Since many of the stores using the software must rely on outside vendors to get their inventory, it would be very helpful to have a more robust backend to manage inventory. For example, our particular store sells goods from hundreds of different vendors. In order to get those items in stock, we have to send out purchase orders to those vendors for all of the SKUs that we carry. Would be nice to be able to build those Vendor POs in the backend and then have them go through a set of status levels (Unsent POs, Receiving POs and/or Partially Received POs, Completed POs, Cancelled POs). Maybe even Drop Ship POs. Once the PO items have been received, they would put inventory into the system. It would sort of be like the opposite of what the front end does, since you're adding inventory rather than subtracting it. Would definitely need to have the ability to receive inventory for POs in pieces, since not all vendors would ship the items in one box, possibly logging the date, qty received, person receiving, etc.
The SKUs and pricing are already in the system. Some minimal vendor info is already in the system. Doesn't seem like it would take much to get the data setup. The programming would take a while to perfect but this feature seems like it would make AbleCommerce a 100% complete solution front and backend. You would practically be able to run a complete store (and a fairly robust one at that) without the need of any other software. The email to vendor feature is okay but it leaves a lot to be desired. For our purposes it doesn't work because we need to get approval to place those types of orders and usually do them in bulk so an automated email order doesn't suffice. An inventory purchase order system that sends out to the vendors and helps manage the receipt of inventory is definitely something we could use and we would definitely pay extra to add something like that on.
Sorry if this has already been suggested.
Thanks,
Wil