You endeavor to provide your consumers with a rewarding, fun, and efficient shopping experience. But what about the behind-the-scenes experience you and your company have? Without ecommerce integration, you’ll almost certainly be dealing with potential roadblocks and issues on a daily basis, especially as your company grows. Perhaps it’s time to consider the advantages of a fully integrated ecommerce system…
What is the definition of ecommerce integration?
The world of ecommerce is vast. It’s a monster. With such scale and complexity comes a slew of questions and challenges. One of them is ecommerce’s inherent complexity. Setting up a functional online store can entail the installation of a large number of goods, all of which must work in harmony with one another in order to meet the expectations of today’s shoppers. To achieve those expectations from a commercial standpoint, this entails managing a seemingly limitless assortment of software, platforms, and systems behind the scenes. This isn’t always straightforward.
This is where ecommerce integration can help. You can think of integration as a well-constructed network of highways that connects all of your systems. It connects your online shop and other online sales channels to your back-end systems (such as an ERP platform, warehouse management system, finance software etc.). This allows everything to communicate in real time and in both directions, allowing information and data to flow freely and effortlessly. This eliminates the need to manually enter data into numerous systems, making back-end company activities considerably more efficient and lowering the risk of errors and difficulties dramatically.
So, what exactly are the advantages?
Isn’t that why you’ve come here? Integration, thankfully, provides a slew of advantages that can help you streamline your online retail firm. It not only alleviates problems and manual tasks, but it also contributes considerably to business growth. We’ll get into more depth on that later in the article, but for now, let’s take a closer look at that long list of advantages…
Human error has been dramatically reduced
Integration eliminates the need to manually enter the same data into numerous systems. Instead, data and information are entered into a single location, from which it may be accessed and read from any part of the linked system. This significantly minimizes the amount of time that humans are involved in the input process, decreasing human error and redundant data. That means you won’t have to worry about inconsistencies or difficulties arising from even the tiniest loss in concentration.
Integration can help you save money
One of the most effective ways to improve a company’s return on invested capital is to implement cost-cutting procedures. Your online sales and orders (along with many other back-office activities) become automated with integration. Customers can also take care of their own demands in a variety of ways, such as tracking order statuses, viewing available inventory, tracking delivery, and so on. As a result, as previously stated, the requirement for human intervention is reduced, resulting in a significant reduction in administrative burden. This translates to significantly lower long-term labor and operational expenditures.
System administration that is intuitive, simplified, and automated
In the previous paragraph, we mentioned process automation. One of the most important parts of ecommerce integration is automation. Once your ecommerce procedures are automated, you’ll see a favorable impact on a variety of aspects of your organization. Internal productivity will typically increase significantly as each process is optimized and the need for high human engagement is reduced. Any sales made through your online store are integrated with everything going on in your ERP platform, allowing each step of the process to be tracked at all times and all elements of the business affected by the sale to be synchronized across the board.
Payment gateways, shipping and logistics systems, and omni-channel sales feeds, for example, all benefit from integration. This is beneficial not only to customers who can see and interact with your business exactly how they want, but also to back-office employees who use accounting or inventory systems on a regular basis. One of the most visible benefits of ecommerce integration is easy access to every piece of operational data across the organization, which helps to reduce delays, access and trigger alarms, and overall labor expenses. There’s also a lot less paperwork to deal with because everything is accessible in a variety of formats from wherever in your company.
We were able to complete this job for a company in Vietnam
Efex completely integrated ecommerce solution saw a significant increase in sales.
- With a 5 percent increase in session time, the site saw a remarkable 28 percent rise in visitors.
- Additionally, conversion rates increased by an average of 6% across all of their sites.
- As a result, the project has helped this company maintain its competitive advantage.
- Full SAP integration, on the other hand, provided a smooth workflow that complemented the established business operations of the corporation This solution is adaptable, powerful, and scalable.
- Throughout all of their websites, they provided their customers with an immersive online experience.
Synchronization is simple and quick
The above points are linked through the synchronization of an integrated ecommerce system. This rapid syncing ensures that every component of your integrated system is updated at the exact time it should be, decreasing the risk of errors and difficulties. Customer records, for example, are updated in real time, along with orders and inventory data. If a customer wants to cancel an order before it’s processed, the integration eliminates delays, which means orders won’t be sent out when they shouldn’t be, and your inventory data will be updated instantly. You won’t have to waste time chasing down paperwork or confirmations because your integrated system will take care of everything.
Omni-channel sales management that works
For a company with a single online storefront, integrated ecommerce is extremely effective. But what about enterprises that sell through various channels? The good news is that for any omni-channel sales business, integration maintains that same effective and efficient nature. Managing various channels is straightforward in an integrated ecommerce system because everything is synchronized and built to work in harmony. An omni-channel firm can benefit from the same streamlined system that ensures each and every item of data and information is correct across the board without having to fuss with duplicate data, just like a single channel sales operation. Each channel may be managed in a similar way, and integration can even function with an in-store POS system for firms that have a physical location. 3
Improved customer service after the sale
Handling any concerns that may develop prior to a customer’s purchase is substantially easier now that everything is in one easy-to-access system. As scenarios like RMA requests and other after-sales services are critical aspects of these platforms, an integrated CRM becomes incredibly valuable. All of these services become available at your fingertips as a result of integration, allowing you and others in your company to respond to your customers’ demands quickly and efficiently. The lessened stress that comes with having everything in one location will almost certainly improve customer engagement, resulting in happier and more happy individuals all around.
Customer satisfaction and brand trust are both on the rise.
In line with what we said before, an integrated ecommerce system provides you with a wide range of tools and capabilities that enable you to provide superior service to your clients right away. In addition to the benefits of after-sales service outlined above, integration allows you to offer incentivized loyalty programs that are easy to maintain and access, provide consumers with instant access to their order history and other services, and much more. All of this is made possible by integrated storefront, ERP, and CRM platforms that can communicate with one another to provide the services that modern customers have grown to expect. Increased customer satisfaction also fosters higher trust in your company, which can go a long way toward establishing a positive reputation for your company and practices.
You can also provide a personalized experience to your customers with integrated ecommerce, especially if you employ an AI personalization platform. This would effectively allow you to give your customers real-time suggestions and recommendations throughout their whole purchasing process. Whether it’s suggested accessories or complimentary products based on the product they’re currently looking, their order or viewing history with your company, or even their location and customer profile saved on your connected system, it’s all possible. This can be used in conjunction with customized marketing efforts and loyalty programs to give a pleasurable, relevant purchasing experience that will make your customers feel valued.
Access to reports and better business control
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: integrated ecommerce brings everything together in one convenient location. That implies you’ll have a lot more control over every area of your company. Particularly with traditional ERP processes that allow you to benefit from faster, more intuitive features that improve the productivity of your workload. Integration also allows for effective report availability for your organization, since each component of your back-office software is linked together, allowing reports to be prepared based on a range of criteria from a single location. When all of data is put together, it provides on-demand explanation and information that can be used to solve problems and make future plans.
Scalable – suitable for expanding a business
One of the most evident advantages of ecommerce integration is the ability to handle long-term expansion. Typically, as your company expands, so does the demand placed on you and other employees. When everything has to be done manually, this can be an issue, but integration alleviates that stress and delivers a lot more pleasant overall experience as your company grows.
- Nutritional improvements and their positive health effects They wanted to increase their number of employees.
- Their first goal was to expand their B2B potential by investigating a variety of channels. Additional avenues outside of their core to help them expand internationally
- To take stock and pricing data and give back financial information, our technology was fully linked into SAP.
- It also allowed for customer-specific pricing and supplied their clientele with more information.
- A feature-rich account area that allows them to see their whole order history and much more.
- A diverse range of B2B requirements It was also exceedingly simple to use and administer.
- Non-technical members of their staff can utilize it, and it integrates effortlessly with their SAP back-end system.
As you can see, the list of ecommerce integration benefits is quite lengthy, and as you may have noted, each benefit complements the others. There’s a lot more to learn about an integrated ecommerce system than what we’ve discussed so far.
