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Embracing ecommerce Despite being nearly 70 years old , Rubie ’ s has moved with the times and embraced modern technology and industry trends to stay ahead of the competition . “ I believe that the online industry is going to continue its growth . We ’ ll have to adapt to that to stay competitive . The industry is taking its direction from the online consumer . We are seeing more and more sales by marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay which we are actively working with ,” explains Tsirulnik . “ Ecommerce shopping is becoming more of a standard .”
The popularity of online shopping has also changed the way that consumers purchase products from Rubie ’ s . “ People usually try to order as far ahead as possible using the online sites ,” Tsirulnik reveals . “ The trend has been that in the retail stores – whether it ’ s the several of our flagship stores located in New York or the customer stores throughout the world – it seems that customers order online and go to the store when it ’ s much closer to Halloween time so they can see the product , touch the product and buy costumes when online stores can ’ t offer the shipping methods to get it in time .”
Enhancing its hardware is also key to keeping Rubie ’ s ahead of the competition . “ We are working on advancing our business continuity planning as well as disaster recovery . A lot of solutions have already been implemented , but as you know technology ’ s always evolving ,” acknowledges Tsirulnik . “ We ’ re now looking to the cloud and outsourcing to partners like Microsoft to better enhance the solutions that are already in place .”
Partnering prowess Rubie ’ s has already collaborated with some key software partners to more effectively manage the company ’ s operations . “ One of the partners that we work with is NCG . We utilize their web PLM [ Product Lifecycle Management ] system . Through the partnership that we have developed , we use the system to create designs . It ’ s an entire lifecycle , so from the concept to the actual design , to style adaptation , through different technical specifications , license approvals ,
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