OREANDA-NEWS. August 17, 2016. SAP Hybris is powering 7.6 million American workers to a better life with an e-commerce solution for easy, automated payments.

The term purchasing power refers to the amount of goods or services you can buy with a single unit of currency. Having currency, or money, gives you a certain amount of power over the labor of others. This concept is one of the foundations of the free market theory defined by Adam Smith, the 18th century Scottish political philosopher.

But if your monetary income stays the same while prices increase, your purchasing power falls! This fact of economic life has a profound impact on the circumstances of millions of people particularly those who are struggling to make ends meet on minimum or low wages. If the car breaks down or the washing machine floods the basement, they have no savings or credit options to cover such unexpected expenses.

Enter Purchasing Power, a purchase program used by the U.S. government and military as well as leading enterprises and organizations. The program enables people to shop for products and educational services using their employment status as their credit. Payments are simply deducted from the employee’s salary over time with no interest or late fees. The program helps people budget expenses based on responsible spending limits aligned to their salary.

Using an app available exclusively to Purchasing Power customers, people can search the catalog, shop on a mobile site, view orders and shipping status, and keep track of their account statement.

Platform Behind the Power

To drive this life changing program Purchasing Power needed a more robust and scalable omni-channel commerce platform to serve its expanding customer base and increasingly sophisticated business requirements.

It selected the SAP hybris Commerce solution as its platform for growth. Now, Purchasing Power can easily expand its product catalog and provide rich omni-channel commerce capabilities, increasing site conversion and freeing up the business to better serve customers with compelling products and promotions.

According to Scott Wheeler, COO of Purchasing Power LLC, the solution enables the company to offer a significantly improved shopping experience, an expanded catalog, and greater self-serve capabilities. “The enormously positive impact on our business has been undeniable,” he states in reference to the transformational aspect of the solution.

E-commerce success stories like this one are helping SAP define next generation customer engagement, one of the key initiatives that will enable us to achieve our ambitious growth plan for 2020.