Sheridan, a provider of print, publishing services and technology solutions to publishers, associations, university presses, and cataloguers, has announced that it has been contracted by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) to establish a direct to consumer sales site that would simplify the sales of printed and electronic content as well as general merchandise to AMS members and customers. While there was an existing eCommerce platform in place, AMS was looking to replace it with a solution that would offer an enhanced shopping experience, expanded fulfillment features, and improved stability.
Using the Sheridan Connect platform as the foundation, Sheridan was able to meet those requirements and also integrate several robust new features to enhance the AMS eCommerce experience. To simplify access to the eCommerce portion of the site, Sheridan created a membership authentication component that allows AMS customers to login to the store using their existing AMS credentials. With the new tiered pricing option, AMS can offer different price points for the same item and customers, once logged in, will see pricing appropriate for their membership level (e.g. member, non-member, or student). Behind the scenes, AMS administrators now can quickly and easily import bulk orders using the order import process, while the automated warehouse fulfillment feature integrates with their warehouse to ship and update orders as well as maintain inventory levels.
To fully integrate the online ordering process for the association, Sheridan Connect functionality was expanded to support the sale of custom products such as general merchandise and apparel. Finally, the new AMS sales platform created by Sheridan was branded to match the existing AMS website, given a custom domain name, and integrated directly with their current credit card processing system.
