NetSuite targets ecommerce with new release

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NetSuite, the software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider has released two new variatons of its hosted business software suite, aimed at allowing businesses to rapidly develop the capability to trade online.

The new versions, called E-commerce Company and E-commerce+ Company, feature additional functionality to increase the suitability of NetSuite's existing accounting, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and e-commerce software components for e-business companies.

The E-commerce Company edition is aimed at online retailers wanting to grow beyond selling through standalone shopping cart systems, like eBay and Yahoo stores. It offers contract-based pricing tools, invoicing, credit terms, affiliate management and commissions tracking capabilities to feed into more sophisticated marketing tools for personalisation, cross or up-selling.

The E-commerce+ Company edition has been designed for retailers that have to maintain inventories spread across multiple warehouses. It adds additional inventory and stock keeping unit (SKU) management tools, used by high-volume e-businesses to carry out processes such as multiple warehouse management, serialised inventory, bar-coding and label printing, lot and bin management, expiration dating, auto-calculation of reorder points and preferred stock levels based on sales history.

NetSuite has also added improved payment integration to PayPal Express Checkout and web store management capabilities directly into eBay.

The PayPal integration is intended to help retailers increase shopping cart conversion rate by providing customers with a trusted and recognised third-party payment resource.

The integration with eBay allows merchants to manage sales using the online marketplace from directly within the SaaS suite. Tasks supported include shipping management, product listing, importing orders and even uploading custom listing page templates.

"The new vertical NetSuite e-commerce editions provide increased visibility across all business operations and sales channels, allowing online merchants to focus on growing their business rather than dealing with multiple systems and IT infrastructure," said Mini Peiris, NetSuite's product programs vice president.

The vendor also pointed to Forrester research published suggesting that the projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for traditional retail will be 2.6 per cent to 2012, compared to 14 per cent for e-commerce.

Both new e-commerce editions will be available in April. The NetSuite E-commerce Company edition will cost $999 (£492) per month and the NetSuite E-commerce+ Company edition is priced at $1,299 (£640) per month. EBay integration is available as an optional add-on module, with pricing based on transaction volumes.

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