Brief Introduction
Penguin is a major book publishing force in New Zealand, working from brand new purpose-built offices in Rosedale, north of Auckland. In 2003 the Penguin Books NZ Ltd and Pearson Education NZ Ltd businesses were merged to form Pearson NZ Ltd.
Requirements
Pearson NZ Ltd's most greatest need was to automatically update over 200,000 book titles from their AS400 stock management system.
Their other key requirement was that the website was quick to search and enabled retailers to check for stock availability and to order books online.
Solutions and Add-Ons
One solution was that the Pearson Shopping cart integrated into the AS400 stock management system. Over 200,000 book titles are updated 3 times a day.
The Penguin website is for promotion only, therefore it does not have shopping cart functionality. The Penguin website accesses the data from the Pearson website.
Two years later Penguin India also requested a shopping cart to be created similar to that of Pearson's.
Results
Penguin and Pearson have been a customer for over four and a half years.
Before the Pearson's website was created, one of the company's biggest complaints was the amount of calls they received enquiring about stock availability. The website has almost eliminated these calls.
Updating over 200,000 book titles three times a day would have been impossible to do manually.
Retailers are now able to use the shopping cart to order online, saving at least one part-time phone operator.
