For most of its 66-year history, M&J Trimming has been a fairly traditional family-owned business in New York City’s garment district, selling feathers, buttons, buckles, beads, lace--about anything that can decorate clothing.

Before the Internet, the business, which employs 90 people, operated in much the same way that it had since its founding in 1936 by David Cohen’s father and grandfather.

"We’re in the garment district. This is where the majority of our customers comes," notes Cohen. Customers walk into the store and pick out samples, "and say Ôsend me more."

M&J Trimming operates two retail stores and also has a wholesale division, along with another one open only to interior decorators. But with tens of thousands of SKUs and a product line that changes daily, the company’s operation did not lend itself to print catalogs. "Things go out of style too fast, so by the time you print it, it’s out of style," Cohen says.

But since September, the business has taken a decidedly non-traditional turn with the implementation of WebShop, the e-commerce module for Navision Attain (formerly known as Navision Financials). "It’s been a pleasure since then," says Cohen.Having the catalog on the Web means that customers who can’t drop by the store can order from those thousands of SKUs. And true to the promise of the Web, there are pictures of many products, although the there will never be a complete online catalog. At least some products can be pictured. "I have three people taking pictures full time and editing them in Photoshop," says Cohen.

There’s a lot more to the system than putting a catalog online. With WebShop, "everything is done automatically," he says. The system lets users check if a product is in stock and applies the right price and discounts for each customer. Prices are automatically updated, and the garment shop has kiosks and desktop PCs for staff to access the information.

The system was installed by nearby reseller, Business Management International. M&J made extensive use of BMI’s talents. "There were some things that I wanted in the Web site that isn’t in the standard packages," says Cohen.

For BMI, the installation was one of the first for Web Shop (now named Commerce Portal), "These guys were really the first one to step up," says BMI president Larry Schiff. "Since then, we are working on about three installations." Schiff says that M&J embraced the idea of Navision "as a piece of clay that you can mold to be company-specific."

M&J also hired NetQuotient, which performed some of the Web design. Overall, Cohen praised WebShop for its ease of use. Although his expansion has required hiring a few new employees, "I have nobody here running the Web site. That’s what’s great about the Navision system," says Cohen.

What the Web site has enabled the company to do is expand its geographical reach. "If you are in Arkansas, you just can’t get this stuff," he says. Especially after September 11, "people aren’t travelling. Instead, we bought M&J to them."