The Next Best Thing to Being There
With stores located in three different states you might think the DiPadovas spend a lot of time on airplanes, racking up frequent flier miles. You would be wrong. Instead, they rely on Apple Remote Desktop to connect all the computers on the Due Maternity network.
“Apple Remote Desktop allows me to control the desktop on any computer connected to our network,” DiPadova says. To track inventory, once a night, his server in San Francisco automatically polls the other computers on the network, and pulls down sales reports for the day. To keep up with employee time sheets, DiPadova runs Virtual Time Clock Pro on his server. This enables any employee, on any computer to clock in and track their hours. To handle payroll, DiPadova simply emails a PDF of employee hours to his bookkeeper who runs the numbers using QuickBooks for the Mac.
DiPadova uses Apple Remote Desktop for all new software deployments and upgrades. “Apple Remote Desktop makes it easier to upload software and manage all our Macs. We are on our Macs all day long. And using OS X, they never crash.”
It’s important to the business that all their Macs are using the same software, so all employees are on the same page. According to DiPadova, Apple Remote Desktop makes it easy to deploy the latest software versions to every Mac on the network. “We’re all on the latest operating system,” DiPadova says. “I want everybody as fresh as possible.”
Once he’s sure everyone “is speaking the same language,” he uses Apple Remote Desktop and an iSight camera to communicate with store managers and to train employees on new software — free, with live, realtime video feeds. “If one of my employees is having technical issues,” he says, “I can give them a live demo using Apple Remote Desktop. It’s the best IT support you can have.”
Instead of spending money on expensive training programs and IT services, the DiPadovas rely on the Mac’s famed ease of use.
“We chose the Mac because it is so user friendly,” DiPadova explains. “Our Santa Barbara store is staffed by college students and moms. And they don’t have to be technically savvy.”
“The intuitive layout makes it easy to use,” Albert explains. “The colors and icons make it simple. It’s easy to navigate. There’s an elegance to how files are saved that helps you know where they are, and that helps you be more organized and work efficiently.”
The Future of Retail
“We’re up to 150 orders!” Tanya Crisci, Due Maternity’s eCommerce Customer Service Rep shouts from the warehouse just down the hall from the showroom floor. It’s black Monday — the first day after the Thanksgiving Holiday, and the busiest day of the year for online retailers. Online sales are pouring in from the Due Maternity website.
Designed and built on a Mac and hosted on the Yahoo! Stores Merchant Professional e-commerce platform, the Due Maternity website has been an enormous success. Navigation, based on the tabbed interface that will be familiar to anyone who uses the website at Apple.com, is simple and straightforward. “We make it easy to find the items you want,” DiPadova says. Visitors can shop by department, by designer, or by category such as bottoms, nursing, or lingerie.
