The Benefits of Private Stores - August, 2008

For accounts small and large, with single or multiple locations, the challenges of purchasing and distributing uniform products to customers/employees can prove time consuming and costly.

The UniformMarket Store System (UMSS), as many of you know already, offers the ability to manage individual stores dedicated to each of your customers. We call them Private Customer Stores.  They can be setup for UMSS General License users as well as Landau LREP License users.

Each Private Customer Store can be tailored to match the exact specifications of products and services the uniform dealer or retailer offers to that particular customer. For instance, let’s say you owned “www.generalstore.com” (don’t go to that site, it’s just an example!) and were approached by a hospital that wanted to order uniforms through your site. You could set up a link from “www.generalstore.com/hospitalname” to a Private Customer Store you are providing via your UMSS. The Private Customer Store would display only the products the hospital wants to allow their employees to purchase. You could rename the products to be what they are used to calling them (instead of the product name being “100% Button Down Long Sleeve Twill Shirt” the customer would see “Waiter Shirts” or “Warehouse Shirt”), change the SKUs, colors, prices, embroidery options and much more.

Plus, the UMSS offers secure logins that give the customer, employee and uniform dealer as little or as much security as required.

To help you understand these security levels and how they can facilitate just the right level of access for a particular uniform account, we describe it this way:

1. HIGH LEVEL SECURITY - Every customer/employee has his or her own username and password, either chosen by the uniform dealer or given to you by the end-user.  You can use the UMSS Customer Import function to import a large list of employees if needed.

2. MEDIUM LEVEL SECURITY - All customers/employees have the same initial general username and/or password to access the Private Store. Once they login using the general username and/or password they can create a personal account for themselves within that Private Customer Store much the same way a public ecommerce site works.

3. LOW LEVEL SECURITY - The Private Customer Store can be accessed directly by a simple URL or link. The shopper would immediately be able to browse the Private Customer Store and create an order. This would mean anyone with that URL would be able to access the information. And again, once they login they can create a personal account for themselves within that Private Store. When they return to the site they use the general login or the personal one they previously created.

No matter the security level a Private Customer Store is set to a direct link can be set for your customer to access -- www.generalstore.com/customername or www.123uniforms.com/walmart, for example.

Other features of Private Customer Stores include the ability to brand the look-and-feel for your customer-- display their logo, their pictures, unique ordering instructions, etc.  You can also customize the product categories to help the customer. For example, you can organize the products by job description, geographic location or departments. A hospital may want to have departments for radiology, ER and administration. Each department may have the same products, but in different colors or decorations – or they may each have completely different products. With a Private Store, each department would see their specific apparel and accessories to avoid confusion when ordering.

The customer can also process orders from a centralized contact or by individual, department or location. For example, each employee in a hospital may be able to login to their store and order uniforms, or the hospital could set up the account so that only department heads can place orders. The department head buyer can enter an employee’s name or ID number, for example, and the information is tracked by the UMSS -- facilitating the management of an employee allowance program if so desired.

The above are only a sampling of the many ways that current UMSS users are setting up and utilizing the Customer Private Store features of the UMSS.

It may seem daunting at first to explain to a customer that is seeking such a service, and that's why your customer service representatives at UniformMarket are here to help. Please contact them at 877-415-3300 ext. 203 (for Jessica) or ext. 206 (for Anthony) for more information or any questions you may have about building Private Customer Stores.

Assigning products to categories allows you to sort them properly which makes it easier for your customers to find and purchase products from your store. Below is a step by step process for adding and editing a category.

1. Click "Add Category"

2. Give the Category a Name in the "Category" field. This is the name that will show up on the public view if the category tokens are used to display the categories.

3. Assign the "Unique Internal Name" to the category. This is a name that a) must be unique and b) is seen and used only on the Admin side of the system.

The "Unique Internal Name" allows you to have two or more categories with the same name but still have the ability to distinguish these categories in the Admin.

This comes into play when you have a situation, for example, of "Career Pants" and "Uniform Pants". For this you have 4 categories.
 

1.  
   • Career
   • Pants (these are Career Pants)
   • Uniform
   • Pants (these are the Uniform Pants)
      

In the Category Tree you want to have 2 Top Level categories: Career and Uniform. Under each you want to have a category named 'Pants', but each 'Pants' category is actually unique although they share the same public name. They do however, have unique sub-categories and products and are, in fact, not the same category.

The use of the 'Unique Internal Name' allows for the control of this situation without losing control in the Admin and having several categories called 'Pants'.

4. Set the Sort Order.

5. Set the Sort Logic (Alphabetical or Sort Order)

6. Enter any keywords that you may want associated with the category.

7. Click the "Add" button.

8. If needed, add subcategories to the category. As a parent category, the category can have other subcategories underneath it. If Edwards Garment is a parent category, Aprons could be a sub category.

You can find this and other useful tutorials at www.uniformmarket.com/help.