Brightpearl are the latest multi-channel software vendor to announce impressive customer growth figures bucking industry trends. Brightpearl’s software has helped its customers see exceptional growth, with like-for-like sales growth of 35% between February 2011 and February 2012. This is compared to retail industry figures indicating year on year growth of just 2.1 per cent on the high street and 16 per cent online (IMRG/Capgemini).
These healthy figures come in what continues to be a bleak period for retailers, with 14.6 per cent of stores lying empty, according to the Local Data Company. Economists are also predicting that consumers will feel the pinch even more following the announcement of the budget last week.
We’ve looked before at what multi-channel solutions can do to boost your business and that it’s becoming harder and harder even to run an eBay only business without software to assist. Brightpearl’s announcement just adds weight to the argument that if you want to see stellar growth in touch economic times then smart use of software is essential to automate business processes.
Unsurprisingly proud of the achievements of Brightpearl clients, Salman Malik, CEO of Brightpearl told us “We are delighted to see that the growth of our customers’ sales outstrips key retail index figures over the past year. These are small businesses, growing at a phenomenal rate in one of the toughest business climates in living memory“.
3 Responses
How much is brightpearl paying tamebay for an article every now and then?
These figures can be taken with such a pinch of salt I am afraid. They are not indicative of what BrightPearl can do for you, or even what any multi-channel management software can do as the stats are very much skewed.
For example, people who use BrightPearl or other software are likely to be bigger businesses or at least more than the casual sellers who make up the other stats. It could be argued that those who seek out software are more proactive in running their business anyway and would see the growth even without the software. Also, only those who need the software (usually because of growth) will actually purchase it therefore the figures will clearly show growth and does not mean using BrightPearl will give them to you.
If BrightPearl were to give their software away for free to 10 small businesses who have no use for them and can’t afford them and then record their growth then that will be more indicative yet still very flawed.
ChannelAdvisor boast that their customers regularly hit 50% growth and the argument of comparison comes in. For instance if you compare 35% to 50% it is clear that all those on BrightPearl should actually leave and go to Channeladvisor. I take it these stats are what BrightPearl chose to publish and as far as I can see James Scott is now attached to this project and is known for his stats being presented in favourably and arguably misleading ways. No offence James, it in fact is a compliment of how good you are at your job.
Thanks for the article Chris, I don’t think you are being paid off for editorials but it would be good to see some journalistic analysis on what is being reported though.