A Company Store, sometimes referred to as an “Employee Store” or “Internal Procurement Platform” is an online store that is accessible only by approved employees for ordering products or media involved in their business. There is also a variety of Company Store types that may have very specific purposes. Here are a few examples of the most common Company Stores:
Pop-Up Store or Event Store:
This is a basic store for employees that normally contains only a few very specific items intended for a specific event, fundraiser or order placement and is usually set up for a limited time frame.
An example of this type of employee store would be used to gather sizes and colors of Branded Company Apparel for a specific event with specific decoration requirements. Employees are provided access only to enter their sizes, colors and type of apparel from a specific list to eliminate the manual collection of this information. On a date chosen by the company or department head, the store is closed, and the resulting orders are combined into a report with all the employees’ names and their sizes, distribution locations and authorized apparel and logo decoration needed for an event, such as a tradeshow, company event or team function for management to review and then approve to be ordered.
Another example of a Pop-Up store would be for outfitting sales teams or new employees with products needed for their day-to-day employment. In this case, management would select groups of products like branded apparel, marketing media/business cards, PPE accessories and masks, travel briefcases, bags, technology items and other items they may need for their day-to-day activities. It is also common for products to be grouped together so management can select the preconfigured group for different reasons like new employees, compared to teams or crews that will be in the field or meeting the general public with very different logo decoration requirements.
Note: In some cases, orders placed in a basic store are not designed to become actual orders automatically, but are designed to be converted into a single order that is then approved by management to be decorated and delivered to one or more locations.
Permanent Company Stores / Internal Procurement Platforms:
This type of company store is more permanent in nature with more features but is highly flexible to meet the needs of the company. It is the type of store that is used by authorized individuals as well as departments such as HR, Procurement, Marketing, Safety, Etc.
A permanent company store is more complicated than the basic store and is designed to not only provide authorized employees to order preconfigured or decorated items as needed, but also has one or more approval requirements before becoming an actual order. These approvals may be in different departments when needed and certain individuals may be required to have one or more additional levels of approval while other managers may not, depending on how the systems are set up by the company.
Orders may also be limited to various project or department budgets as required by management. There is also flexibility for variable print items to be mixed in with hard goods in this type of store.
These stores are also specifically designed so that all decoration methods can be specific by various departments or divisions as needed and can be changed at any point at the discretion of the company, thereby removing the need to disseminate new art files or websites to numerous suppliers or vendors that would normally happen with manually placed orders. Because the company art versions and variations are controlled by the company though the company store, there is control of the Company Brand no matter which location or department places the order. It is also easy to change out the brand design or colors throughout the store for continuity.
Once approved by all levels required by the company the order is distributed to the vendor(s), decorated as required and shipped to locations specified.
Very detailed reporting for management is available in real-time for cost analysis and control. No more long excel spreadsheets combining with other departments or locations to figure out purchases. It is all available at the click of a few buttons.
Frequently, this platform can be integrated with existing company accounting systems to alleviate duplicate, manual data entry.
Every business is different, and companies needs change as they grow. Over the past several years the technology involving the deployment of Company Stores and Internal Procurement Platforms has increased dramatically. As companies adopt these platforms, they also continue to request features to address their needs from developers, so today there are very few advanced features that are not currently available.
The key in selecting the right platform is determining which features and options your company needs today in order to be more efficient, protect your company branding, reduce company costs and overhead. It is also very important to make sure the platform is flexible and can have features added as the company needs grow and change, rather than changing platforms, minimizing cost and employee retraining.
For more information on Company Stores and Internal Procurement Platforms please visit our Company Store page: Company Stores and Online Ordering Platforms