Flexibility is one of the most sought after benefits when an online retailer is looking for eCommerce software to fit their business. Conforming ones business to a standard, cookie cutter structure can be detrimental to competitive advantage and how a business is able to deliver service expected by its customers.
Flexibility can be provided in a number of ways depending on what eCommerce software online retailers need. eCommerce software can offer flexibility with order management – how an order is processed and fulfilled, product management – how product data can be manipulated and organized, inventory management – how much stock you want to always keep on reserve, purchase order and supplier management – how a purchase order is sent to a supplier, or even at what time intervals systems talk to each other and update bi-directionally. These are just a few areas that online retailers can benefit from the flexibility of eCommerce software that eliminates the need to manually execute these tasks, and instead configures these tasks with accessible commercial source code that is adaptable as the retailer changes and grows.
Adapting Commercial Source Code to Fit Your Order Management Needs
The most frequent request of our clients is a request to configure their order management processes. Since we work with so many eCommerce retailers that sell on multiple channels, Magento, eBay, Amazon, offline, it makes sense that orders received from each of these channels each go through a unique process to be fulfilled. An order from Amazon, for example, may be fulfilled by Amazon FBA. With pre-built connectors to Amazon FBA, SalesWarp will recognize any order from Amazon or any of your online stores, and automatically route it to that order fulfillment center.
However, online retailers might be selling the same products on their Magento and eBay store that are stocked in five warehouses across the country. An order can be routed to the assigned warehouse or their brick and mortar store that sells the product. A sales clerk may pull that product from the sales floor and ship the product through their local UPS or Fed Ex. To make this happen, organization and flexibility is key, ensuring all inventory is accounted for at each location and store and local store clerks are notified of when to pull, pack, and ship an item. These are just some examples of flexible order management. Other online retailers may have specific requirements for domestic and international orders, or need to configure manual order verifications based on certain requirements, or have separate drop ship order flows for each vendor.
As eCommerce retailers selling across multiple channels start to see their order management process grow to be complex, commercial source code will be a very valuable asset to have with eCommerce software.