Have you ever heard the saying, “what got you here won’t get you there?”
The idea behind it is pretty simple. If you were competing in a triathlon, you’d need to do running, biking, and swimming. Plenty of people in life get comfortable with one thing, like running in a triathlon, but when it comes time to swim, they try and use their “runner’s skills” to overcome the new problems.
That doesn’t work! It happens all the time in eCommerce. Sometimes what it takes to level up is not more of the same, but a whole new paradigm.
The usual story with an eCommerce website goes like this…
People go out and have a website built for their business. They log all of their products and start taking orders. In the beginning, there are two key focuses, sales and traffic.
At the start, it’s manual power behind the website. You’ve got to get people jumping back and forth from your business to your website, re-entering data, changing quantities and sales prices, updating new products and removing old products and fulfilling orders.
There’s nothing wrong with this to begin with… but as time goes on, this becomes more and more of a problem. Once you are getting regular sales and have decent sources of traffic, the next big thing to focus on is integration. That means getting your website and your business’s core systems connected so they stay in-sync.
When you do this, you free up resources, save money, and can grow your business more quickly without needing to introduce additional human resources.
Sadly, a lot of business owners out there get stuck in “manual mode” with their eCommerce website and never make the leap to having an integrated business. As a result, they slow down the growth of their business and effectively leave money on the table.
I want to tell you about one example of how “manual mode” can harm a business’s reputation and limit growth.
We at Convergence work with a company who sells expensive limited-edition products, going up to $2,000. With their products, sometimes they only have 1 or 2 of a certain kind available at any point in time. If someone purchases the last one, then that’s it.
When your business is integrated, once someone has purchased something from the website it automatically updates in the business’s system. If there’s only 1 available, it shows up on your ERP software and on the website. Everything is in-sync and works smoothly.
What happens without integration?
Well someone can end up buying the “last” limited-edition product even though it was actually already sold the day before.
Since the website has to be updated manually, it could still display “in stock,” while in reality, that product is out of stock. Imagine how unhappy a customer would be if they thought they were buying the last of a premium product, only to be told later that it was already sold.
That’s just one example. I could literally go on for hours telling you about all the ways the “manual mode” can hurt your business. Yes, there’s a time and a place for it, but at some stage your business needs to level up so you can free up internal resources, streamline your efforts, and focus on growth and positive customer experiences.
Successful eCommerce integration means you only have to do things ONCE. Your website talks to your business software, so everything is on the same page. You don’t have to bog down your employees with mindless data work that a robot should be doing instead.
We’ve had so much interest in our integration solution that we’ve put together a useful tool. It’s a cost calculator that’ll give you a look at how much money you can save. It’ll also show you how quickly your investment with Convergence will pay for itself.
It’s 100% free and really easy, just give it a try below.