Company Store Comparisons

Designing your Store to meet the needs of almost any client is easy with BrightStores. We offer:

• Five different navigation templates
• Over 100 color schemes

You can design the Store yourself by simply uploading graphics in the Store’s Control Panel. Advanced Users can create Stores with HTML, Flash and other appropriate programs.

• BasicGraphics

BrightStores will design your Store to have the same look and feel of any website you provide as a design model. We will make every effort to accommodate your design requests, however occasionally we are limited by system parameters.

Public Stores are available to everyone with Internet access that has the URL or web address to the Store. Users will be required to self-register, or if previously registered, to log in to purchase.

There are 5 levels of secure access to the Company Store Management System. Distributors decide who gets access to what. For a full list and description of access level please see our Features document.

Guest checkout allows you to configure your Store so that Users will not be required to set up a User profile (log in information) to check out of the Store.

You can activate a search feature which allows you to do a basic or advanced search or specify specific product information which Users are able to search by.

You may activate Featured Products to display featured products in a dedicated section of the home page and category pages. This will highlight products in your Store that you choose.

View All Products creates a link in the product navigation so the User can view all products without having to click through numerous categories.

You may easily copy products directly into your Store from a variety of suppliers established in our database.

BrightStores offers two levels of product categories. These categories are customizable, sortable and can be set up to reflect the needs of your Store.

Charging sales tax through your Store is optional and available at all Store levels. Sales tax may be charged to designated single or multiple states or you can charge tax nationwide by integrating your Store with a sales tax software program.

Basic Payment Methods include Credit Card, Purchase Order, COST Center and GL Code. You can customize the payment message, control data collection and choose which credit cards you want to accept.

BrightStores has developed an accurate custom-shipping calculator based on quantity of products, rate per product, base fee and shipping type.

Your Store will send order confirmation emails to the person who placed the order and can send a copy to anyone else who needs it.

Upon logging into your Store, Users may view their order history and place a reorder with a single click.

Upon logging into your Store, Users may view their order history and place a reorder with a single click.

An address book may be created by the User for their private use in the Store. In addition a Group Address Book may be set up by an Administrator to be applied to a group of Users.

BrightStores offers a full suite of reports that can be customized, run, downloaded and saved by several levels of store administrators.

Store administrators can edit orders, update order status, add notes to orders and send shipping confirmation emails.

Users can upload their own logos in our easy to use artwork upload feature.

PRIVATE / Private Stores require a User name and password for access. Users must be pre-registered. Without a User name and password, shoppers will not be allowed to view products or any other part of the site. SEMI-PRIVATE / Semi-private store allows shoppers to view products but not purchase unless they have a pre-assigned Username and password.

BrightStores will design your Store to meet close design requirements required by your client.

This feature allows you to set up a product in one category and have it also display in multiple other categories. This feature is most beneficial when the Inventory Feature is being used.

Product Personalization detail can be added to any product and is highly effective when ordering personalized items such as plaques, trophies, magnets and business cards.

Inventory can be turned on or off at the Store level, category level, and product level. Inventory is tracked by item, size and color and is displayed on the product detail page. In the store front, you may choose to display your inventory by either the actual number in inventory or by a more generic “in stock” or “out of stock” message. The administrator for your Store can determine the “low” level of inventory for any product. When the inventory drops to that pre-determined level, the system will generate an email to the administrator indicating the particular product has reached the determined “low” level and suggest a reorder.

The Gift Certificate feature is a powerful feature that can support a variety of Company Store Programs. When enabled, Store administrators can give Gift Certificates to individual Users. Display as: You may choose an alternate name for the Gift Certificate feature that will show up in the store front. For example, if your company awards “bonus bucks” to employees you can customize the gift certificate field to show up as “bonus bucks”. Each time a shopper logs into the Store, their gift certificate credit amount will be displayed. At check out, the shopper has the option of using all or part of the credit. If the total exceeds the amount of the credit, the shopper may charge the balance to a credit card or an alternate payment option. A Gift Certificate Report is standard.

The Coupon Feature is available in every Store and there are four ways to use coupons. Store Administrators can create coupon codes for the following:

• Discount the order by a specified dollar amount.
• Discount the order by a specified percentage.
• Provide a coupon for a single product at no charge.
• Provide a coupon for free shipping of a single product.

Coupons can be added one at a time, or by simply uploading batches of coupons in the Control Panel. A Coupon Report is standard.

The Store Skin is optional and is a landing page loaded ahead of the home page. This landing page is totally customizable using HTML in the Control Panel. It is often used as a preface introducing the Store’s image and as a User log in page.

This feature allows your Store to collect custom data during the check out process. Data collection can be customized to fit almost any need, such as purchase intent, and can be optional or required.

Advanced Shipping Features allows store administrators to require the shopper to identify whether the shipment is residentrial or commercial. If residential, a surcharge can be added.

BrightStores will design your Store to meet very close design requirements as needed by your client.

You can customize how the Product Search functions by choosing which features the system searches.

Advanced Payment Methods provide the ultimate in payment method flexibility. The following is available: Pay By Check, Department Numbers, Payroll Deduction, Activity/Event, and Other Payment. Set up includes a field to enter custom text for payment instructions and each payment type can be validated against predefined strings of alphanumeric characters.

Credit Crad Payment Gateways are set up and ready to use. You can choose to capture funds in real time or authorize funds only.

Some of the capabilities of permissions include:

• Set up a category of products that may be viewed only by a certain group of Users.
• Set up logos that may be viewed only by a certain group of Users.
• Set up logos that may be viewed only with a certain category of products.
• Set up payment options to be offered only to a certain group of Users.
• Set up price discounts for only a certain group of Users.

The Purchase Intent System is a powerful feature that allows you customize the User experience based on the shopping / purchase intent.

Custom Queries allows Store Administrators to set up questions Users can answer when checking out. Two questions can be asked and have the option of being required, or not, in order to checkout.

Product queries allow you to ask additional questions about a product, such as additional sizes, alternate colors, additional options and custom text for a product.

Set minimum and maximum order amounts for an entire category. This allows you to control ordering over an entire category, which can be useful in uniform programs.

The Manager Order Approval System (MOAS) is an innovative tool to control spending. Here is how it works:

• The shopper, at the checkout page, may view or enter the approval manager’s email address.
• The order is sent to the manager for approval.
• The manager can then view the order details and approve or decline the order.
• The order is automatically saved in the shopping cart.
• If approved, the order is automatically sent to the appropriate email address for processing. Notification is emailed to the shopper that the order has been approved and is being processed.
• If the order is denied then an email is sent to the User. The User can open the saved shopping cart, edit the order and resubmit.

There are several ways to configure MOAS.

• Manager emails can be set up 3 different ways
1. Least secure: allow User to enter full MOAS email address on the checkout page
2. More secure and most popular: control the domain part of the MOAS email and have the User enter only the email name on the check out page.
3. Most secure: identify and set up MOAS email at the store level, group level or for each User so the email address is predetermined and the User cannot edit.
• Group Assignment
1. MOAS can be enabled/disabled at the group level. This allows some Users in the store to bypass MOAS while other are forced to use.
• Credit Card Bypass.
1. When Credit Card Bypass is enabled, Users who choose to pay with a credit card, bypass the MOAS system altogether. Users who pay with any other form of payment, such as PO, are forced to go through MOAS.
• Inventory Tracking
1. You can configure the store to handle inventory one of two ways when an order is pending:
• Pending inventory ON takes the product(s) out of inventory when the order is pending. If the order is denied the inventory is automatically replenished.
• Pending inventory OFF leaves the product(s) in inventory until the order is approved. This sometimes results in negative inventory.
• Order amount MOAS
1. When enabled, MOAS can be set up to take effect once an order has reached a certain amount.

Every Store sends emails of order confirmations and can send welcome emails to new Users. The Custom Email Configuration feature allows Store administrators to customize the message for these emails.

The User Management Tool is available in Expert Stores and can be used to update User information. With an easy to use interface, a Store Administrator can manage many aspects of their User’s profile. This feature can be used to add or remove balances, view balances, redistribute Users and groups, or adjust the active Users in a store. This feature is useful for managing the following:

• Gift Certificates
• Budgets
• Points
• Edit group designations
• Delete Users

To make the User experience as easy as possible, you can customize the login pages by additional instruction, graphics and more.

Store Administrators may assign a budgeted dollar amount to a User or group. The budgeted amount is displayed on each page of the Store after a User logs in. The Store will restrict the User at the shopping cart level if the budgeted dollar amount is exceeded.

• Budgets may be set up for a group of Users or for individual Users.
• Budget exclusions may be set up. This would exclude certain products from the budget calculations upon checkout.
• Custom ledger entries may be created and attached to the budget.

The Sub-SKU allows you to identify sub-SKU numbers for colors and sizes. This is required by some system integrations such as ASI ProfitMaker

The Category Levels feature is available in Expert Stores. This is a control feature that places limits on what a User may order. This feature allows you to set up a category of products with a level association.

• Users are assigned levels from which they are allowed to order.
• Users are assigned a number of products they may order from each level.

When the International Shipping feature is enabled, your Store will be set up to take orders from around the world. The Billing and Shipping Addresses fields and books are set up differently so that they are easy to use and understand by most foreign Users.

This feature allows your Store to require that a shopper acknowledges reading custom data prior to check out.

The Ledger List Feature allows you to custom create ledger entries which can be indentified with Budget or Points entries.

Store Administrators can identify their favorite charity and determine the donation levels available to their employees. There are three donation levels: round up the order to the nearest $5, round up the order to the nearest $10 or simply allow the User to name their specific donation amount.

This feature forces each User in the Store to have a valid employee ID. Users will not be allowed to set up or purchase items in the Store without a valid employee ID.

The COGS feature allows you to set up the cost, as well as the price for a product. With this feature activated you can run reports that show profit.

Product Subsidy will allow you to identify a subsidy dollar amount for each product

BrightStores has integrated with Constant Contact to facilitate data mining.

UPS Integration includes Rates and Services and Worldship. Contact us for more details.

ASI ProfitMaker Integration is an import/export function that allows you to easily move orders from your stores into ASI PM.

QuickBooks Integration is an import/export function that allows you to easily move orders from your stores into QB.

Order Management is an upgraded interface that provides fulfillment centers the ability to do everything basic fulfillment does with the addition of locking orders, working multiple orders at once, pick tickets and produce packing slips.

Supply Chain Management is a powerful tool that supports all types of Stores and makes processing orders easy and efficient. Please contact us for more details.