How to Increase eCommerce Success with an ERP Solution
Posted on: July 22, 2020 | By: Guy Logan | Acumatica
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to keep people away from stores, more and more consumers have turned to the Internet to satisfy their shopping needs. Whether it’s buying out Amazon’s entire stock of hand sanitizer or ordering groceries online, eCommerce has seen a significant increase over the past few months. Total U.S. online sales reached $73.2 billion this past June, up 76.2 percent from just a year ago. There’s no doubt that COVID-19 has changed consumer behavior. But it’s also created many challenges for companies who are struggling to keep up.
Managing an influx of orders, tracking inventory and maintaining a user-friendly experience can be overwhelming for any company. Add a pandemic to that mix and you’ve got yourself a company on the brink of survival. But that doesn’t mean this is the end. Having a robust eCommerce platform is essential to navigating the challenges we face in today’s world. That’s why companies are combining their eCommerce platform with an ERP solution to successfully manage their online business. But what exactly can an ERP solution do differently? We’ve identified two common pain points for eCommerce platforms to tell you exactly why you need an ERP solution to solve these problems.
1. I have so much going on that I’m starting to lose track of what I’m supposed to do to manage my eCommerce website. This is more than I can handle!
When you’re overwhelmed, it’s easy to lose track of things like order fulfillment or sales tax collection. This can lead to wasted time and money for your company. With an ERP solution like Acumatica’s Commerce edition, you can control the entirety of your eCommerce store’s functionality from a single dashboard. Through this dashboard, you can see real-time status checks on orders, cancellations and refunds. That way, you can quickly identify any issues and have enhanced visibility into your order fulfillment and product availability, leading to an efficient sales process and happy customers. Shipping, payment, order fulfillment and inventory data flows are also automated, saving time and resources for your company.
2. I want to use the data collected from my eCommerce site to understand where my customers are coming from, what they’re buying and more. But all this information is coming from different places and I just can’t find a way to use it properly.
There are many mid market retailers, distributors, and manufacturers who struggle with systems of data that are incapable of integration with other operations. When your information for eCommerce, reporting and financials are disparate, it can feel impossible to keep company operations running smoothly. Acumatica’s Commerce edition provides an end-to-end business management solution that can be seamlessly integrated with BigCommerce. With any standard web browser, it can even be accessed in the cloud. This helps to streamline business processes and connect product and customer information between Acumatica and BigCommerce without external IT support.
Start Your Digital Transformation
In January 2020, Acumatica announced a new partnership with BigCommerce, the leading, cloud-based eCommerce solution for midmarket companies. eCommerce was combined with the financials, inventory, operations and reporting tools of an ERP system through the integration of the two software solutions. And the result? A powerful and comprehensive real-time platform that grows with your company.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed the way we see and use eCommerce. And it’s not too late to start your digital transformation journey and get on track to develop a strong eCommerce platform. As a proud Acumatica partner, Logan Consulting is here to assist you every step of the way. Talk to us today to learn more about how you can start navigating the pandemic.