Brightpearl

Why oh why is it so hard to find an awesome ERP in this space? Hold up! Brightpearl? Yes!

Opmerkingen: In the jungle of ERP for DTC brands, Brightpearl is the Jaguar, lurking in the shadows. Deadly (aka effective) but with less fanfare than the lions and the tigers. If you're doing multi-channel and need an ERP/WMS/OMS, get a demo!

Pluspunten:

Seamless integration for our multiple channels of commerce. Cloud-based, no need for IT staff to maintain. Infrequently goes down. Never gone down at a critical time aka BFCM. Plays nice with Shopify, Amazon, retail, in-house orders.

Minpunten:

Training could be better for rank-and-file staff. Handling of sales tax (in multiple jurisdictions aka Wayfair ruling) could be better.

We couldn't manage our business without Brightpearl

Pluspunten:

Brightpearl has significantly reduced our margin for error by giving us a centralized platform to manage all of our processes. We are a 2 person operations team managing a multi-thousand SKU catalog. Brightpearl's inventory management features have set us up to manage our catalog with ease. We have entirely automated our Order Management process as well. From the time an order is placed to the time and order is fulfilled and posted into Quickbooks, we don't have a single moment of manual intervention. This has saved us so much time and from so many errors. Our onboarding team ([sensitive content hidden] ) was AMAZING and set us up with some of the best processes we've ever had.

Minpunten:

Most integrations and add-ons required completely custom development work which was time and resource intensive. We're accustomed to the "Shopify" model with our technology partners that have 1-2 click integrations that you can then customize to meet your business goals.

Very expensive for little gain

Opmerkingen: Just too many things that BRightpearl doesn't do. Its website claimed that you could list directly from Brightpearl onto eBay but it turned out to be untrue as Brightpearl didn't support eBay Postage Policies (That's eBayspeak for shipping tables). Nor could it list directly to any of the Amazon websites, nor to Shopify or anywhere else. Yet other software can do all of that, and has Google Translate Professional built in so that you can list directly to Amazon Poland without you having to employ a translator. So Brightpearl just falls flat on its face in far too many areas compared to the competition. The worst thing is trying to leave. I am leaving and would like to keep read only access for a year to make it easy to check any warranty claims. Brightpearl have quoted £10,080 for that when full acess costs me less than half of that. So if you are considering BRightpearl, keep looking, there are much better deals available.

Pluspunten:

The only thing that I really like about this software is that they have good support staff. I was initially attracted to Brightpearl because it included integrated accounts. It has taken me 6 years to realise that this was a false way of thinking as there is other software that integrates seamlessly with reasonably-priced good quality accounting software like Xero, Quickbooks and Sage. Essentially with Brightpearl you are paying a high price for an accounting system that is used by a relatively small number of users (online it says Brightpearl has about 1,000 users - that is a very small number to finance a piece of accounting software. Eventually I realised how much it was missing in other areas.

Minpunten:

The biggest drawback with Brightpearl is the small number of marketplaces it support compared to many of its competitors. They claim to integrate with Amazon, but this is only partially true. Amazon Europe have added 3 new marketplaces but BRightpearl have ingnored them where similar software providers have integrations at no extra cost. Brightpearl haven't added a single marketplace integration in 6 years, and the only one planned, OnBuy, a small marketplace unlikely to generate much revenue, comes at an extra cost. When I started with Brightpearl they were advertising it as the software to automate your online selling, but it was very limited as far as automation was concerned. After a couple of years they launched the Brightpearl Automation App. Funny that you should need an additional app, at extra cost, to do what the software was promising to do 2 years earlier. many things come at extra cost with Brightpearl but are available at no extra cost with other software. Brightpearl doesn't calculate VAT correctly. If you get an order from the Channel Islands, Brightpearl will add 20% VAT even though there is no VAT in th Channel Islands. (it does the same with the Canary Islands which also are not subject to VAT. It would be simply to write a filter to catch these and put correct 0 VAT on them, but they just don't seem to care if their customers are paying the tax men a bit more than they should be.

Manages the core of our business, finances and products.

Opmerkingen: We have been using brightpearl for several years now and the core function of the system has been to centralise around the accounts and stock management for our business. This means it's super easy to keep control of the business critical systems. The system has grown and expanded and as a small business I don't need a lot of this but it's there incase. The most important thing we have found is the super easy simple Brightpearl POS solution that is sharing the same core data for products/customers/payments as our website and accounts in real time so if the last item sells online then we don't over sell this in store at the weekend. We have two small showrooms and can have two separate pos channels that make it easy to deal with customers in store and telephone orders in the main program. Push sales from POS to backend and vice versa. It makes us more efficient and look more professional in store and on the phone. Even as a small business we have constantly changing stock and a large number of products (over 11,000) so need control of those as simply as possible. Brightpearl has done that for us along with accounts functionality. I hope as brightpearl expands it can keep true to it's roots of supporting small businesses with a system that would normally only be available to big business with big budgets. The core simple EPOS is just perfect for us with multichannel order routes to the dispatch desk.

Pluspunten:

the simple EPOS systems linked into the core of the system in real time. You have to do things by the book and can't cut corners in processes.

Minpunten:

Sometimes you have to do things by the book and can't cut corners in processes.

Great Inventory Management

Opmerkingen: We use Bright Pearl for both in-store and online sales. Coming from the previous program we used, Bright Pearl was a huge step up in inventory tracking. You can know where each and every item is through the whole order process - from shelf to shipment.
I've also been greatly impressed with the help/support team for a couple reasons. First, the replies to your problems/queries are quick (and don't make you feel like you're talking to a robot). Second, when they tell you that they are working on a certain issue, problem, or "bug" that needs to be dealt with, they mean it. This support team actually follows through and makes changes and updates frequently, always trying to improve the software. That is something that, as a customer I really appreciate.

Pluspunten:

- great inventory management - fast and current connection to online orders, stock, and inventory - good reports system - lots of apps available to help tailor the program to your business' needs

Minpunten:

While Bright Pearl is easy to use, sometimes the amount of manual steps you have to take with some of the processes are tedious. I would love to see more steps become automatic, and fields auto-populate. (I will say that, since we started using Bright Pearl, they've already improved somewhat in this area, though there are still many more to be done.