IBM Sterling Warehouse Management System vs. Kibo eCommerce

Like I previously mentioned, this software fits our needs right now because it allows us to control inventory and remove items when needed from our participating retailer's websites. The price is reasonable. Our traffic and shipping teams have also used this software to create fewer touch points in shipping and make the process more digital. That has been a big winner for us. You'll definitely want an internal IT team to support this software. The implementation process is long and tedious and you will need to restructure to fit your needs. That is difficult to do when you are a smaller business with cross-functional employees.

Incentivized

The platform has flexibility at its core and we have made full use of that capability. Even if Kibo [eCommerce] hasn't been ready to provide features and functions we need, we have the opportunity to build them ourselves. The platform started as Mozu and while it was relatively well-developed for DTC, it lacked a lot of basic B2B functionality. As a result, when we were ready to move into that arena, we built a lot for ourselves (including a multi-level account system and a tool to manage it). Keep in mind, too, that Kibo eCommerce is part of a larger suite of tools. The company has purchased a mobile Point-of-Sale system, Baynote, Certona, Monetate, and an OMS. If you need a full-scale solution, they can offer a lot. As I mentioned previously, their support and documentation need shoring up. They're not terrible, but they hinder (rather than help) when it comes to fulfilling the platform's promise of letting the customers be self-service in building out their capabilities.

Incentivized

• Pretty straight forward for entering new items or deleting items not needed in the feed anymore.
• Able to match vendor models to retailer SKU's without issue.

Incentivized

• Mozu offers a flexible multi site setup where you can feed multiple sites from the same product and order database.
• Mozu allows you to create as many attributes as you would like across customer, orders, and products. This flexibility can be really powerful.

• Not able to export lists to excel. This is a big negative for me personally. It makes it harder and more time consuming to clean up accounts.
• Doesn't warn you if the same sender and receiver code are on another list.
• The dashboard is not the best. The next button that you would assume takes you to the next page actually doesn't, it ends up showing past interactions with the software. You have to click on the tiny numbers at the top to navigate. Super annoying. Not very user-friendly or appealing to the eye.

Incentivized

• Prebuilt Integration - There is not currently a large number of preexisting integrations, but custom integrations are fairly quick
• Time to Deploy - Don't get me wrong, We have deployed in the timeline we expected, but if you are trying to get something off the ground fast, Kibo might not be right for you. It is a robust platform that take some time to get up and running.
• Complicated Shipping - if you have a complicated shipped process, you might want to look for a tool to help, Kibo does not have very robust out of the box shipping capabilities.

One positive note is that I have always been able to get someone on the phone in support whenever I have called, even at 1 AM. Getting someone on the phone is only half the battle though. In the first few months of using Mozu it often seemed that support didn’t know anymore about Mozu than we did. This has slowly started to change, but as a daily user you are likely to be on par with support in terms of knowing what to do when you encounter a problem. The support phone number is really most useful for having them put in a support ticket for you rather than typing it all out yourself and emailing it. It is very rare that the support reps are actually empowered to solve the problem at hand. Unless the issue you are having is user error, they will just take your information and pass it on the proper department. Your request or problem will then be ignored for months on end. Some day, it might actually get fixed but you are unlikely to be notified that this has happened. Most of these issues are assigned an internal ID that they use for tracking. Support is more than happy to pass this ID along, but it is useless. There is no way to actually see where the issue lies in the endless queue of similar issues.

At the time of our implementation Mozu did not have any processes or procedures set up around going live. We basically were forced to just wing it and hope for the best

We had a custom, in-house ecommerce website before moving to Kibo. It was brittle, slow, and wasn't going to scale nearly well enough or fast enough to keep up with our requirements

Incentivized

• The overall impact has been good for us and I do feel like the software is worth the money they just need to do a lot of updating and making the software more user-friendly.
• As a ecommerce account manager, it is important that we are able to remove and add items quickly to our retailer sites. This software has allowed us to do that.
• Would like to see a more knowledgeable support staff that are able to work through issues in a timely matter.

Incentivized

• Kibo has always delivered rapid & exceptional support to our organization
• Kibo has been cost-competitive when considering other vendors
• The platform continues to add value without requiring substantial additional investments