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Another record breaking online Christmas is expected this year. 52 per cent of UK adults shopped online in 2005 according to the Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS). The number of online purchases by internet shoppers rose significantly from 13.6 in 2004 to 18.5 last year. With online retail sales growing 45 per cent year-on-year for the past six months (Source: IMRG) there is every indication we are in for another record breaking Christmas for online shopping.  

Mixed successes to date. Whilst some have been very successful, many independent retailers who made initial moves to access a share of this market a few years ago have found it tough going. Common problems are the time required to keep a website up to date as well as managing stock across multiple channels. Unless retailers can find a way to combine business processes, running a website is like running an additional business.  

A new phase for independent retailers. However there are new technologies available now like Connect, nominated ‘Most Innovative In-Store Technology’ by European Retail Solutions Awards, which allows retailers to run a multi-channel business from a single till. Retailers can manage their websites, sell mail order and send items to eBay all from a till which also manages their stock. This amazing retail system cuts down on many of the overheads helping reduce costs whilst introducing new revenue streams. Because these multiple channels are run from a single stock source, all information including product names, prices, pictures and stock quantities are shared, which makes running a website sustainable. So for independent retailers wanting a share in this year’s expected bumper online Christmas, this new breed of technology can offer a sustainable solution.
 

Jackie Cook, JCR Industry-buying consultant and David Mackley MD at Intelligent Retail present 'How to increase your sales' seminar at Premier Kids at the NEC in July. These popular seminars covered how to access multiple channels including eCommerce to add to your shop sales. Topics included taking online payments, how to identify a web designer from a web developer and the importance of linking the website into the shop's stock system.

Read regular updates on how technology can improve independent retail businesses. David Mackley's articles for Gift Focus magazine are now published on their website as well as in the magazine. Whether you have a single shop or multiple store these articles provide a positive look at how technology can help in many ways from accessing new channels to reducing costs. Click here for more. 

Intelligent Retail expand sales coverage and operations management with new recruits. John Ennals joins us in the South West, John Goundry looks after Northern England and Scotland. On the technical side, Paul Roberts has joined to look after our technical services department.

"What is particularly pleasing is that these awards don't just recognise technology for technology 's sake, they look at real examples of how the technology can make a fundamental improvement to a retail business, this has always been our fundamental operating principle."

"As the other nominees are predominantly major chains, it is wonderful to see a single independent shop up there, particularly as this will hopefully offer some inspiration to similar shops at a time when they are under so much pressure."
 

"Selecting the IT architecture of the future is at best an educated guess, but I am very pleased that the research backs our decision to go with an open-source database," said David Mackley Managing Director, Intelligent Retail. "We consider the use of local databases at each till point being the only robust way to implement a retail system, and open-source databases make this best practice affordable for all retailers".

The research from Evans showed Firebird, an open-source relational database known for sizzling transaction performance, is surging in popularity in the enterprise and heralds the growing acceptance of open-source databases. Firebird is the most popular database for use in "edge" databases, in other words, those that are embedded in systems or in devices, such as a point-of-sale system in a retail outlet. Firebird also proved highly popular for enterprise applications, with 19.8 percent preferring it, beating Oracle 19.6 with percent.

"In retail environments companies need to be able to put databases out there that are close to sources of this data" he said. "When you have a robust database that has liberal licensing terms [such as Firebird], you don't have to pay to replicate and install it on servers where you need it, and it's a very appealing proposition" said Joe McKendrick, an analyst for Evans.

McKendrick said that the survey overall showed open-source databases as having made deep inroads into the enterprise since Evans first started surveying their use, about three years ago. At that time, about 12 percent of respondents were tinkering with open-source databases, a percentage that's up to 60 percent now.

Another survey revealed thet security benefits of open-source. Database security is an important facet of database development, Evans Data found that proprietary database servers are almost twice as likely to have suffered a security breach in the last year compared to open source database servers. The most likely security breach for a proprietary database was a network intrusion.