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What is The Key Factor That Influences E-Commerce Website’s Revenue?

A well-performing e-commerce website can attract more visitors to your business on the Internet, help you acquire more customers, and improve your reputation.

It does not matter on which eCommerce platform your online store is built; Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, or some others, the main goal is to quickly and fully satisfy the needs of your online customers.

Ecommerce Business: Launch Your Online Store

As many eCommerce experts advise, an online store should be simple and straightforward, but its functionality should fulfill the modern requirements of users.

The actions of buyers in most online stores are the same:

Step-1. The buyer enters the online store and finds the desired product.

Step-2. The buyer adds the desired product to the “basket” for ordering.

Step-3. The buyer enters personal information to place and pay for the order.

Step-4. The buyer confirms all the information and the order is sent to the representatives of the online store.

Now, what happens next?

Have you ever wondered where the order should “go” after the customer submits and places it?

Actions at this stage are taken by the owners of the online store, and they could be very different. This can ultimately have a big impact on the store’s revenue and reputation.

eCommerce order management is a key revenue driver for online store

The success of any online store largely depends on the accurate and efficient organization of the order process.

Fast and accurate order processing is one of the most important competitive advantages in any e-Commerce business. However, it is impossible to speed up order processing without effective management. Order management implies an organization’s control at every stage of the cycle: from the receipt of the online order to the delivery of goods to the consumer.

One simple online order usually entails the following processes:
  • placing an order in the database;
  • verification of information from the buyer;
  • receiving of payment;
  • reconciliation with current stocks in the warehouse;
  • shipping and packaging;
  • transfer of cargo to the carrier;
  • message to the buyer about the current status of the order;
  • delivery;
  • updating stock status.

Manual eCommerce order fulfillment vs an automated process

Online store orders can be processed manually or automated.

When processing an order manually, the operator needs to do the following:
  • Key-in into the internal ERP / CRM or accounting system, data about a new client or find his data in the database.
  • Enter customer data (name, email address, phone #, delivery address, payment method, etc.)
  • Enter order data (product, quantity, etc.)
  • Submit the order for further processing.

This approach does not rule out errors and associated disruptions and delays.

The most effective option for successfully managing online orders is fully integrating the ecommerce online store with your business management systems such as ERP/CRM. In this case, all orders automatically synchronize with your internal management system and can be quickly processed.

Fully managed e-commerce Integration with ERP/CRM system

We, at EDI2XML, offer a fully managed solution to integrate your e-commerce store with any business system such as Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle JD Edwards, Salesforce, ServiceMax, SAP Business One / SAP ERP, or even any homegrown business solutions.

We are experienced in using a state-of-the-art technology that is capable of discovering/reading/writing into ERP/CRM systems, using certified connectors.
e-commerce integration service

Using our advanced integration technologies, we provide our clients with the most necessary solutions for their online business:
  • Two-way exchange “eCommerce-ERP”, “ERP-ecommerce”.
  • Secure two-way data transfer.
  • Automatic exchange processing.
  • A stable, reliable, and proven solution.
  • Flexibility and scalability. The ability to expand the functionality of your online store at any stage.
  • Work with a large array of data.
  • Numerous connections with different eCommerce, Amazon, EDI, ERP, CRM, and other business and accounting systems.

Automated eCommerce order management process flow

We eliminate the need for manual data entry by automating the most important business processes, ensuring data exchange between eCommerce and almost all ERP, CRM, and accounting systems.
  • The EDI2XML integration platform connects your ERP/business systems with your online store.
  • Orders placed on your online store are sent automatically to your business system.
  • As you fulfill online orders, the integration platform extracts shipment data from your business system and sends it directly to your ecommerce store thus your clients always have the latest order status.
  • Automatically update inventory data in your online store as frequently as you wish.

Benefits of Integrated e-commerce and ERP

Integration is the best solution for optimizing all stages of order processing. It gives companies many opportunities:
  • You will be able to receive and process orders in one interface.
  • Integration allows you to effectively manage orders in a single structured system from various sales channels (such as your own online store, Amazon account, Facebook marketplace).
  • data synchronization ensures high speed of order processing and continuity of processes.
  • avoid human errors associated with manual order processing.
  • improve customer service and increase profits.

Integration and automation of processes are necessary for online stores with large sales volumes. Additionally, it gets much more necessary, when a company is selling via the multi-channel and omnichannel environment, where the same product is sold online through different channels, and in-store.

An excellent end-to-end solution is the Magic xpi integration platform, which will help automate the process and help speed up order processing.

The popularity of online shopping is skyrocketing like never

As many surveys have shown, more customers are shopping online now than before the pandemic, and this trend continues despite physical stores started re-opening. Thus, this fact is driving the need for digital transformation.

Over the years, we have been helping our clients build successful online businesses. We have extensive and strong experience in data synchronization between eCommerce and ERP/RCM systems as well as automation of processes in the online store built on Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, and many others.

Contact us for a free consultation and we will help you choose the most suitable integration solution for your e-commerce business.

The following is a list of additional helpful information:

Must-Have Integration between E-Commerce and Business Systems

9 Major E-Commerce Trends That Will Help Grow Your Online Business

The main reasons why you need Microsoft Dynamics Integration with your Business Systems

Shopify and Microsoft Dynamics Nav Integration: Things you should know

Free Shopify Integration Whitepaper

Must-Have Integration between E-Commerce and Business Systems


This post was updated to reflect current trends and information.

Must-Have Integration between E-Commerce and Business Systems

Prior to addressing the e-commerce integration with different business systems and applications, let me start by asking the obvious question, and try to answer: “What is integration?“

In a short sentence, “Integration” is the process of orchestrating processes and synchronizing data between two or more different business software systems, without human intervention.
The integration between online eCommerce store and one or more systems, allows a company to overcome important challenges such as:

– Maintaining up-to-date product information on the e-commerce store (availability, price, specifications)

– Connecting online payment services (payment on the website via bank cards, Authorize.Net, PayPal, Google Checkout, Amazon Payments, etc.);

– Using various support services (statistics services, online consultants, and many others) and many more.

Does Your Business Need Systems Integration?

Do you know how to determine whether your business needs to automate and orchestrate flows and data? Here are some of the most common reasons that indicate the need to integrate your online store with your CRM:
  • Your Online Store receives more than 150 orders per month. With this volume, manual data entry and processing takes a lot of time and resources, thus becoming ineffective.
  • Your e-commerce store needs to improve the customer experience. Constantly, you have problems with orders, due to incorrect inventory status.
  • You have an issue with getting the shipment tracking number from your business system, into your eCommerce store, immediately after the product is shipped.
  • Your online store accumulates orders that are waiting to be processed. which directly affects your delivery timeline.
  • You have no real-time inventory update, such as inventory available to sell. Of course, here you are risking to under sell your goods.

Cost-Effective Integrating Solution

In today’s age and time, there are sophisticated technologies to bridge any system to any system and build an efficient integration. There is a lot of integration approaches. However, for entrepreneurs and large corporations alike, the important aspects they look at when planning integration projects are the budget and the timeline to implement the integration project while having a powerful technology capable of delivering.
Integrating your e-commerce store with other business systems, allows your company to benefit from:

– An enhanced customer service experience, with accurate and quicker handling of orders.

– An outstanding quality of information, free of human errors.

– An Increased efficiency, accuracy and timeliness.

Regardless of which e-commerce platform your company adopted, be it Shopify, Magento, Volusion, BigCommerce, OpenCard, eBay or Amazon, etc. your online store will be always in sync with your ERP/CRM or any home-grown system your company might have adopted.

If you what to find out all about selecting an Integration platform, take a look at our article: How to Choose the Right Integration Platform? It will help you figure out the issue and make the right choice! 

The Most Common Integrations to E-commerce

Warehouse Management System

One of the most popular integration is to build an integration between an eCommerce store and a company’s Warehouse Management System (WMS).
A warehouse management system is a software that automates a company’s warehouse operations. This operation may include inventory management, picking processes, and auditing, among other processes.
There are different types of Warehouse Management System:

• Standalone systems – usually deployed on-premise
• Cloud-based systems – SaaS solutions
• ERP modules –as a component of enterprise resource planning.

The demand to integrate e-commerce stores with Inventory Management Systems is quite high that is why, an integration platform such as Magic xpi, has more than 100 pre-built connectors and adapters for quick and easy integration. This makes integrators’ life much easier; integration time is greatly reduced and saves customer’s money.
No matter what warehouse management system your company adopted, or plan to adopt, SAP EWM, Oracle WMC, NetSuite ERP, NetSuite Warehouse, Zebra Warehouse, WIMS 2.0, etc. it’s always worth remembering that integration is best done with proven experts and technologies.

If you want to know more about Warehouse Management System (Types,  Features, and benefits of WMS)  read the article here

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Another not less popular is the integration of an e-commerce store with the company’s CRM. If your online store has been successfully operating for a long time and sales are growing, it is likely that you are thinking about using a CRM system (Customer Relationship Management). Maybe you already use it and now it’s time to integrate your CRM and your e-commerce store.

But how to maintain the relevance of information in CRM and organize the work of employees in such a way that they are not torn between the work in the administrative panel of the e-commerce site, the mailbox, and the CRM system? In case of integration of your CRM with the online store, orders and other relevant information will appear directly into the system. According to financesonline.com, the best CRM systems are:
  • Salesforce CRM
  • Hubspot CRM
  • Freshsales
  • Pipedrive
  • Insightly
  • Zoho CRM

DropShipping

Currently, there are a lot of online shops who offer the Drop-ship concept to their suppliers. “Drop-ship” is a popular fulfillment method where an online store (eCommerce) doesn’t keep stock. The process is that the online store sends information about customers’ orders to the manufacturer and then, the manufacturer ships the goods directly to the consumer. This method eliminates the need for the merchant to handle the goods. In this business model integration of the company’s internal systems with the drop-ship eCommerce store, becomes very critical for a successful dropship experience.

For more information about Dropshipping integration read our blog: 4 Challenges of EDI and Drop-Ship in eCommerce

When Discussing third-party integration options, you should not forget about the delivery service. Certainly, one of the key factors influencing clients ‘ decisions about purchasing is delivery.
An integration platform like Magic xpi can also easily connect your online store to the most Populaire delivery services such as DHL, FedEx, or UPS.

Payment systems

Another popular integration is the integration with payment systems. By payment systems, we understand service providers that allow you to process financial transactions, and the provider would charge a percentage of the commission to cover his fees. Many payment systems have already developed API (application programming interface) of their payment gateways, for integration purposes.
If you are wondering what kind of system to connect, here are some of the most popular Payment system:

  • Paypal
  • Amazon Pay
  • Google Pay
  • American Express
  • Apple Pay
  • Stripe
  • Square
  • Visa Checkout
  • Masterpass
  • 2Checkout (now Verifone)

Everything you Need to Know about Online Payment Processing: Online Payment Processing Guide

Leave your e-commerce integration to the experts

E-commerce Integration needs a professional approach. It takes time, resources and skills, and in case of an error, the company may incur significant losses.
Therefore, if you have any questions or need integration with any service, feel free to contact us. We have a great experience with integration between e-commerce and different systems.
We will be more than happy to help and assist!
Shopify integration price list

RELATED POSTS:

Fully Managed Shopify Integration Service

Why you should automate inventory updates for your Shopify store?

Secrets and rules of Shopify integration with your ERP or CRM

EDI Integration of B2B e-commerce for small companies

9 Major E-Commerce Trends That Will Help Grow Your Online Business

This post was updated to reflect current trends and information.

According to forecasts of market research and business intelligence portal Statista by the year 2023, U.S. retail e-commerce sales amount will surpass 735 billion US dollars. In the current economic conditions, it is unlikely that any other industry can demonstrate such a rapid growth rate.

In the same token and according to Oberlo, the retail e-commerce sales worldwide are projected to grow to 6.388 trillion US dollars by 2024.

Let’s see what the key market players are betting on, and what trends will determine the development of the industry.

1. Efficient logistics and reduced delivery times

e-commerce reduced delivery times

The world leader at this point is American Amazon. Back in the company’s report for 2018, it is indicated that the fastest delivery of the year was done in 8 minutes in Berkeley CA, and 9 minutes in Kirkland WA, Los Angeles CA, Seattle WA, Charlotte NC.
Amazon the fastest delivery 2018

That sounds like something out of Science Fiction. But look: In the fight for customer loyalty, online stores of the leading e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, Bigcommerce, Volusion and other reduce delivery times.

2. Mobile sales

online shopping top ecommerce trends

As predicted (based on many studies and mobile e-commerce statistics) mobile web is booming. An American market research company Forrester forecasts that US retail sales via smartphone will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18% over the next five years. Thus, with the increase in purchases from a mobile device, it is very important to make sure that your online store is designed for mobile viewing.

3. Augmented Reality Technologies

e-commerce trends Augmented reality

Augmented Reality Technologies inevitably follow the mobile web sales boom. Today, with the help of special applications, online store buyers can see how furniture sets will fit into their living room or, for example, which watch will look better on their hands. In 2021 AR technologies will become more sophisticated, but perhaps they will start to lose the WOW effect.

4. Using Big Data
e-commerce trends Big Data

The accumulation and analysis of consumer data is a powerful tool to increasing sales. By tracking user behavior in the network, retailers are able to make accurate offers to their customers thereby increasing the chances of making a purchase.

Large online stores have already accumulated a large amount of data about their customers. Now the question is, who will learn how to use this information more effectively – it will give a noticeable competitive advantage.

5. Social commerce and user-generated content

e-connerce trends - 5. Social commerce and user-generated content

Online stores have long used content in social media to attract a loyal audience. In recent years, online sales are increasingly merging with social networks.

On the one hand, social media are introducing more and more new features for sales.

Facebook is already testing Live Video Mode for Sellers and the ability to process payments directly to Facebook Messenger.

Several e-commerce features have tested by Instagram over the past two years – including shopping tags, Promote Ads, built-in payments, and even a separate mobile app for shopping.

On the other hand, online retailers and marketplaces learn to use user-generated content.

Everything started with the reviews, but they were not limited. For example, users can write reviews, tips, articles about products and how to choose them.

6. Artificial intelligence and real-time interaction with the client

e-commerce trends Artificial intelligence and real-time interaction with the client

The times when the online store support service could not respond to the customer’s request for several days will irrevocably disappear. Now, online retailers are increasingly relying on chat-bots to help and advice customers. They work around the clock and instantly navigate in large volumes of information about goods and services.

7. Integration of ERP Software with e-commerce
e-commerce trends ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software

Internal processes of e-commerce retailers are also switching to total automation. Previously, entire departments of employees were required to interact with suppliers and track items in warehouses.

Now, more and more successful companies, adopted ERP (Enterprise resource planning) software for management of core business processes. The most popular ERP software for e-commerce:

• Oracle JD Edwards
• Microsoft Dynamics family of ERPs
• SAP
• and other more ERP software solutions

Helpful Information:

Fully integrated with B2C or B2B e-commerce web-stores, an ERP software can power your business and move your online store to the next level.

8. Integrating e-commerce and CRM application
e-commerce trends -CRM integration

CRM (Customer-relationship management) system allows to collect, manage and use customer relationship data to improve your online business. CRM can eliminate lost sales, and help you build a loyal customer base.

Key e-commerce companies who run successfully their business on leading platforms for global trade such Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, Shopify, Magento etc.,  have already integrated their CRM with their online stores and enjoy the benefits.

Helpful Information: How to get more out of Salesforce with EDI Integration

9. Electronic data Interchange (EDI) and B2B e-commerce
e-commerce trends EDI Integration

Last but definitely not least: your e-commerce business should be supported by EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). In many cases, it’s almost impossible to trade without using EDI. In B2B e-commerce, EDI has become mandatory for trading with the majority of big retailers such as Target, Walmart, Home Depot or Costco, because they work exclusively with businesses that meet their EDI requirements and comply with their EDI specifications.

What are the benefits of EDI in e-commerce?

  • Reduced document processing time
  • Works all over the world, does not depend on time and provides a fast flow of information
  • No errors related to manual data input
  • Guaranteed delivery of messages (due to notify the sender about documents delivery);
  • Acceleration of logistics operations
  • Security and confidentiality of information
  • Reduction of costs associated with paper circulation

Helpful Information:

For the last 21+ years, EDI2XML has been helping companies of all sizes, in their EDI integration projects. We take care of all aspects of EDI “complexities” due to our Fully managed EDI service.

Total Automation 

Automation of everything that can be automated is the most important trend of our time. If you are looking to develop a high-volume e-commerce business, and you don’t yet have all the elements outlined, it’s time to start. We can help you with the most important part of e-commerce integration with ERP, CRM, and EDI.

Our “Fully managed cloud integration” service can solve all your integration challenges, and you’re your company achieve its business and technical goals in this highly competitive space.

Contact our team for a free consultation.

Free EDI consultation and demo

EDI Integration: Tips to better manage your online business

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This post was updated to reflect current trends and information.

 

Purchasing tickets, gifts, clothes, equipment and even groceries can now all be done online. Due to its accessibility and convenience, most of us already buy products online, from anywhere at anytime, using a smartphone or laptop, so long as we are connected to the Internet. Simple user interface, quick actions and results: everything is so easy that it only takes a few minutes. This explains why the number of online shoppers is growing at a tremendous rate, year after year. For example, the number of online shoppers in the United States alone is estimated to be 230.5 million by 2021 as compared to 215.4 million in 2017.

Online shoppers USA

Source: The Statistics Portal “Statista”  

The above graphic displays statistics about online shoppers who browsed products, compared prices or bought merchandise online at least once during the corresponding year.  Notice an increase of online buyers year over year due to the active introduction of Omnichannel retailing.

What is the omnichannel retailing?

 

Omnichannel is a cross-channel business model that companies use to improve their customer experience. “Omnis” can be translated from Latin as “existing everywhere”. In our case, covering all channels of communication with customers: as physical locations, online store, social media, live web chats, mobile applications, and telephone communications. The customer accesses all products and services in the most convenient way for him, while being always visible to the retailer.

Setting up your online store

 

Opening an online store in today’s digital world is NOT difficult; however, running the operations of an online business is of course a little more challenging. Here are some of the undeniable advantages of running an online store:

  • There are no rental fees
  • You need fewer employees to operate the store
  • Companies can overcome geographical limitations
  • Best of all, it is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year

Use the best e-commerce practice

 

In order to not be left out of the e-commerce game, you should give great attention to detail and look for the best practices in operating your e-commerce business. On the Internet, there’s a ton of great advice for entrepreneurs who have started their online business already; it is about choosing an e-commerce platform, optimizing the page load speed, creating unique content, promoting the products, and the list goes on…

However, there isn’t much information out there that talks about the technical and logistical aspects of running an online store. Critical information that e-business owners should know are things like how to exchange documents electronically between your e-business and trading partners or transport companies. There’s also the important e-commerce practice of integrating your systems and electronic exchange of data (or EDI) in order to improve speed, accuracy, quality of information and overall business efficiency.

The role of EDI integration in logistics and e-commerce

 

The term “logistics” even in the traditional retail sense was not always so clear-cut and far from being obvious. Business logistics can be defined as:

Definition of business logistics

When running an e-commerce business, regardless of which supply chain management methodology you choose (Drop-Ship or other), you will have to face a substantial amount of business related documents that you need to exchange with your trading partners.

Now, let’s do a simple calculation: how much time do your employees spend on order entry, shipping advice, invoices, generating labels? What is the error rate? Maybe that’s why the rate of returns of online sold products is sky-high. Research about e-commerce product returns shows:

statistics online return

Online return reason

In my opinion, the statistics shown above reflecting e-commerce product returns looks frightening… Is it possible to reduce the above percentages?  Can your online business avoid those errors?

EDI integration improves the quality of the data by at least 30% to 40 % reduction in the transactions containing errors, by eliminating unreadable writing or typing errors, the losses of faxes/mail, transmission, and re-manipulation of errors.

Think and manage your online business better

 

The positive effects of EDI Integration will be measurable across all of the following services: commerce, production, logistics, and finance.

In sales:

  • Sales cycle and quality of the relationship with your customers are improved and processing times reduced (reliability and efficiency of exchanging orders, shipping advice etc. …)

In production:

  • Reduced production costs
  • Better management of your stocks
  • Short production times

In logistics:

  • Reduced processing times for shipments
  • Elimination of anomalies or errors
  • Elimination of paper documents
  • Strong improvement in the quality of information

In finance:

  • Reduced billing times
  • Reduction of disputes

In conclusion, moving forward with an EDI integration project gives a business the access to an undeniable competitive advantage; companies are able to reduce the costs of its products and services, improve business processes and meet the demand of customers and suppliers. What’s better than that?

Keep learning about EDI integration and the MANY benefits it has for your online business by visiting our website EDI2XML.com or contacting us directly today!

Free EDI Consultation