SO, WHAT IS THIS eCOMMERCE INTEGRATION YOU SPEAK OF?

Funny you should ask… eCommerce integration can be defined as the frequently “missing link” between your eCommerce website and your business software. This missing link ensures that data is kept up-to-date and in-sync between otherwise disparate systems that typically don’t “talk” to each other.

You may be able to relate to this: For every sale on your website, you receive an email with the order details. You or one of your staff then needs to enter this email into your business software, such as your ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning], accounting or inventory management software etc. This involves either re-keying every detail of the order, the wonders of “copy and paste” or perhaps even importing from clunky .csv files. In any case, this is an unpopular task that is mondane, highly repetitive and error-prone. It’s old-school and expensive.

How about setting-up new products or updating/maintaining product details and/or pricing? Yes… First you do this MANUALLY in your business software, then you DO IT AGAIN on your eCommerce website. Right? Double the effort. Twice the chance of errors. Double the cost. And if you’re selling B2B you’re doing the same for trade customer details and any special pricing you may have agreed with them.

Double-handling critical product and pricing data can’t be good for business. That’s why we automate these processes through clever eCommerce integration.

 

WHAT DO WE AIM FOR?

We eliminate double-handling of data and empower your business software to be the “authority” with regards to product and customer data. This means you only need to maintain product and/or customer details in one place. Also, online orders are automatically sync’ed to your business software from your website, meaning you don’t need to re-key or import them manually – ever again…

The above diagram shows online orders flowing from the eCommerce website on the right, via our CODI integration software in the centre, across to the orders section in your business software. Typically, we generate a draft or pending invoice against the relevant customer/debtor for such transactions, depending on what you prefer. In the case of B2C only integrations orders can be lumped into a “websales” or similar cash account.

Flowing in the other direction are product details, which includes EVERYTHING required to generate a proper product listing on the website, including product name, detailed description, categories, keywords/tags, stock on hand/inventory, images, PDF attachments, video links etc.

For B2B websites, we would expect to also sync customer/debtor details from your business software to the website so that trade customers can authenticate themselves on the website and see any special pricing setup for them in your business software. How cool is that?