TECHNOLOGY
iMerchandise: An App to Organize the Buying Process
iMerchandise is a new mobile application that acts like a virtual assistant for buyers. David Secul, the creator of the company, said he developed the platform to assist his wife, Angela Gengaro-Secul, owner and buyer of New Jersey store Tula The Boutique. David Secul said he noticed while his wife was in the process of placing orders for the store, she had loads of scribbled notes mixed in with line sheets to manage. Everything was scattered, and it was difficult to organize.
For Gengaro-Secul, it was time-consuming managing multiple fashion applications such as Joor, NuOrder, Shop the Floor and Brandboom. “They are great for helping the brand but not necessarily the buyer. I have to split line sheets and notes with different platforms, and it makes things confusing. Before, everything was paper, and, now, you have emails, which get mixed up. With this app, you have everything in one place,” Gengaro-Secul said.
Secul worked with Alex Buzatu and Lucian Buzatu at Webservice-USA to develop the app, which draws on Secul’s 20-plus years of experience in fashion design, merchandising and sales. iMerchandise can be used with any iOS device, such as an iPhone or iPad.
Buyers can use the app to make purchase orders, merchandise the store floor and connect with vendors. Gengaro-Secul has been using the device for a couple of months now, integrating it into her buying activities. The new tool keeps Gengaro-Secul’s information in one portable place. She can snap photos, place product images into categories, coordinate order activity with vendors, schedule delivery dates and format budgets. The app even has a budget bar that shows her a percentage of how much she has spent and tells her if she’s exceeded her open-to-buy.
With iMerchandise, buyers can organize products by category and brand using photos they snapped themselves or images copied from other fashion platforms or line sheets. There is space below each image for notes, such as style number, shipping dates, sizes, quantities, and wholesale and mark-up prices.
Style numbers and a color wheel help the buyer quickly organize the merchandise. “If you are overbuying black dresses, it would be apparent by the boards,” Gengaro-Secul said.
The app generates a purchase-order number, and a PDF order can be e-mailed to a sales representative or vendor. Additionally, there are sharing capabilities that allow the user to distribute photos via social-media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. iMerchandise is also compatible with open-source companies such as Magento, which acts like a content-management system for bricks-and-mortar stores looking to establish online content and upload product information quickly. iMerchandise is looking to expand compatibility to other sites such as eBay, Amazon.com and Wordpress soon.
“We designed iMerchandise for the buyer that has tech-savvy sales assistants helping out,” Secul said. “The buyer is more practical and not so tech-advanced and could use the help.”
For more information, visit www.imerchandiseapp.com.
