May 12, 2017 
Global Business to Consumer eCommerce sales has witnessed a sharp growth over the last few years. According to eMarketer, online retail is estimated to reach US$ 4.058 trillion in 2020, i.e. 14.6% of the overall retail sales of US$ 27.7 trillion.
These are both tough yet exciting times for an online business these days. With the growth in the eCommerce space comes ever increasing competition & a more online savvy customer base means it can feel impossible to keep up with consumer demands. Customers are becoming more self-aware & about the online space with tons of information about any product, even the smartest of businesses can learn a lot from their own user base OR lose them to competition.
If you are constantly feeling challenged to keep your customers happy & be profitable at the same time, you are not alone! These are a few challenges, online businesses face:
Expanding your reach
When selling just from your website is not enough or when your business matures to a level where you feel the need for expanding your reach, partnering with marketplaces and selling on them makes perfect sense. It does however come with its own set of challenges. Which marketplaces to sell on – Etsy, Amazon, eBay…or all of them? How to manage orders & returns across marketplaces?
An eCommerce/Multichannel Order Management software can help. Integrations with eCommerce Marketplaces & eCommerce front-ends (like Shopify, Magento, Prestashop etc.) should be seamless & real time. Not only should it ensure your inventory info is accurate across multiple online channels to prevent out of stocks it should also help keep pricing consistent. eTailers are partnering with marketplaces in multiple countries and cross-border platforms to reach global customers cost-effectively. There is a clear trend to leverage B2C 3PLs for managing the deliveries and returns to diverse geography customers viable. A direct integration to major shipping (eg. DHL, Delhivery, DTDC, UPS, USPS etc) & last-mile fulfillment companies to help you fulfill your orders both domestically & cross-border.
Single view of your business for operational efficiency
Typically, with order volumes and new channels being added to your business, the complexity to manage operations, increases exponentially. Online retailers are now already investing time and money to turn customers into loyal repeat buyers. But often, it’s how well quickly the merchant processes the order, ships it & later handles returns of online orders -that is the deciding factor in maintaining loyalty. Older/repeat customers are usually the most difficult to keep happy.
You should have the operational efficiency to either manually or through an OMS – manage huge volumes of holiday-season orders & be flexible enough to process “channel-specific” returns. A single dashboard view of your Orders & Returns (across channels) & customers is a hygiene factor & keeping track of customer issues resolution & trouble-ticketing, a necessity.
Managing customer expectations:
Besides discounts, customer returns & cart abandonment are the 2 major headaches for any eCommerce business. As mentioned earlier, your ability & time taken to process these returns & provide credit to the customer is a ticking bomb. Ensure you have processes & systems in place to keep them happy & make them come back to you.
Cart abandonment – many reasons why this happens: Complicated checkout process, slow shipping, lack of payment systems & most important- inaccurate/misleading product information.
Inconsistent product information is more often than not, the underlying reason for both cart abandonment & returns.
Customers these days research before they shop & the easier you make product discovery, more likelihood that they will complete the purchase. While customers search, inaccurate product descriptions, lack of availability, confusing/unstructured catalogs, lack of filtering options are a big deterrent and an irritant. Other factors which influence the discovery to purchase journey is, of course, your Site/cart design, payment flexibility & delivery options.
How can we help? Watch this video to know how we help Turbocharge your online business, here
Vinculum Solutions is a Global SaaS-based enabler for the eCommerce ecosystem that helps simplify Multichannel Order Management & Fulfilment.
- Our Ready Integrations with Global Marketplaces, webstores, 3PLs and last-mile fulfillment companies, help brands sell across borders and fulfill effectively
- Single Interface to manage all your orders, inventory and returns across channels
- Manage Dropship Orders Easily to directly
- Manage your warehouses, returns and sellers/suppliers efficiently
