New Version of LaGarde’s StoreFront Delivers Major Upgrade to Powerful E-Business Platform Aimed at SMB Market
Olathe, KS (November 12, 2002) – LaGarde, Inc., a leading provider of e-Business solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), today announced the immediate availability of the StoreFront 6.0 e-Business software. Built on the Microsoft .NET platform, StoreFront 6.0 offers a secure, sophisticated solution for SMBs to quickly extend their business online with a full-featured, “Amazon.com-like” Web store – at a fraction of the cost to deploy and maintain.
Designed to seamlessly integrate with Microsoft® FrontPage, Macromedia® Dreamweaver®, and Intuit Quickbooks, StoreFront is the solution of choice for brick-and-mortar companies and other organizations to quickly, easily, and affordably extend their sales and marketing operations to the Internet with a professional online presence. StoreFront 6.0 features the new .NET architecture for added power and scalability, and expanded functionality for merchants to better merchandise, market, and manage their Web stores. New features include opportunities for cross-promotions and upselling, with integrated support for digital downloads, automated publishing to online auctions and marketplaces, HTML emails, customer-specific pricing, and more, as well as advanced product import, reporting, and other management capabilities.
StoreFront 6.0 also includes range of advanced customer relationship management (CRM) features, so merchants can provide customers with a highly personalized, fully interactive shopping experience, featuring address books, multiple shipping addresses, wish lists, integrated shipment tracking, live help, and more.
“With StoreFront 6.0. LaGarde continues to set the standard for e-commerce, leveraging our proven industry experience and valuable customer feedback to deliver our most powerful solution yet,” said Bob LaGarde, Founder and CEO of LaGarde. “Powered by its .NET framework and a host of new functionality, StoreFront 6.0 offers a flexible solution for small business merchants to quickly launch online stores of big business caliber, and start building profitability and customer loyalty via the Internet.”
StoreFront 6.0 offers a robust platform that can be used for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce, with features for multi-layer security, multi-tiered pricing and tax structures, customer-specific and volume pricing, affiliate/partner management, and more. StoreFront sites can be set up to support sales in any language, currency, and country.
Added Flexibility with .NET
StoreFront 6.0 is built on the powerful Microsoft .NET platform, delivering a range of new and enhanced technologies for business productivity. The .NET architecture offers a framework for the development of robust, extensible Web applications, enabling StoreFront users to build high-performance sites with improved interoperability, scalability, and reliability. Additionally, nearly every feature in StoreFront 6.0 can be completely customized.
More Ways to Drive Sales
StoreFront 6.0 now makes it even easier for merchants to market and sell their products online. A range of integrated features help merchants expand revenue opportunities without an additional investment. With instant download delivery, for instance, “soft” goods like content, music, software, and graphics can be made available for download after purchase. Merchants can establish their own set of rules and policies related to downloads. Other e-commerce solutions typically require a costly add-on for this type of functionality. StoreFront 6.0 also includes fields for customer-defined attributes, enabling merchants to add value to their products with expanded options for personalization.
StoreFront 6.0 offers the capability to suggest related items for purchase, pointing shoppers to complementary products such as batteries for the CD player in their shopping cart. Additional opportunities for increased product promotion include support for coupons and gift certificates, HTML e-mail offers, and complete integration with online auctions and popular shopping portals such as DealTime.
Simplified Store Management
StoreFront 6.0 includes a simple, intuitive user interface for merchants to centrally manage all aspects of their Web store directly online. An advanced product import tool simplifies and speeds the process of adding and updating products to a StoreFront site. Centralized inventory and order fulfillment tracking ensures that merchants’ business operations are fully up-to-date, making it easy to keep track of availability, support backorders, and more. StoreFront 6.0 also features improved shipment utilities, including online shipment tracking, automated drop shipping, and enhanced fraud protection. A range of custom and built-in reports are available to consistently review sales levels and other activity.
A Superior Shopping Experience
With StoreFront 6.0, merchants can create online stores that cater to shoppers’ exact needs, enhancing the end-user experience. The StoreFront design offers a seamless, integrated look for shoppers, from home page to checkout. Live help is available at any time for instant online support. Customers can set up personalized accounts with online address books, multiple ship-to addresses, wish lists, and more. Gift wrapping and messages can be added to any purchase. StoreFront 6.0 also features running cart totals, flexible search options, online shipment tracking, and more.
Pricing and Availability
StoreFront 6.0 is shipping today. Versions of StoreFront for Dreamweaver and FrontPage start at $379. Additional versions with add-on accounting functions for Quickbooks are also available. LaGarde also offers a hosted version of the StoreFront software, BizPlaces. For more information, contact LaGarde at 800-943-5823 or visit www.storefront.net.
About LaGarde
Founded in 1996, LaGarde, Inc. is a leading global provider of e-business solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses. LaGarde’s StoreFront software products offer robust, feature-rich solutions to develop, deploy, and maintain e-commerce sites that deliver high-end functionality, at an affordable price point. Today, StoreFront powers more than 35,000 Web stores in over 70 countries around the world. For more information, visit www.storefront.net or call 800-943-5823.
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LaGarde, StoreFront, StoreFront Now are either registered trademarks or trademarks of LaGarde Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Company Contact:
Michael Levin
LaGarde, Inc.
913-489-0807
m.levin@lagarde.com
Agency Contact:
Glenn Steinberg
Springboard Public Relations
732-863-1900 ext. 104
gsteinberg@springboardpr.com
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