Looking for software for a small mail order operation

I'm with a small university that has a mail order operation that ships about 5 orders a day. Most of the orders come in by phone. It sells retail and wholesale. Some customers buy on terms and receivables need to be tracked.

80% of the orders ship by media mail and some are shipped internationally.

I've looked at a variety of mail order software packages and they are all too complicated for such a small operation. The wholesale version of QuickBooks would probably work but I want software where the backend data is available for reading and writing.

Does anyone here have a mail order business that ships less than 10 orders a day? If so, what software are you using?

Sorry, Pete. I don't know of any.

Are you looking for an ASP / PHP solution? What electronic payment gateway is it using? Tracking - does it also need to be hooked into USPS, UPS, etc or just show the order has been shipped?

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Originally Posted by Corey Bryant

Are you looking for an ASP / PHP solution?

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I do not want a hosted solution.

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What electronic payment gateway is it using?

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What is the 'it' that you are referring to?

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Tracking - does it also need to be hooked into USPS, UPS, etc or just show the order has been shipped?

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Tracking is not important. The ability to calculate shipping costs based on the estimated weight of the order is important.

Here are two points of reference:

Mail Order Manager (just software)
http://www.dydacomp.com/mom/main.asp

Prostores (hosted by lots of companies, ebay bought the software business)
http://www.serrahost.com/

Best Wishes,
dvdtvshows
of http://www.dvdtvshows.com

You should check out http://www.atrex.com. They offer a free download of the fully functional program. Pricing is resonable for your level, starting at $299. They give you read only access via ODBC.

You could also wait for the release of the free 3 user version of Interprise Suite. It will run on a free version of SQL Server Express. I'm not sure if they allow read/write access to the database, but it would be fairly easy to develop for if they do. They keep pushing back the release date... you could be waiting forever.

... a description of how this issue can be addressed only with a creative use of MSOffice can be found here.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articl...pAnything.html

I only add that, in my experience, a large segment of small businesses needs are coverd by Office's programming features.
I hope to be of help.

Hi Noblenull,

Interprise Suite is based on Microsoft SQL Server. You can directly read and write access into the SQL tables.