With another exciting year ahead of us all in 2018, we’re ringing in the New Year by looking back on some top highlights from 2017. Take a look...

Exciting Product Updates

Just like every other year, our Product and Development teams continuously improve the Brightpearl software. In among those frequent updates, they’re busy designing, building and launching major functionality. For 2017, our focus was on Automation, Warehouse Management and POS.

Workflow Automation Tool

2017 was the year that we took our mission of ‘Automate Retail’ to a whole new level with the release of our Workflow Automation Tool.

Whether you want to auto-invoice or auto-fulfill orders based on a set of rules, or auto-tag customers to link with your email marketing (and more); this new tool gives you a variety of functions to help you automate your business, freeing you up to spend more time and energy on marketing and growth strategies.

To find out more about how automation can help you during your peak season (whenever that is during the year), take this quick 5 question quiz now!

Brightpearl POS

Following feedback from existing and new Brightpearl customers, we gave our point of sale solution a complete facelift, allowing merchants to take their business on the road with offline mode capabilities.

Brightpearl POS is fully integrated and supported by the Brightpearl back office, allowing your sales staff to keep on top of inventory availability, omnichannel sales and great customer service.

Are you ready to find out more? Get in touch!

Integrated Warehouse Management System

Another major product development we launched in 2017 was our fully integrated Warehouse Management System.

Allowing you to streamline and scale your operations, Brightpearl WMS offers barcode-driven goods in and goods out processes, as well as inventory counts.

Take a look at our WMS product page now, or get in touch with us to find out more.

New Collaborative Partnerships

We’ve made big strides in our collaborative partnerships this year with key global brands that will have a direct benefit to the merchants we work with. Below are the key points you need to know.

BigCommerce Partnership

We announced our partnership with global ecommerce platform BigCommerce in September. This partnership is key as BigCommerce is a strong out-of-the-box ecommerce solution, which perfectly fits our own product offering for high growth and established retailers.

PayPal Here Partnership

In May, we announced a partnership with PayPal that aligns their wireless Paypal Here hardware to our iOS Brightpearl POS app. This partnership provides preferential rates for integrated card payments and discounts on PayPal Here hardware.

New & Improved Partner Program

We’re passionate about our partnerships at Brightpearl, and we’re keen to work with even more technology providers, ecommerce solutions and agencies to help our customers continue to grow, which means 2017 saw us reimagine our partner program. Take a look!

Another Successful Cyber Weekend Shopping Season

Every year, we’re intent on seeing how Brightpearl merchants get on during key shopping events of the year; a major one being the Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend.

This year, there were some great successes all around, including a 20.7% global growth rate in gross merchandise value (GMV) and a 76% increase in GMV for the Baby & Toddler industry!

Check out our infographic for the complete Cyber Weekend stats.

And we’ll be poised in the New Year to update you on how the rest of the holiday season and January sales fare for Brightpearl customers. Stay tuned!

Top Events & Meetups in 2017

2017 was a great year for us to get out on the road ourselves to meet new and existing customers as well as key retail partners and leaders.

Here’s a quick recap on some of the top events and panel discussions Brightpearl were involved in plus some links to read more:

• Highlights from Autumn Fair 2017

• Advice and Inspiration from Ecommerce Expo 2017

• Learnings from the Internet Retailing Conference 2017

• A Forrester Roundtable Recap: Emerging Trends in Omnichannel

• Top Takeaways from the Atlanta Revision Meetup

• Learnings from the UKFast Roundtable: Key Ecommerce Trends

And make sure you keep an eye on our events page so you know where and when to find us next year.

Your New Favorite YouTube Channel: Retail 90

When we weren’t busy launching new tools, exhibiting at top retail meetups and trade shows or hosting our own events, we could also be found creating your new favorite YouTube channel - Retail 90.

The clue’s in the name that this channel is all about retail, but if you want to know more of the thinking behind it, this blog should help.

And below, we’ve selected a few of our favorite videos we think you’ll really love:

• The video that kicked everything off: Is Virtual Reality the Future of Retail?

• The one where global retailer, Open 24 Seven tells all: Retail Crisis Management: Advice from Experience

• The one where we tackled a key Amazon seller question: Winning the Amazon Buy Box: What You Need to Know

• The one where retailers got honest: Black Friday // Cyber Monday: Retailer Opinions

• The one where we tackled a deep discussion: How Blockchain Technology Will Disrupt the World of Retail

With new episodes hitting the channel weekly, you’re sure to get lots of great advice in quick bite-sized videos. Check it out now!

Top Retail & Wholesale Success Stories in 2017

At Brightpearl, we love speaking with our customers about their retail and wholesale successes.

From our Customer Success Managers checking in with Brightpearl merchants regularly, our Customer Support Agents helping out with queries or our Marketing team finding out how Brightpearl has benefited businesses; no matter what form these types of communications take, the message is still the same - we love hearing how you’re all getting on!

So it seems only too fitting to end this year’s recap with a few top retail and wholesale success stories from 2017:

• Growers House celebrate a 1,233% 3-year growth rate

• JB Autosports double their growth year-on-year

• Casey’s Distributing distribute to over 2,000 retailers & celebrate a 10% year-on-year growth rate

• Herbert Sports save £16,000 in warehouse operating costs & 25% in man hours

• Alex Monroe continue to storm the jewelry industry

• Arthauss Furniture join the Brightpearl family after a fast 24 day implementation

From all of us here at Brightpearl HQ, we wish you luck for the year ahead, and are looking forward to working with more of you on your business growth.

But over to you now - what have been some of your own highlights from 2017? We’d love to hear about them in the comments section below!

And whilst you’re here, why not subscribe to the blog now so that you’re always in the know and aware of goings on here at Brightpearl HQ.