Zebra Plastic Card Printers.

Zebra Plastic Card Printers come in a variety of styles and price ranges, including single-sided printers, dual sided printers, and security printers

Healthy Solutions for Healthcare.

The healthcare industry benefits from barcoding. Barcoding enhances patient safety and operational efficiency.

Seagull Scientific Products

Seagull Scientific BarTender is an industry-leading label design and barcode software. Seagull Scientific also develops true Windows printer drivers for bar code and thermal printers.

MC 9190G

The Ability To Satisfy Your Company Software Requirements.

Wireless Broadband

The unrivalled Motorola portfolio of Point-to-Point (PTP), Point-to-Multipoint (PMP), and Mesh Wide Area Network (MWAN), WLAN and VoWLAN solutions make governments, enterprises, and service providers more agile by helping them deploy voice, video, and data applications right where they need them.

Saturday, 11 August 2012

[Client Feature] Party Mart Has a Serious POS System

When North Westerners are looking to plan the perfect party or event, they go to Party Mart.
When Party Mart is looking for a POS system to support a traffic volume and a product count that would make a run-of-the-mill system glitch like Hal in "2001: A Space Odyssey", they come to One Step Retail Solutions for a state of the art system that will keep them running smoothly day in and day out.









Wednesday, 8 August 2012

Twitter Accounts Retailers Should Be Following

Retail Tweeters


General Retailing, Industry News and Tips
Retail Week
@RetailWeek
Retail Wire @RetailWire
Hanover Research @hanover4bix
Retail Minded @RetailMinded
Retail Online Magazine @RetailOnlineMag
One Step Retail Solutions @OneStepRetail
Future of Retail Alliance @joinFORA
NY Times Retail Reporter @stephcliff

Retail Technology / Technology
Point of Sale News @PointOfSaleNews
One Step Retail Solutions @OneStepRetail
Tech Crunch @TechCrunch
Retail Digital
@RetailDigital

Hiring / Personnel
The Retail Life @theRetailLife
Find Hire @FindHire
Work in Retail @WorkinRetail
NRF Retail Careers @Retail_Careers

Consultants / Training
Evan Carmichael @EvanCarmichael
Retail Smart Guys @danjab
Retail Touch Points @RTouchPoints
Retail Concepts @RetailConcepts
The Retail Doctor @theRetailDoctor
Retail Mavens
@RetailMavens

Associations
NRF News - National Retail Federation @NRFnews
RSPA @RSPA
Board Retail Association @BoardRetailers
Florida Retail Association @FloridaRetail
Michigan Retail Association @MichRetail

Visual Merchandising and Design
Retail Details @retail_details
King Retail Solutions @KingRetail
DDI Online @DDItweets
Store Signs @StoreSigns

Promotion and Marketing
Snap Retail @SnapRetail
Brand Spank @BrandSpankShop
Plastic Resource @PlasticResource
Postcard Mania @PostcardMania

Retail Real Estate
Retail Traffic @RetailTraffic
CBRE @CBRE

Style and Fashion
Racked National @Racked
Lifestyle Lemonaid @LifeStyleLemonaid
Women's Wear Daily @WomensWearDaily
Refinery29 @refinery29


This list was compiled after an exhaustive seach of active Twitter accounts posting useful content for retailers in the US.
 
 
 
Brought to you by: One Step Retail Solutions
One Step Retail is ranked as one of the top resellers and service providers for some of the most comprehensive and state of the art retail POS software solutions in the industry. For a free retail technology consultation, click
HERE.





TSC Attends 20th Taiwan Excellence Award Ceremony



TSC Auto ID Technology Co., Ltd. (TSC) attended the 2012 Taiwan Excellence Award Ceremony, which was held at the Taipei International Convention Center yesterday. This award is organized by the Bureau of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and executed by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council. In recent years, there have been more and more Taiwan companies to join this competition. More than 425 companies – the most participation ever – vied for honors in the 20th competition, submitting a total of 1,145 product entries.

TTP-225 receives 20th Taiwan Excellence Award

“We are very proud that TSC is selected for recognition from such an impressive group of companies, which represents our printer is one of the most revolutionary, high-quality, high-value-added products made in Taiwan” said TSC Vice President Sam Wang. The award selection is based on four criteria: R&D, design, quality and marketing. Each product is evaluated by more than 80 international panel of judges and has to score equally well in all four categories to be selected. All these MIT qualified products can be promoted globally as Taiwan’s reputation for quality, innovation and value.

Monday, 6 August 2012

Lightspeed for iPad Wins RetailNOW 2012's Annual Innovative Solution Award



Lightspeed, a top software system for retailers has won the 2012 Innovation Award in the Software Application category. "The Innovative Solutions Awards will be given to those nominated companies that have created a dynamic solution in their respective market" - RSPA

"LightSpeed for iPad is retail’s first interactive point-of-sale platform that gives stores a personalized selling tool that scans inventory, details products not shown on the selling floor, and eliminates long checkout lines. Its 'Show & Tell' feature enables sales associates to turn their iPad towards the customer to share expanded product details and up to five zoomed images on a stylish curtained backdrop. Further, it provides the ability to easily invoice the product with a single tap. Retailers can process credit card payments anywhere the iPad takes them, accept signatures on-screen, and email or wirelessly print receipts."

We are proud to be able to bring this solution to retailers nationwide. Contact us for a free consultation and to find out more about this impressive iPad POS system.




Sunday, 5 August 2012

The History of "Boutique"


Being a big fan of definitions and the history behind words, I recently pondered the exact definition and qualifications to be deemed a "boutique store".

bou·tique

[boo-teek]  noun
1. a small shop or a small specialty department within a larger store, especially one that sells fashionable clothes and accessories or a special selection of other merchandise.
2. any small, exclusive business offering customized service: Our advertising is handled by a new Madison Avenue boutique.
3. Informal . a small business, department, etc., specializing in one aspect of a larger industry: one of Wall Street's leading research boutiques.
Origin and history - boutique "fashion shop," 1953, earlier "small shop of any sort" (1767), from Fr. boutique. French for "shop".

More on it's history and origin Wikipedia-
The term entered into everyday English use in the late 1960s when, for a brief period, London was the centre of the fashion trade. Carnaby Street and the Kings Road were the focus of much media attention as home to the most fashionable boutiques of the era. Now the East of London has been regenerated and more Boutiques pop up in fashionable areas, such as Tower Bridge Road.

In late 1990s some European retail traders developed the idea of tailoring a shop towards a lifestyle theme, in the form of "concept stores", which specialised in cross-selling without using separate departments. One of the first concept stores was 10 Corso Como in Milan, Italy followed by Colette in Paris and Quartier 206 in Berlin. Several well-known American chains such as Urban Outfitters,  D-A-S-H, and The Gap, Australian chain Billabong and, though less common, Lord & Taylor adapted to the concept store trend after 2000.

Friday, 3 August 2012

How to open Oss connection to SAP system?

This article answers the following queries:

ü  What is the need to open remote service or OSS connection to an SAP system?
ü  How to open Oss connection to SAP system?
ü  How to check SAP router status?
ü  How to modify existing oss connections of an SAP system?
ü  How to delete existing oss connection of an SAP system?
ü  How to set up and to open a Remote Service connection to an SAP system?


In real time scenarios, there will be cases like Basis administrator or functional teams could not resolve   some issues and have raised an Oss message. In those cases, SAP would like to troubleshoot the issue by connecting to the respective SAP system. So, SAP will request you to open an Oss connection to SAP system so that they can remotely login and check. In these cases, you need to open Oss connection (as explained below) and respond to SAP in Oss message to login to system and check.

Process to open an Oss connection:

In this article, am explaining how to open an Oss connection to an SAP system VE1.
Please login to the SAP service market place and navigate to Help & Support -> Connect to SAP.  This leads you to the below screen:

























In the above screen, please click on “Maintain Connections” tab which is highlighted in the above figure.
It then lists all the systems recently used and gives an option to perform system search. Please look, if the system to which you would like to open oss connection is in recently used systems list. If it is exists, please click and open the same.



















Otherwise, please perform system search by providing system id and by clicking “Search systems” button. In the above example, am performing system search for VE1, as I would like to open oss connection for this system. If that system is present it displays the system. Once displayed, please click on that system which results in below screen



































In this screen, please make sure SAP router status is connected (highlighted in red). Otherwise, please click on connect button (highlighted in blue) and make sure sap router is in connected status.
After that, please click on “Systemdata” button (highlighted in green) which results in below screen.

























Please click on “Maintain Access Data” button as shown in above figure.
This results in secure area screen as shown below. In this screen, if there are already oss connections opened to this system earlier, you can view those details. It displays the client, user id, password, expiration date, last changed on date and changed by user.

















If you click on Modify button in the above screen, it results in the below screen.
From this screen, either we can modify existing oss connection or open new oss connection



















If you would like to modify existing oss connection, select the respective line (figure highlighted with orange color) and click on “Change selected entry” and modify. You can do modification to an existing oss connection in the cases like you would like to change the password mentioned in the secure area or you would like to extend the expiration date/time of the existing oss connections.

 If you would like to delete oss connection details, select that entry and click on “Delete selected entry” tab to delete. We can delete this entry, if we feel that oss connection is no longer required.

If you would like to create a new oss connection, please provide the client, user id, password and expiration date details (as highlighted in the green color) and click save button.
Please note, user id   maintained here should exist in SAP system (in this example VE1 system) and password is the respective password of the same in the respective client.

Before maintaining credentials in secure area, please duly cross check by logging into respective SAP system and make sure they are working fine. By default oss connection will be opened for 14 days. If you wish, you can even extend the expiration date/time.

This is the process to open Oss connection for an SAP system





Thursday, 2 August 2012

New York vs Los Angeles - Different Retail Environments

Google Maps Search for "Retail Stores"

I was very surprised on my recent trip to New York City to observe how rarely I came across chain stores (except for of course in the very occasional "mall" and the high end chain stores around 5th Ave). The city is not set up for strip malls (a west coast staple) and I noted only one (ONE?!) Gap during my week long trip and didn't spy a single supermarket.

This observation paired with the knowledge that NYC is home of many flagships; is generally known as one of the top shopping cities in the US and is the most densely populated city in the US got me thinking - is this a independent retailing mecca or are chain stores just well hidden?! In chatting with a few locals it was a point of pride that there were majorly independent retail locations and grocery stores, many are greatly concerned that retail giants will continue to box out mom and pop shops.

As the top vacation destination for Americans and one of the top vacation destinations for explorers across the globe an interesting point is - tourist shopping. Tourist shopping as opposed to local shopping: to an American, New York symbolizes something very different from the international travelers. To an international traveler NYC=USA, items purchased from chain stores (many, including Express have been popping up at Time Square) are going to become a souvenir to the international traveler.

I decided to do a little bit of research to see how the actual numbers came out. New York City (the 5 boroughs) boasts a total of 3 Walmarts for their 8.2 million population vs 20 Walmarts for the greater Los Angeles' 9.9 million inhabitants. To put that into perspective, 2.2 million people live in Portland and they have 14 Walmarts. Regarding Gap, there were comparatively as many Gap stores per capita as in Los Angeles.

Target has 4 locations in the 5 boroughs of New York vs over 50 in Los Angeles County. When Target finally opened a store in Manhattan (Bronx) it was an exciting addition to the island and many locals remembered it clearly.
For a resident of NY the small market on the corner of the street that has all of the basic staples they may need (soaps, milk, Bandaids) and will charge more than Target but be far more convenient. The battle of convenience and service will continue to play out with the local residents.
Additionally, the largest chains in NYC are Dunkin Donuts and Subway. Starbucks comes in #1 on the island but #5 out of all boroughs.

It appears that NY independent retailers are competing against large chain stores just as much as the rest of the US, it just appears that the fight against big box giants is also being fought by the local communities. Whereas resident West Coasters have long since become used to going to their local Target for bleach and Gap or Nordstrom for a new pair of jeans. Speaking of Nordstrom, there is one for all of the NYC boroughs vs 10 in the greater Los Angeles (3 are Nordstrom Rack).


Related articles:
NYC Got Malled 2004
Big Box in NYC 2011
10 Biggest Chain Stores in NYC

Tuesday, 31 July 2012

Launch LA Tradeshow - West Coast Culture Embodied

One Step Retail Solution's blogger, Amy Hanson attended day one of the first LA Launch Tradeshow. Held at Barkar Hanger just off of the Santa Monica Airport in an appropriately unique location. With over 60 exhibitors and a solid showing of retailers and buyers, LA Launch looks to have some serious staying power.

Urban and hipster sheik strike me as correct words to describe the event, board shops and So Cal boutiques will love the laid back feel, comfortable space and the decidedly hip products you will find. Many of the products were eco friendly, made from recycled wood, coffee bags, plastic, etc.

"Launch is a carefully curated collection of brands, designers, artists, and visionaries at the vanguard of design and West Coast culture." - Launch LA

Some of the attendees and exhibitors of Launch LA 2012




Monday, 30 July 2012

How to Perform a Mail-Merge Using 2D Barcode Fonts

by Nate Schubert

Microsoft Word Mail Merge is one of the most tried-and-true methods of merging a data source with a main document in order to create customized documents automatically, without having to create each individually. This can save untold amounts of time for those who wish to generate invoices, labels, envelopes, letters and more. Integrating 2D barcodes to these documents can add a great deal of flexibility to virtually any project by reducing human error and decreasing the amount of time spent processing results.

But how does a mail merge work when 2D barcodes are involved?

While many industry professionals are experienced in the art of Microsoft Word Mail-Merges, people who have a clear understanding of how to include 2D barcodes are few and far between. The IDAutomation technical support team is well aware of this fact, however, and has produced an excellent tutorial that can effectively demonstrate the task of performing a word mail-merge using 2D barcode fonts, Data Matrix in particular, with the help of one of our free font encoder tools, the Barcode Add-In for Excel. Please take 5 minutes to view the video tutorial below, and do not hesitate to leave a comment with any questions or concerns.


Sunday, 29 July 2012

Independent Retailing Like an Internet Giant - What You Can Learn From Amazon


When a company implements a wide internal campaign and then shares that knowledge broadly, it is not because they are only searching for more job applicants. It is because consumers will support a company that is giving back.

As a result of their recent (and ongoing) employee perks Amazon will not only have happier staff but they continue to establish themselves as the kind of company you feel comfortable supporting even if they are not "local" and they are the "big bad" on-line store.

How can independent brick and mortar stores integrate giving back to their staff and community in a way that makes you more appealing to customers? DO YOU give back to your community and your staff AND most importantly, are you making that information broadly known (press releases to media outlets, promotion through social media, blogs, etc)?

Related idea: A tip jar, if I see a tip jar and I get good service I almost always throw (at least) my change in there. Doesn't just have to be in place for coffee shops. It could even say "(insert name here)'s Paris fund" or "Let's help (insert name) fund her next year of college!". Each member of your team could even have their own box that they decorate and has labeled what they are saving for (travel, education, an iPod, etc).

As of July 24th this open letter can be found on the Amazon home page.