The information technology system of the company Spreadshirt.net

Résumé du document

Spreadshirt.net is the new website on the block which allows the creation of shirts, apparel and personalized items (mugs, aprons, bags, etc) according to consumer tatses. It is a German company and has received several prizes for its innovative business idea. In 2004, the group won The Hewlett Packard Business Innovation Award. Contrary to the other companies which make this kind of custom products, Spreadshirt.net is the first company that uses the concept of community, where people can create their own designs and sell as well. There are about 200,000 users/buyers/sellers working with Spreadshirt.net.

It is a service of personalization allowing the customers to run a simple little business. The user is referred as both buyer and seller. People can go on the website, look for items and buy them. They can also create their own product and sell it on the website.

When the customers are buyers, they choose, pay on the website and receive the product at the end of the process. If the customers are sellers, the website charges a sum of money for each process that is involved starting from purchase of raw materials, to manufacturing, to delivery. The users / sellers have to just design the product and promote it, the rest of the process is managed by spreadshirt.net. The website is in charge of producing, printing, delivering and in case of problems (in terms of quality), the website takes full responsibility and works towards solving the issue.

The user is the one who fixes the prices on his products. For instance, a simple white shirt with a color print costs 11 dollars, if the user sells it for 25 dollars in his online shop; he earns a profit of 14 dollars. If he decides to sell it for 12 dollars, he earns only one dollar. If he sells for the original price , he pays and earns nothing because it is only when there are profits that the website and the user make business. All the financial transaction services are provided by companies like PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, etc. Customers can pay by credit card, pre payment or by their user account (if they earn money from their products).

The tool for designing the product is within the reach of everybody. User needs to create an account with ample amount of information and only then can they begin to design their products (the customers have the choice between drawings made by spreadshirt.net or they can import their own ones). They have to also design their online shop (in a way they want or as their "brand" and "universe" needs to look like) using a system of templates.

Extraits

[...] The case Spreadshirt.com needs to invest in a new information technology system for increasing the efficiency of their supply chain. Their only way for making profit is to manage efficiently the operations and data between the purchase of the customers and the sending (control and cut costs). They need to find new opportunities in order to create a next stage of innovation and competitive advantages. In this market, it is compulsory to manage efficiently the data and the information. It is essential to take full advantage of data in this rapidly changing environment (Internet). [...]

[...] For instance a simple white shirt with a color print costs 11 dollars, if the user sell it for 25 dollars in his online shop, he earns 14 dollars. If he decides to sell it 12 dollars, he earns only one dollar. If he sells nothing, he pays and earns nothing because it is only when there are sells that the website and he make business. All the financial transactions are provided by secure companies (Pay pal, Visa, Mastercard, etc . People can pay by credit card, pre payment or by their user account (if they earn money from their products). [...]

[...] The cross selling is really important for our market. It is a way for proposing to people products or items according to their tastes, their past purchases or their researches. We develop a really good tool (marketing system) which is inspired from the interface of amazon.com but for the moment, there is a lot of problems of fastness and errors. This kind of tool needs to be part of an internal process developed and logical which combines a lot of informations quickly. [...]

[...] We have also to focus on minimizing the IT risks. The actual problems: several interfaces, applications and databases At this moment, the company has several interfaces, applications and databases without centralized system. Here is a recap of the business process of Spreadshirt.com linked to the interfaces, the applications and the systems databases. The customer history is the records of all the customers which uses our services. We keep the informations in order to build our marketing strategy and improve or adapt our commercial offer. [...]

[...] It is not a question of knowledge or competencies. They try to work with the others departments which are linked to the stocks but it is too complicated and tortuous and the forecast cans be specific and complete. Other points: the stock administration has to manage with a large range of products. The company proposes 16 different style of tee shirts (with between 2 and 10 possible colors) sweat shirts (with between 4 and 7 colors) jackets (with between 1 and 4 colors), and lot of items which are not in the textile category (mugs, umbrellas, etc . [...]