Marine Consignment of Coastal Maine

2 Sea Street Place

Rockland, ME 04841
www.marineconsignmentmaine.com

 

Owner:  John Douglas

 

# of Locations:  1

# of Employees:  1, me!  I am one individual and a very busy one…so the ease and efficiency of AIMsi and Active-e take a lot of time and pressure off of me to do other things. And your folks in Tech and Web Support have all been amazing and have bailed me out a few times!

 

Type of Store:  Retail - Marine Consignment Products

How long using AIMsi:  4 months

 

John:  Consignment, Sales, Reporting and some Accounting. 

Tri-Tech:  What areas of Active-e are you using?

John:  Primarily the eCommerce/online shopping cart.  Additionally, within the admin tool I've learned to use the discount tables, setup credit card processing, security and automated shipping calculations to include in-store pickup and a contact. Also, I was able to add a map to my home page for directions and we even have a wish-list (thanks to Margie)... all very easy. 

The Active-e integration serves two purposes for me:  1) to expand my customer base beyond the mid-coast of Maine and 2) to provide an easy shopping method for folks to fill out their maintenance/shopping list with products in-store (I love the unpublish at zero feature). From their viewing they come in the store knowing I've got the products and it's a matter of directing them to the location where it's at.  The Locator field in AIMsi Inventory allows me to layout the store in grid format and assign a locator code to each item for easy finding.  If the customer asks, I know where it's at (barring another customer from relocating it that is). 

 
Tri-Tech:  How has AIMsi helped manage your inventory and consignors?

John:  A struggle that I observed with other Marine Consignment stores is locating inventory, tracking from consignment to settlement, and pricing their products. Quite often I sensed frustration from customers in finding products and how much they cost. AIMsi takes away that burden as everything in my store is inventoried, catalogued and priced with barcodes. All of which take away those frustrations for my customers. And my consignors like the fact that I have complete control over their products and feel confident that they'll receive their settlement check for each and every product of theirs that sells. There are a few enhancements and tweaks to the AIMsi system I'd like to see incorporated…mainly for the fluidity of loading consigned items…but that may take time.

 

John:  I feel the ease in the uploading process is the crux to the online business and the online shopping cart being successful. Since I inventory, catalogue, photograph and barcode every item anyway - it's one click of a button and the site is updated! Hit F5 to refresh the site…and there it is! Adding categories/sub-categories is a breeze as well. And when I show my prospective consignors how easy it is…I think those features close the deal with them even quicker. Many of my consignors have tried the eBay thing…only to find it's very tedious and time consuming. It's this feature, and its ease, that increases my productivity to advertise products online…something they don't realize in their tedious method. With this feature - I am their outlet to the rest of the world! The consignment fee I charge is well worth their time and effort or, in this case, the lack thereof!

The unpublishing a zero-content takes the burden off of having to monitor sales and status. I'm at the mercy of what gets consigned…it can be 1 or 100 items of the same and the Active-e takes care of that burden for me. As for downloading orders…quick and simple…I had to laugh and smile at how easy it was when I received my first online sale and the ease of processing the order. Absolutely AMAZING! And the purchase came all the way from Italy!

 

John:  Setup, for me wasn't that difficult…once I realized I can't break too much. The tech support, when needed, has been very helpful and the layout they produced has caught the eye of many and brings several compliments. I have some very detail-oriented consignors that were concerned I was a fly-by-night operation. Once they saw the professional appearance of the website they were convinced we had a handle on things and recognize that customers are more likely to purchase from a well laid out and attractive website. I will admit, I may be a bit more intuitive when it comes to some of the setup and features than others…but it was still very easy! And the benefit to me is - I learn something new every day - and there's more to go!

 

John:  Each facet of Tri-Tech has been very helpful and a tremendous experience. From the sale of the product to tech support to the training I received (albeit a couple iterations didn’t hurt) and last but not least the website team for development and support have all been a integral part of getting setup so quick and easy. If I hadn't been so busy in the early stages establishing a name for myself and advertising…I think I would have had the website up a month earlier than I did.

As for the AIMsi software itself…it came as a turnkey product and I was able to start loading inventory almost immediately. The test system was a great help for early experimenting and ironing out some kinks in my own setup and design of operations but the support I received, technical and training, took care of that quickly and efficiently! I can't say enough about them and my hat goes off to each and everyone that I've worked with.

Tri-Tech:  Can you offer any advice to new consignment stores just starting with AIMsi?
John:  Other than "look no further - AIMsi is the product you need"! I guess I would tell them…ease your mind and fear nothing! Because the support I received was there when I needed it and, as long as your willing to research the manual and ask questions when you need it - your business will be a success. I checked out a few products before I went to Tri-Tech. Many other products had some great features but they appeared to be beyond my capabilities when it came time to understand it. AIMsi was easy, user-friendly (most features) and gave me that "relief-factor" a new startup business needs. And knowing there was a tech support pro to assist when I needed it - helped a great deal!

I will suggest to any new startup to take advantage of the premium support (at least for the first couple of months) and the web portal…11pm at night I can write up a ticket and know that it will be assigned the next day saving me the trouble of placing a phone call while I'm following-the-bubbles-to-the-top with other facets of the business. Being the only employee, and like many new business owners, I have a hat with many visors…I just flip it around to engage the next endeavor. Having tech support there when necessary is a HUGE relief.

And, should they choose to use the online shopping cart feature, sign up for Google Analytics (a tip from Margie and Bill)…I know it's not one of your products but thanks to your team for the tip! That tool is FANTASTIC! It sets up and integrates so easily and the data it provides is priceless! I can tell from the analytics what pages are being viewed the most, the bounce and exit rates, the time spent on each page, the number of visitors (new and returning) and where they're from (target markets). At last check I was being viewed on 5 continents, 19 countries around the world and 34 states here in the US…amazing statistics at your fingertips.