[stitchingdepot]

I would like some advice on an issue of Brick n Mortar Customers vs Phone Orders and Online Customers

Should I add phone/online customers to my brick n mortar customer database? Many of these sales are 1 time customers and the database could get very large. On the other hand, I need to print a full page receipt as a packing slip and want the customers address, phone number and email to appear on the receipt.

If I add the phone/online customers to my customer database, I would need to find a way to exclude them from accruing loyalty dollars since there is no way for me to incorporate loyalty dollar discounts into my Miva cart.

2 separate databases seem to be the best choice, but I don't even know if this is possible in Retail Edge.

I hope someone can offer some forethought and advice on this issue.

Thank you.

[RetailEdge Moderator]

Good question. A few things to consider

1. From RetailEdge's perspective I would not worry about your customer database getting large. RetailEdge can handle large customer databases. And more customers mean more customers to market to, etc.

2. RetailEdge's customer database can be purged based on last activity date. So if the database becomes too large to manage effectively, you can always purge customers who have not come in (or purchased anything) for awhile. In addition if you want to customer reports can be filtered on last activity date, so you will be able to print out/export a list of customers who have not been in or purchased anything from you for awhile to allow you to try to get them back in.

3. You can and probably should segregate your customers into web customers and store customers. One way to do this would be to create an interest for your customers like "Web". You will then be able to filter your loyalty dollars and only issue them to non Web customers.

4. You can have multiple databases for RetailEdge. RetailEdge comes with 3 out of the box (RetailEdgeData, RetailEdgeData_Demo, RetailEdgeData_Train). You could use the Training database for your web sales and customers but I think it would be easier to deal with it in one database.

5. If you use RetailEdge to process these sales you can use the standard Receipt to include as a packing list or print out a packing list receipt (no pricing). The only thing that I don't think is standard is the e-mail address. You would want to include this in one of the printable receipt fields (maybe Country) to make it appear on the receipt.

Hope this helps.

I would like some advice on an issue of Brick n Mortar Customers vs Phone Orders and Online Customers

Should I add phone/online customers to my brick n mortar customer database? Many of these sales are 1 time customers and the database could get very large. On the other hand, I need to print a full page receipt as a packing slip and want the customers address, phone number and email to appear on the receipt.

If I add the phone/online customers to my customer database, I would need to find a way to exclude them from accruing loyalty dollars since there is no way for me to incorporate loyalty dollar discounts into my Miva cart.

2 separate databases seem to be the best choice, but I don't even know if this is possible in Retail Edge.

I hope someone can offer some forethought and advice on this issue.

Thank you.