MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 5, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SPS Commerce, Inc. (Nasdaq:SPSC), a leader in retail cloud services, today announced that Retail Universe, a product sourcing community, has exceeded one million products to become the industry's leading direct-to-consumer e-sourcing cloud service. Retail Universe empowers the retail ecosystem to identify and launch new products in the rapidly evolving era of digital commerce. Retailers, such as SHOP.COM, rely on Retail Universe to expand product assortments by soliciting, filtering and establishing new supplier relationships. Suppliers, including The Bumble Collection, Royce Leather and others, use Retail Universe to promote their products and capabilities to relevant buyers.
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Retail Universe is a free product sourcing community using social networking to connect retailers, suppliers and many other omnichannel service providers. The community currently includes:
- 1.35 million branded products;
- 7,000 retail members; and
- Products across all retail categories, including home goods, apparel, high-tech, sporting goods and more.
"Tradeshows, in-person meetings and Internet searches are being replaced by highly scalable, cloud-based sourcing communities, as agile retailers embrace the escalating pace of the omnichannel era," said Peter Zaballos, vice president of marketing and product at SPS Commerce. "Retail Universe brings scale and efficiency to the engagement process, enabling suppliers and retailers to connect with each other using search tools to quickly identify products and relationships meeting their business and technical requirements."
Retailers Tap into Retail Universe's Sizable Vendor Community
Retailers are expanding the number of items they carry to attract more consumers online and on mobile devices. Retail Universe empowers retailers to connect with new suppliers offering a wide variety of items within the sourcing community. Retailers can query the community for products and proactively solicit vendors to apply to become potential business partners. In addition, retailers can access a dashboard to evaluate vendors' items and fulfillment capabilities.
"This summer, SHOP.COM is using Retail Universe to source new vendors in apparel, accessories, home goods, office products, and other categories for the upcoming holiday season and beyond," said Marc Ashley, COO of SHOP.COM. "After looking at available sourcing options, the Retail Universe sourcing community stood apart with its volume of products, adoption of social networking capabilities and ability to streamline the onboarding process to quickly bring on new vendors. Suppliers are already responding to our sourcing initiative in Retail Universe and presenting many viable new products for SHOP.COM."
Suppliers Gain New Business in Less Time
The Retail Universe sourcing community offers vendors a complimentary profile to market their products and omnichannel fulfillment capabilities, including drop ship experience.
"After completing our profile in Retail Universe, we were amazed by how quickly retailers were proactively reaching out to us," said Jennie Lynn Johanson, founder of The Bumble Company. "When a buyer calls us based on Retail Universe, I know the conversation will move quickly. They are knowledgeable about our products, fulfillment capabilities and drop ship expertise, so we can quickly move ahead with a serious onboarding discussion."
"Building our Retail Universe profile with more than 900 items was easy and quick to complete," said Billy Bauer, marketing director at Royce Leather. "We've already secured new e-commerce business from three retailers from our membership in the Retail Universe community. Retail Universe has put our products in front of relevant buyers and is helping us grow our business."
About SPS Commerce
SPS Commerce perfects the power of trading partner relationships with the industry's most broadly adopted, retail cloud services platform. As a leader in cloud-based supply chain management solutions, we provide prewired, proven integrations and comprehensive retail performance analytics to thousands of customers worldwide. With a singular focus on the retail marketplace, we revolutionized traditional EDI systems by developing a platform that enables highly cost-effective and reliable trading partner collaboration. SPS Commerce has achieved 54 consecutive quarters of revenue growth and is headquartered in Minneapolis. For additional information, please contact SPS Commerce at 866-245-8100 or visit www.spscommerce.com.
SPS COMMERCE, SPS, and RETAIL UNIVERSE are marks of SPS Commerce, Inc. and Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. INFINITE RETAIL POWER, SPS logo and others are further marks of SPS Commerce, Inc. These marks may be registered or otherwise protected in other countries.
The photo is also available via AP PhotoExpress.
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