CenterStone Technologies is reporting record numbers of transactions and wholesale dollars processed through its iVendix and Escape web-based e-commerce applications in 2010.  Retail dealers logged into iVendix over 750,000 times in 2010 and placed almost $450 million dollars of orders directly to vendors. That was a 54% increase over 2009 and the main driver of the company's 41% total growth.

The company had forecast continued growth of commerce through its solutions but said it was unable to foresee the exponential growth 2010 would afford.

“We thought this would be a recovery year economically, but there was no way we could have foreseen these kinds of increases at the beginning of 2010. Vendors now clearly see how much incremental business they can create when they use the leading service in the industry and the one that provides access to the largest number of retail users and reps”, said Tom Detmer, CEO of CenterStone Technologies. “While sales reps may carry five to eight lines and therefore have fewer systems to learn, retail dealers can carry up to 200 lines or more in their stores, so they really depend on learning only industry standard solutions, and that's why they've relied on iVendix so much this year.

 

“Across the board, our metrics show that while dollars ordered by reps were up 31%, which is a terrific amount, it is the usage from dealers (up 54%) that really made our numbers jump. I can only surmise that dealers were carefully watching their preseason buys and monitoring vendor and store inventory constantly so they could place reorders quickly when stocks got to their strike levels – in our data we see an increased ratio of dealer logins to orders. This can only mean that retail dealers are using their vendor's B2B sites more and more to get vital information that effects their ordering,” said Detmer.

CenterStone has added several very important brands this year, increasing the the level of value of iVendix to retail dealers because they can learn and understand one system to make orders for a significant portion of their business. This allows retail dealers to perform more and more of their business quickly and easily using a single navigation, so that a greater portion of their day can be spent with customers and building their retail trade.

 

The company's solutions have widespread adoption among specialty retailers, sales reps and customer service professionals across the apparel, footwear and accessory businesses and help to expand the marketplace for vendors by opening them up for business 24 x 7. Users can view online catalogs and products, check inventory availability, create sales proposals, and place both preseason and reorders more effectively and efficiently with their key vendors.

Brands currently using CenterStone's Software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms and making their company's solutions available to retail customers and sales reps include: The North Face, Vans and VF Imagewear, part of the VF Corporation; Marmot Mountian, Ex Officio and Market Apparel, brands of Jarden Corporation; Under Armour; Merrell, CAT and Sebago (Europe) part of Wolverine Worldwide; Helly Hansen; Smartwool, part of Timberland; Rip Curl (Europe); Hurley, part of Nike (NYSE: NKE); Canada Goose; Icebreaker; Yakima Products; Life is Good; New Balance (Europe); Patagonia; Billabong (Europe); Haggar Clothing Co.; Easton-Bell Sports; The Apparel Group; Terramar; The Orvis Company and others.