Rochford Garden Machinery launches product shop based on PlusParts
On 17th September 2006, Rochford Garden Machinery officially launched its online shop for retailers at the British garden and leisure exhibition Glee. The online shop is based on the PlusParts product shop module and will be available together with version 3.0 towards the end of this year. At the launch, the Rochford shop already listed over 500 products including machinery, accessories and consumables. You can search products either by make or category. There are also freely configurable special categories like "Special Offers" und "New Products". All products listed include detailed descriptions, technical specifications, features, pictures, etc. You can also place links to corresponding videos and three-dimensional diagrams. The new feature, a direct link to spare part data in the parts shop corresponding to the equipment selected is unique. As a special service, dealers can print out personalised price and product data tags. The online shop will be available to all Rochford dealers from 20 September, after the Glee exhibition.

PlusParts ASP Gardening Edition UK 2.0 launched
We will be presenting version 2.0 of the PlusParts ASP Gardening Edition UK at Glee, Britains biggest garden and leisure exhibition. The ASP Gardening Edition UK is a hosted web solution especially designed for British wholesalers and importers.

The new features in version 2.0 include:

More languages:
Version 2.0 offers various new features including eight additional languages: French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish.

Individual pricing:
Wholesalers can enter their own prices or use the stored recommended retail prices.

Individual discounts and surcharges:
Enter either by product, customer group, country or shop. Discounts and surcharges can be applied to individual items or orders. Grouping together discounts makes them easier to manage.

Upload prices and discounts as Excel files:
You can now simply and quickly upload prices and discounts as Excel files.

Product availability status:
The online shop provides a feature that informs you whether or not the item is currently in stock. This data can be imported from the ERP System provided it is able to transfer changes in inventory by SFTP. This import process is automatic.

Change frontend texts:
Wholesalers can change the texts the system displays in all languages via the backoffice. However, you can still use the standard texts if you wish.

Customer groups:
We have introduced customer groups in order to simplify making changes to settings. This lets you adjust discounts and surcharges individually, as well as the product range. You can select any number of customer groups. Each customer can, but does not have to belong to one or several customer groups.

Import customer data in the form of lists:
In order to accelerate the initial import process from the ERP system it is possible to import customer data as a csv file in the backoffice. If you wish to reimport existing customer data, you can opt to keep the same password and overwrite the rest only.

More information about PlusParts ASP Gardening Edition UK 2.0.

PlusParts at Glee 2006
Britain's biggest garden and leisure exhibition will be taking place again from 17-19 September in Birmingham. We will be exhibiting at the stand of our British sales partner, Rochford Garden Machinery in Hall 5, Stand A72B73. Please come and see us and use this opportunity to preview PlusParts 3.0, the latest version that will be available at the end of this year.

Allen Power changes its spare part identification system for end customers to PlusParts
The renowned British garden machinery manufacturer, Allen Power, has switched its parts identification system for end customers to PlusParts and has thereby completed the second stage of the system migration process. Customers now have access to the same search features that the PlusParts spare part system offers except that they cannot order directly.
More information about the Allen project.

Allen Power launches new spare part system
On 1 February, ahead of the new gardening season and ahead of schedule, Allen Power changed its spare part system for retailers to PlusParts. Over 300 Allen dealers worldwide can now easily find and order parts using the exploded-view diagrams. Even warranty claims can now be processed online using the integrated warranty module. Migration from the previous system, including the transferral of all the diagram data and hotspots, ran smoothly and according to the planned schedule.
More information about the Allen project.

Rochford launches online spare parts shop
Our customer, Rochford Garden Machinery will be presenting its latest e-commerce system, based entirely on PlusParts technology, at Glee 2005. The spare parts shop represents the heart of Rochford’s completely newly-developed online presence. Offering over 500,000 spare parts for more than 2000 different pieces of garden equipment and over 30 different makes, Rochford now undoubtedly boasts the most comprehensive online spare parts shop in Great Britain. The online catalogue will shortly be extended to include Rochford’s complete range of garden equipment so that customers can order both machinery and spare parts from one and the same website. In order to achieve this, PlusParts’ spare parts system was developed further and numerous shop components added, resulting in a complete e-business solution for the company.
http://www.rochfords.co.uk

Allen Power opts for PlusParts
The traditional English garden equipment manufacturer Allen Power has chosen PlusParts to provide its main e-commerce technology. In the coming months, Allen will not only implement a spare part information and ordering system for its retail customers and service representatives, but also provide an online shop offering its products to retailers via the Allen partner-extranet. All e-business components used in the Allen internet presence and Allen extranet will thus be based on PlusParts technology.
Allen Power is one of the leading manufacturers of lawn mowers and garden care products and has established a unique reputation for its air-cushion technology. Besides selling its own products, Allen Power also provides British customers with products from IBEA, Hustler, Walker and Zenoah Kumatsu. This tradition-conscious company has already been in the business for over 130 years!

Adamson & Son chooses PlusParts ASP
F.G. Adamson & Son, who own the English garden equipment online shop, buyamower.co.uk has also opted for the PlusParts ASP model. PlusParts ASP, which was launched mid-year especially for the British garden equipment market, is advantageous to small and medium-sized companies in that these no longer need to invest great resources in order to successfully manage and keep their spare parts shop up and running. PlusParts ASP provides you with a continually updated e-commerce package which you can easily integrate into an existing online shop simply via a link. Adamson customers are expected to be able to order spare parts online using PlusParts by the end of this year.

PlusParts at the Tekom annual conference 2005
The tekom annual conference will take place from 9th to 11th November in Wiesbaden, Germany. Tekom is Germany’s trade association for technical communication and information development. This is the first year that PlusParts will be present with its own stand at the exhibition. Come and see us at stand 9 in the Rhein-Main-Halle, Wiesbaden (Germany) and try out our online spare parts system yourself.
[For more information about this conference, please visit www.tekom.de]

Handys is first PlusParts ASP customer in Great Britain
The British garden equipment trading company, Handy Distribution, was the very first to opt for the PlusParts ASP model and, starting at the end of this year, will provide an extensive online spare parts shop offering parts for the most important pieces of garden equipment on the British market on its website: www.mowerland.co.uk.

PlusParts available as ASP solution for English garden equipment market
In April of this year, an ASP version of PlusParts became available especially for smaller and medium-sized businesses that are not in a position to maintain and update a spare parts system in the long term themselves. This now means that our customers no longer need to worry about maintaining and hosting their spare parts system themselves. Instead, we provide a standard version of PlusParts that can be “rented” instead – even including spare part data from the most important garden equipment manufacturers if necessary. This makes it an ideal solution for spare parts wholesalers who are unable to set up and run their own online shop due to a limited capacity, but nonetheless need to be able to keep a large number of manufacturers’ spare part data in their system.

PlusParts attending Glee 2005 in Birmingham
We will be presenting our PlusParts spare parts system for the first time at this year’s GLEE, Britain’s most important garden & leisure exhibition. You’ll find us at our English distributor’s stand (Rochford Garden Machinery Ltd.) from 18th to 20th September. Stand 5B 73 A72 is located in hall no. 5 at the Birmingham NEC exhibition centre.

New distributor for UK and Ireland
The renowned English garden equipment wholesaler, Rochford Ltd. has been PlusParts’ exclusive distributor for the United Kingdom and Ireland since the beginning of 2005. After Rochford completed its large-scale e-commerce project based on PlusParts and saw the technical advantages of our spare parts ordering system, this innovative British company was keen to obtain exclusive distribution rights for the United Kindom and Ireland. In the meantime, Shaun Cooper and his team already have a number of potential clients for PlusParts including some of the UK’s most important garden equipment manufacturers.

PlusParts website now available in French
In addition to the English version, we now have a French-language website containing everything you need to know about PlusParts in French. The website is a reflection of the increased interest in our product from French, Swiss and Belgian customers. We are, of course, also in a position to carry out the entire PlusParts project, from the initial contract through to support, in French.

Rochford Garden Machinery chooses PlusParts.
Rochford Garden Machinery, one of the UK’s leading distributors of garden equipment, has chosen PlusParts to further expand its e-commerce activity.
Initially we will provide a B2B spare parts solution with additional projects following. PlusParts will represent the standard technology for all the companies’ future e-commerce activities. Rochford Garden Machinery supplies products from a range of leading brands including Hayter, Briggs & Stratton, Atco /Qualcast, Husqvarna,, Tecumseh,GGP and AL-KO.

PlusParts at Systems 2004 - come and visit our stand.
This year, we will be present for the first time at the Systems 2004/Internet World exhibition. Please be sure to visit our stand and see the new PlusParts version 2.0 features in action and get insight into our product's future development. The exhibition takes place from 18th to 22nd October at the Munich international trade fair centre. We hope you will take this opportunity to get to know us personally. Our stand will be situated in Hall B1. We look forward to meeting you!

New: meaningful statistics in back office.
Which are my best customers? What articles sell the most? What was my sales turnover for business conducted online last year? The statistics introduced in version 2.0 will help answer these and other questions. You can break down sales and website visitor development in terms of years, months and weeks and display this information with graphics. Of course, the statistics function is entirely role based, just like all other functions in the back office. I.e users can only see figures for which they have explicit authorisation.

Do you speak Unicode? PlusParts is now available in Russian and Chinese.
You can now use PlusParts in as many languages and for as many different countries as you like. This allows you to edit and organise your spare parts data centrally from anywhere in the world. PlusParts is now based entirely on Unicode which means that it can handle character codes such as Cyrillic. This means that languages like Chinese, Hindi and Russian are no longer a problem. The main advantage about systems based entirely on Unicode is that you can combine all sorts of languages and codings together on the same page. This is especially important for the translation functions in the back office. You can still switch back to the ISO coding if you want to send emails to a recipient whose mail client does not understand Unicode.

New: "To Do" lists for translators, drawing editors and article administrators.
PlusParts means that your on-line spare parts system is always up to date. Changes are available in the system in real time. This means that work routines have to be tightened up and changes in one language have to appear in the other languages as promptly as possible, etc. In order to do so, PlusParts now provides specific "to do" lists for standard roles such as translators, drawing editors and article administrators so that they can immediately see which work needs doing immediately. An email notification functon is also available.

New: back office now available with six pre-defined standard roles
In PlusParts, you can now define groups yourself and freely assign authorisations. You will be supplied complete with the pre-defined groups for the most frequently occuring tasks/roles. These are country administrators, translators, drawing editors and article administrators.

New: extensive authorisation and role system
In version 2.0, the authorisation and role system upon which the PlusParts back office is based has been completely reorganised. You can now freely create groups and assign any function available in the back office to any of these groups. The authoristatons always also apply to the language and country administrators . The administrative cost per user is thus kept to a minimum since only a few global groups are needed to cover all the roles. This makes PlusParts perfectly suited for multi-national and multi-lingual use.

New: for people who will easily forget: back office now has a secure Password Change function
If, like many others, you often forget your password, PlusParts now offers the possibility of sending a link for resetting your password to the email address saved to user profile. This ensures that only the owner of the email address may reset it and calling up the website will carry out an action. This offers maximum security against "practical jokers" and also makes everything very easy to use. Passwords in PlusParts are stored encoded and cannot be read by direct access to the database.