By Ruth Richter • June 06, 2017

Blog|How 2 Leading Marine Businesses Became Big Fish in Ecommerce through Sage ERP Integration

Everyone’s dream is to turn their hobby into a full-time income, but few people are able to effectively navigate the transition from hobbyist to profitable business owner. When two leading marine-focused businesses turned their passion into an income, they knew they’d need help keeping up with tricky inventory issues while selling primarily online. To solve their inventory issues, they turned to the IN-SYNCH Sage ERP integration solution from ROI Consulting.

Learn more about how ROI Consulting can help your business save time with flawless synchronization provided by IN-SYNCH. Contact ROI Consulting online or call us at 402-935-2223, ext. 1.

 

Bulk Reef Supply’s Inventory Stays Afloat with Syncing

 

Focused on high-value products and solutions, Bulk Reef Supply prides themselves on being a company of reef-keeping hobbyists, for reef-keeping hobbyists. When we first heard of “reef keeping” (AKA “reefing”) we had to look it up too—it’s the practice of setting up aquariums in which coral reefs are prominently displayed, along with fish that are safe to keep with coral reefs.

The two long-time friends who started Bulk Reef, Ryan Batcheller and Andrew Duneman, have been passionate about reefing for years, and they started the business after Ryan created a balanced, affordable, easy-to-use solution for reef feeding both fish and corals. Every employee at Bulk Reef is a reefing enthusiast, and the offices are filled with reef aquariums and reefing advice. Bulk Reef also hosts BRStv, an online videocast that helps their fellow hobbyists keep up with their own tanks.

As you can imagine, feeding and caring for coral and fish is an absorbing passion. To maintain the health and beauty of their tanks, reef keepers must carefully select and manage their tanks’ saline levels, food selections, light, temperature, pH levels, and more. This means they need a lot of supplies. Bulk Reef Supply fulfills that need by providing thousands of products that help keep tank ecosystems functioning properly—and that means they have thousands of inventory items that need a fast turnaround for excited reef keepers.

Since the lives of coral and fish are at stake, Bulk Reef Supply has no room to make errors on their orders, shipments, or stock levels. To ensure accuracy, they trust the single-time data entry that comes with Sage ERP integration to their online web store, which ensures that their inventory levels are always available in real time so they can process orders quickly for their avid customers.

 

The Ecommerce Growth from Sea Dwelling Creatures Is a Whale of a Tale

 

Located just 300 feet away from the Los Angeles Airport, Sea Dwelling Creatures marine supply store provides fish, corals, and dry goods to cover the needs of all types of aquariums, big and small. Certified by the Marine Aquarium Council, Sea Dwelling Creatures (SDC) serves the wholesale needs of retailers and professional aquariums such as the John G. Shedd Aquarium, the Scripps Institute, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Mandalay Bay Resort, SeaWorld, the Aquarium of the Pacific, and Walt Disney World.

After starting as a third-party marine goods supplier in 1992, SDC quickly expanded into distributing their own supplies. They set up their first small facility in 1993, but they quickly outgrew their space, so they upgraded to larger and larger areas continually from 1995 to now. Their current warehouse, which holds a staggering 120,000+ gallons of holding tanks, is an incredible 24,000 square feet.

That massive warehouse square footage is taken up by a vast variety of marine-related inventory that SDC distributes worldwide. Dealing in living fish, corals, and marine invertebrates and plants, SDC’s days are taken up with careful feeding, management, and observation, and they don’t have any time to waste in their shipping process.

To keep tabs on their massive inventory at all times, SDC uses the bi-directional sync functionality between their Sage 100 ERP and eCommerce shopping cart, avoiding duplicate data entry errors so they can ensure customer satisfaction and inventory safety at all times. ROI Consulting helped SDC with their transition from an older eCommerce platform to their current website and IN-SYNCH for Sage 100 integration.

Would Your Complex Inventory Benefit from Sage ERP Integration?

Even if you aren’t a marine supply company dealing with live animals, your business may have complex inventory needs that are currently taking up all your time. If you’re ready to save time updating, tracking, and supplying thousands of products that you sell online, Sage ERP integration from IN-SYNCH and ROI Consulting can help.

ROI Consulting welcomes your call and the opportunity to help you solve your software integration challenges. Contact ROI Consulting online, or call us at 402-935-2223, ext. 1.