With a traditional business model where you have traditionally taken orders from customers over fax, phone, or email, ecommerce integration is an issue you will soon have to deal with now you’re taking orders online. At first it can be easy to use an order to email system which sends orders from your website to your email address so you can manage it as a normal order, but as quantities grow and customers expectations on response times and delivery, this becomes very difficult to manage. That is why ecommerce integration software becomes vital to meet your growing ecommerce needs.
What is Ecommerce Integration Software?
Ecommerce integration software seamlessly integrates front end ecommerce systems such as WoocCommerce, Magento, Shopify and Amazon Marketplace with your back end ERP and accounting systems such as SAP, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Xero, Intuit QuickBooks and Acumatica. This negates the need for manual data entry, by delivering the order directly to the order management system and accounting system so that the order can be immediately fulfilled.
This integration ensures that the customer on ordering receives an immediate order confirmation which gives them a realistic delivery timescale. You can also connect in your third party logistics supplier to the system so you can also provide the end customer with tracking data, allowing them full transparency of their order status. Of course this also allows your customer service team to track orders in case of customer enquiries.
Other Integrated Systems
As well as integrating ecommerce to your ERP systems, there are several other pieces of software that can be added to your software suite which will fully integrate and help you totally eliminate data entry, and as much as possible automate the order process. The first one of these is order management software which collates orders from all channels including ecommerce, EDI data, retailer data, emails, faxes and all other channels and funnels them into your internal order process. It is also integrated with inventor management so as orders are fulfilled, stock levels are adjusted, and re-ordering of stock is automated once set thresholds are triggered.
Another add on is drop ship software which allows you to add drop ship suppliers to your system. Essentially you can list all of their products on your ecommerce system, and when your customers order them, the order goes straight through to your drop ship supplier who fulfills them directly. The potential of this for your business is massive, because you can expand your SKU list exponentially, and introduce new products very quickly.
A further development, although perhaps the driver to adopt software is EDI integration with suppliers. Large retailers and distributors have adopted EDI systems for data interchange with their suppliers. So adoption of a web EDI system or an internet-based EDI system allows you to receive order and accounting information electronically from your customers and speed up the process of ordering, delivery and accounts payable.
By adopting several of these software systems you have the ability to reduce costs on admin and data entry.
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