity integration platform is designed to connect any line-of-business application, database, file, EDI feed, API and more with your web portal. It allows full customization of integrations, allowing you to automate and improve many of your business processes, improve data integrity, improve customer satisfaction, order accuracy, custom quoting, invoicing and term payments, multi-tiered pricing...the list goes on.

Clarity Connect™ Integration

Sage X3™ Integration

This short video will walk you through a Sage X3 integration. This integration happens to be to our Clarity eCommerce platform, but it could be any other web portal (WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, Sitecore, HIPAA-portal, or any other line-of-business application (Sage X3 <--> CRM, EDI, etc.).

Get An Estimate

Clarity Connect™ Integration

CRM-ERP Integration

This short video is an overview of the Clarity Connect platform and covers both the platform and core concepts around using Connect to integrate multiple line-of-business applications, such as your CRM and ERP.

Get An Estimate

Clarity Connect™ Integration

Integration Models

This short video discusses the four basic types of integrations, from a traditional ETL (Extract, Translate-Transform from Datasource 1, Load to Datasource 2) model, to Direct API (API to API) model, Hub & Spoke (LOB <--> Central Hub <--> LOB) model and Service Bus (Queue <--> LOB, LOB, LOB, LOB) model.

Get An Estimate

Clarity Connect™ Integration

Microsoft Dynamics GP™

This short video will walk you through a pre-production implementation of a custom B2B Clarity eCommerce site and Dynamics GP ERP. The video shows both sides of the integration, demoing how multi-tiered pricing works automatically with a Clarity Connect integration between the applications.

Get An Estimate

Resources, Documentation, and Help Guides

How does your ecommerce platform promote business? The same way a website can, through SEO, CRO, real-time intelligent marketing and more. Clarity, building SEO functionality into our ecommerce platform, adds SEO friendly URLs and page titles, and much more all providing rich SEO content to be found by the search engines.

Clarity Connect™ Overview The Types & Costs of Integrations

Case Studies and References

Why pay for an online store full of features that you don’t need? With CEF™ you start with standard store elements and add features and customizations as your business sees fit. Our modular architecture and APIs for both CEF™ and Connect™ allows the platform to grow and enhance your business, instead of blocking it.

Case Study

The Newton Group

The Newton Group is one of the industry’s largest purchasing alliances, leveraging the buying power of over 2,500 eye care professionals with over 200 ophthalmic suppliers, shipping tens of thousands of Contact lenses and glasses daily to members nationwide and providing a full range of services and tools to help their partners’ practices thrive. Historically, Newton’s business was that of many phone and email orders each week, as well as a sales portal, which worked pretty well for a number of years. Then with success came volume, translating to thousands of orders each week. Newton needed a way to streamline their ordering process and design a better ordering portal. That’s where Newton partnered with Clarity Ventures to build a custom ecommerce portal that could improve their online ordering process and provide the necessary reports to serve their clients. The ordering portal supplies custom orders for more than 1Million SKUs and processes more than $200Million in orders each year.

Schedule A Demo

Epicor eCommerce

Connect Epicor ERP Seamlessly to your eCommerce Platform

Improving Customer Loyalty and Satisfaction with Epicor eCommerce Integration

The Latest Epicor ERP Software Iteration Includes Fundamental Enhancements

The Benefits of Full Integration of ERP, CRM and Third-Party Software

Integrating Epicor ERP Software and Other Applications

Better Insights

Higher Return Rate

Increased Loyalty

Improved Experience

Effective Marketing

Improved Sales

Smarter Planning

Base eCommerce Website

Expand Panels For More Detail

Core website features

CMS

Site Design

Responsive Template

Mobile Menu

Dev Environment

Core eCommerce Features

Product Catalog

Cart(s)

Shipping

Taxes

Customer Portal / User Dashboard

Product Management

Account Management

Inventory Management

SEO

No Limits or Hidden Fees

Development APIs

Hosting

Development Environment

Hardware Requirements

Implementation

Security

Project Services

Strategy Consultation

Project Managemnet

Technical Discovery

SEO Consultation

Team Training

Maintenance / Support Plans

Bench / Fractional

Optional Features

Expand Panels For More Detail

Line of Business Application Integrations (ERP, CRM, EHR/EMR etc.)

Features

ERPs

CRMs

EHR / EMRs

Supply Chain

Databases

International

International Shipping

Customs / Duties / Taxes

Multi-Lingual Support

Multi-Currency Payments

Multi-Store / Omnichannel

Filtered Catalog

Customer-Branded Portals

Distributor Stores

Store within a Store

Franchises

Design (UI / UX)

Logo / Branding Design

Full Custom Site Design

Custom UX Wireframing

Content Styling

Wizards / Product Selectors

Project Prototyping

Marketing (SEO / CRO)

SEO Consulting

CRO Consulting

Marketing Consulting

BI (Business Intelligence) Reporting

Business Intelligence

Reporting

Epicor
eCommerce