The Flexbiz Solution

If you’re a business selling to other businesses, you have different needs than businesses selling to consumers. Primary among these needs is the ability to support business processes such as requests for quote (RFQ), manage contract prices (pre-negotiated prices between the buyer and seller), and allow rapid ordering of repeat items.

Your business also has two different types of buyers: larger buyers with contract pricing and large order sizes and smaller buyers that act more like consumers, buying small quantities at list price.

Flexbiz has created an online catalog ordering system for business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce that your business can use to successfully sell to small and larger buyers alike. Our system delivers the essential features B2B commerce requires as well as more sophisticated ones.

FlexB2B^TM eCommerce Datasheet

Online Catalog

Multiple catalogs. You can choose to have a single unified catalog or multiple catalogs for different product lines or specialty and clearance catalogs.
Per account contract pricing. Offer per customer contracted/negotiated prices per product item. Customers without a contract see the list price or, optionally selling price.
Parts & Accessories cross-reference. Every product and its assemblies, options, and accessories are only a mouse click away from each other.
Assembled selling packages. Easy creation of multiple product combinations based on existing products—proven to be an effective tool for sales and marketing.
Intuitive browsing. Your online catalog can mirror your print catalog with a table of contents and product hierarchy subsections customers can browse through to easily locate products. You can place pictures and descriptions at chapter and subsection levels. The product hierarchy stays on the screen when a customer locates a product, enabling an easy return to a previous selection.
Multiple product pictures. Let customers really see a product by including multiple color or grayscale pictures, charts, and full-page pictures.
Features list. Call out special features of a product in a bulleted feature list above the product description.
Descriptions and specifications. Include detailed descriptions and an easy-to-read table of specifications for your products.
Attributes. List characteristics specific to certain types of products. For example, for chemicals you can include a list of properties such as chemical formula, CAS no., Merck Index, density, and grade along with a lot analysis.
Packaging information. Include multiple units of measure (e.g., each, pack, case) and their prices for a product. Add details such as container size, type, and DOT UN numbers.
Documentation links. Link to supporting documents such as ISO 9000 certificates, Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), or lengthy product specifications.
Power search. Customers can search for products by name, catalog or SKU #, manufacturer part #, and manufacturer name. Customers can use Boolean logic (and, or) in search. A manufacturer filter lets customers limit searches to a specific manufacturer.
Dynamic index. FlexB2B automatically creates an index of products (directory) from your database. You don’t need a webmaster to change the index when new products are added, saving maintenance time.
Vendor cross-reference. You can cross-reference your product SKUs to SKUs used by your vendors and to part numbers used by your customers’ procurement systems.
Scalable. Provide detailed descriptions, packaging information, pictures and pricing for millions of items in a scalable catalog.
Printable. Publishing a printed catalog is a simple export of data to a publishing layout template. Because the catalog is in a universally accessible database, the whole process can be accomplished in hours, not weeks or years.

eCommerce

Electronic RFQ. Your customers can request a quote before committing to buy. You send the quote back electronically and your customer can approve and submit an order electronically using the quote.
SKU price matrix. Supports up to 5 different prices: contract price, list, retail, cost and discount. Plus unlimited per-customer contract prices.
Multiple requisition queue. Your customers can work on multiple orders or RFQs at a time, allowing them to divide purchase orders by department or type. Customers can build orders and RFQs over a period of days before submitting.
Flexlists. Your customer can create templates (Flexlists) to rapidly generate orders and RFQs simply by checking off items and adding quantities.
Order flow & tracking. Your staff and your customers can access requisitions at all stages of the ordering process. FlexB2B maintains a history of customers’ orders and their status.
Partial shipment handling. Handle partial shipments, including maintaining a list of unshipped items and sending shipment notification to customers.
Real-time shipping status. When you enter shipment tracking numbers into FlexB2B, it automatically links that shipment to real-time shipping information from FedEx, UPS, etc.
Email notices. Configurable, event-triggered e-mail notification keeps customers and staff informed of changes in order status.
Quick Fill. Customers familiar with catalog #’s or manufacturer part #’s can enter this information and quickly generate a Flexlist, RFQ, or order.
Non-catalog item ordering. Customers can add non-catalog items to their requisitions and Flexlists if desired.
Secure. For security FlexB2B encrypts customer data, such as payment information and passwords, using SSL.
Clearance catalog. Clearance items have their own special catalog to help with inventory clearing.
Shopping cartlet. Your customers can get a quick overview of the contents of their current requisition by looking at the cartlet on the top menu bar.
User profiles Customers create user profiles (“accounts”) that store their shipping and payment information as well as their order history, customized Flexlist shopping lists, . Customers access their profiles by logging on using a username and password.
Buy-button. Customers can easily add items in the catalog to an RFQ, order or Flexlist by simply clicking on a button next to the product description.
Online help. Help documentation, including Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and context-specific help, is available online for your customers. The Help documentation is formatted for easy printing.
Featured products and Promotional catalogs. Rotate featured products on the catalog home page. Showcase promotions and use business rules to enforce them.
Third-party product links. Let third-parties link directly to products in your catalog from their sites. Links can be to product information or can put the product onto a requisition for purchase or RFQ.

Buy-side Procurement

Corporate account hierarchy. User accounts can reflect a customer’s corporate hierarchy, including an administrator account for the key person at a customer site. Individual users within a company can sign up and select the company they belong to and have their account approved by the corporate administrator and assigned to the appropriate cost center.
Multiple cost center. FlexB2B supports large customers with multiple cost centers, buying locations, billing addresses and shipping addresses.
Mini-catalogs. Make personal catalogs available for key accounts (the catalog your customers see upon login is unique to them including pricing). This helps customers restrict buying to company-approved items.
Buy-side catalog. You can output your catalog for use in a large customer’s own procurement system.
Integratable. Offer large customers the ability to integrate your solution with their own accounting, inventory and procurement systems.
Buyer price lists. Let large buyers download custom price lists, keeping buyers up-to-date and eliminating a time-consuming chore.
Seller procurement. Keep track of your own requisitions for products you don’t have in-stock. You can print out your requisitions and submit them by FAX or integrate with your supplier back-end systems.
Reports. Offer your customers reports on their buying history to help with their quarterly and year-end accounting needs.

Administration

Catalog maintenance. You can change product hierarchy, update product information and pictures, add/delete products, and edit packaging and pricing
Cost tracking. Track your cost for items you sell. Useful information when dealing with a RFQ. This information is only viewable by you and your staff.
Notification settings. Chose when to notify customers of changes in the order status and change the default message sent at each stage of the process. You can also change the settings/message for a specific requisition you are working on.
Customer service account. Staff respond to RFQs and orders using a customer service account. The master account for system-wide maintenance can be restricted to authorized users.
User maintenance. Change user information and cost centers, add/delete user accounts, and create corporate administrator accounts for large customers.
Order maintenance. You can change the status of requisitions, delete them, or archive them as needed.
Featured Products. Chose which products to feature on your welcome page. The Flexbiz system automatically rotates through a list you create.
Promotions. Create discount offerings that run until a specified expiration date.
Quick Fill. Use this feature to rapidly enter customer-specific pricing or create unique Flexlist shopping lists and order templates for your accounts.
Customer self-administration. Customers can update their own account information such as passwords and shipping and billing addresses; create, delete, and rename Flexlist shopping lists; and organize past orders – so that you don’t have to!
Customer self-registration. Customers can register and the Flexbiz system will automatically create a user account for them.
Site usage statistics. You can view reports of number of visits to your Web site and visitor activity.

Integration and Expandability

Unified catalog. The Flexbiz catalog serves as company’s unified catalog for print, pricing and e-commerce lowering maintenance costs and increasing data accessibility.
Pricing and Inventory integration. FlexB2B can integrate with a company’s back-end systems to provide pricing and inventory (availability) information.
Other integration. The Flexbiz system can integrate with a company’s back-end systems at multiple points: accounting, work order, warehousing, etc.
Credit card transactions. FlexB2B can interface with your merchant account bank to automatically process credit card transactions.

Corporate-Identity

Welcome page & logo. Brand your eCatalog/eCommerce system with your logo and customize the welcome page visitors see when first entering your store.
Catalog cover pictures. Use the cover picture from your catalog(s) on the system to let customers quickly identify product lines and browse through the appropriate catalog.
Notification messages. Your company name and information are automatically placed in customer notification messages. You can use ready-made messages included with the system or create your own messages.
Web-site compatible. The Flexbiz system can work within your existing Web site, simply by placing a link to it such as “online catalog” to it on one of your Web pages.
Advanced customization. FlexB2B can be extensively customized to reflect your unique corporate identity.