Popular Imports is a premier manufacturer of top-quality giftware, home décor and collectible products in South Plainfield, New Jersey. Founded in 1990, they rank among the leaders in the billion-dollar gift industry. While the company sells its catalog of products only to retailers, its merchandise is also available through fine-gift and retail stores globally. With distributors in Europe, Asia, North and South America and Africa, Popular has over 65,000 customers and a sales force exceeding 200 worldwide.

The Challenge

Over the years Popular experienced significant growth averaging 35% as knowledge of their trend setting designs and hand crafted products reached global markets. As the company grew from a small specialty company into a first-class worldwide distributor, they quickly outpaced their technological infrastructure.

Handling business processes was tedious and old-fashioned. Expensive catalogs were mailed to wholesale customers and the company relied on trade shows for exposure and sales. While an informational-only web site was launched to showcase their product lines, it lacked a shoppingcart solution to process orders. All orders were submitted by phone or fax and manually dataentered. Customer Service Representatives needed to be experts to track activity, issues and interactions with customers. Additionally, managing multiple warehouses and maintaining shipment accuracy provided significant distribution challenges as sales volumes increased.

Consequently, Popular wanted an e-commerce solution that would fully integrate with their existing AccountMate Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, plus streamline order processing while keeping pace with increase sales demand.

The Solution

To resolve the situation, Popular contacted AKA Computer Consulting, a long-time AccountMate Software Solution Partner. Upon AKA’s recommendation, Popular upgraded to AccountMate SQL due to the program’s open architecture and scalability to meet their business requirements. With AccountMate’s program design, integrating industry-specific programs to solve sales support and distribution challenges was seamless.

As the volume and complexity of customer service tasks increased, Popular needed a comprehensive Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. INFOtrac for AccountMate, AccountMate’s CRM solution, provides real-time customer management. With quick access to current and historical information at their finger-tips, every employee can provide order status, delivery confirmation and respond to sales opportunities. Generating customer letters is simple, convenient and efficient. By sharing and accessing all pertinent information company-wide, INFOtrac for AccountMate creates a knowledgeable workforce providing exceptional customer service.

Popular also needed a sophisticated web-based ordering system to handle the volume of sales orders generated. With seamless integration to AccountMate, WebStore provides a real-time e-commerce solution that is easy to use and highly reliable. AKA customized WebStore logic and added additional customer-centric enhancements that made order placement, tracking and follow-up straightforward for customers. With WebStore, most orders are placed over the internet which significantly reduces order entry errors and inefficiencies.

To solve a myriad of warehouse management and distribution challenges, Popular integrated Accurate Direct Access Remote Terminal (ACCU-DART). Using radio-frequency bar-code scanning technology, ACCU-DART automates the pick-pack process and instantly updates AccountMate, ensuring that all users throughout the organization have real-time information. To handle warehouse transactions, AKA customized ACCU-DART logic to prioritize the picking process and provide specific order fulfillment instructions to employees. ACCU-DART creates a paperless order handling system which allows employees to pick, pack and ship orders without printing these documents. Automating the warehouse process now saves the company valuable resources by increasing order accuracies.

Popular also needed a commission solution that would process and communicate commissions to Sales Representatives. Visual Commission integrates directly with AccountMate to track and calculate complex commissions automatically. Visual Commission allows Popular to pay accurate commissions every pay period to a sales force exceeding 200 worldwide.

The Results

After working with AKA to implement industry-specific program solutions to solve business challenges and AccountMate financial software as their business backbone, Popular has a sophisticated state-of-the-art technology infrastructure. “We’ve already realized significant gains in employee efficiency and accuracy when processing orders,” adds Daniel Fong, Popular General Manager. “The upgraded online system has streamlined the ordering process for our wholesale customers and promises to open up many opportunities for us to expand into new markets. We believe that the improvements will result in more satisfied customers for the long haul.”

About the Client

Popular Imports is a South Plainfield, New Jersey-based manufacturer of top-quality giftware, home décor and collectible products. They conduct business through fine-gift and retail stores globally.
www.popularcreations.com

About AKA Computer Consulting

Since 1995, AKA Computer Consulting has established an outstanding reputation in the New York City Metro and Tri-State area for first-class implementation of business management systems, innovative and flexible custom software development and an unbeatable dedication to customer service. AKA offers a wide array of services and solutions to manufacturers, wholesales, distributors, importers and exporters.
www.akaconsulting.com

About Third Party Add On Solutions

AppFinity Software—WebStore is a fully customizable web-based ordering system that integrates and maintains the exact look and feel of existing websites.
www.appfinity.com

Executive Concepts—Accurate Direct Access Remote Terminal system (ACCU-DART) wirelessly connects warehouse operations in real-time to record shipping and receiving.
www.executiveconcepts.com

About AccountMate

Founded in 1984, AccountMate develops and markets fully modifiable business accounting software. Systems range from single user versions to those that support hundreds of users simultaneously. AccountMate software is distributed exclusively through a worldwide channel of authorized solution providers. AccountMate can be reached at (800) 877-8896 or at www.accountmate.com