With 20 million furniture deliveries per year, accurate and reliable geocoding and directions was imperative. Enter MapQuest for Business. Retail Architects is a Ft. Mill, N.C.-based developer of Loft, a retail management software product used by top 100 furniture retailers. Since partnering with MapQuest for Business in 2013, retailers enjoy reliable and accurate mapping and routing for all their deliveries.
Delivering ‘Pizzazz’ to Replace Antiquated Systems
Jerry Neville and his partners founded Retail Architects in 2010 with the hopes of building a better system for major furniture retailers to manage inventory, point-of-sale, accounting and deliveries. “Existing systems were so antiquated,” Neville said. “We wanted to build a better system with entirely new functionality and ‘pizzazz.’ We figured popping up a map with the customer’s address would add some ‘wow’ factor.”
Neville built Loft with embedded geospatial technology to help retailers locate customer addresses on a map, verify addresses for delivery accuracy and fraud detection, and provide turn-by-turn directions to delivery crews.
Objectives:
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Pinpoint and display customer addresses on a map.
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Verify addresses for fraud detection.
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Provide turn-by-turn directions for delivery crews.
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Reduce geospatial technology costs with flexible and scalable pricing arrangements.
Kicking the Former Provider to the Curb
Neville soon realized the shortcomings of his original geospatial services provider. Specifically, pricing and customer service fell short of Neville’s expectations. “They didn’t care about what we were doing,” Neville said. “We were a drop in the ocean to them and we couldn’t even get someone to talk to us on the phone,” he recalled of his previous provider. “When we exceeded our API usage limits, they went nuts with pricing,” Neville added. Retail Architects simply couldn’t continue down that same road.
An Effortless Switch to MapQuest for Business
“I had always preferred MapQuest for personal use,” Neville said. “So integrating MapQuest’s APIs into Loft just made sense. It was a painless transition for us and their support team was there every step of the way.”
With 1,000 retail stores using Loft to make millions of furniture deliveries per year, Retail Architects utilizes several MapQuest APIs including Geocoding API, Directions API, Map Tile Plugin for Leaflet and Traffic API.
“Frankly, the level of attention from MapQuest is much, much better than what we were getting from our previous provider. MapQuest actually knows who we are, and we can get their knowledgeable people on the phone whenever we need them.”
– Retail Architects CEO, Neville
Since switching to MapQuest, Retail Architects not only has the geospatial APIs they need, but they also receive flexible, scalable pricing terms and superior customer service. “Frankly, the level of attention from MapQuest is much, much better than what we were getting from our previous provider,” Neville said. “MapQuest took the time to get to know us, and we can get their knowledgeable team on the phone whenever we need them.”
