Interflora African Areas, the local subsidiary of the multinational flower delivery service, has selected PlanetPastel.com, the transaction-based portal of Softline Limited, for its e-commerce infrastructure. Interflora has over 550 participating florists around Southern Africa and ranks in terms of transactions as one of the largest players globally in the e-commerce space.
Interflora selected the PlanetPastel.com e-commerce solution after evaluating several competitive offerings against its key requirements of scalability, flexibility, back-end functionality, and price/performance.
Desiree' Pelser - Marketing Manager at Interflora comments: "Signing up for the PlanetPastel.com offering has given Interflora access to a complete e-commerce solution that offers all the business-to-business and business-to-consumer e-commerce functionality we require at an attractive price point.
"With PlanetPastel.com, we have a solution that offers us back office functionality that caters for all our requirements, and which will scale up to cater for the expected growth in the number of transactions processed over the Web. We were particularly attracted to the tight integration between the Pastel Accounting software and PlanetPastel.com electronic storefront, as well as the secure environment the portal offers for transactions."
Interflora will be able to offer full on-line ordering with real-time credit card payment on the range of flower arrangements it sells online. Using an e-commerce plug-in application to its Pastel Accounting system, Interflora will be able to design and populate its online store without assistance from technical experts and take full control of the look, feel and contents of its store.
The site will go live next week (beginning October 30, 2000) at www.planetpastel.com/interflora Users will be able to choose from a selection of 16 arrangements, including flowers, fruit and gourmet baskets, offering a range that meets the price range and requirements of every consumer.
Integration between the PlanetPastel.com electronic storefront and the Pastel Accounting software will allow Interflora to streamline its back-end processes. In the past, Internet orders had to be captured manually and then sent to a florist; now, orders will be sent directly from the sales order entry system of the accounting application, using fax or e-mail.
Says Mike Bryer operations director of PlanetPastel.com: "PlanetPastel.com was launched in June 2000, and is best-known as a business portal for small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) throughout South Africa. "However, the presence of companies such as Interflora on our portal illustrates that our solution is not only suitable for SMEs, but also for larger companies that process hundreds of transactions per day. For larger companies, the benefits of using the PlanetPastel.com solution include reduced exposure to the risks of the Internet, the ability to expand their e-commerce solution in line with the growth of their online business, and the ability to fast-track the establishment of a professional, yet cost-effective Web presence."
Share