5 Top Software Vendors in Omnichannel Commerce in 2021

It’s not easy connecting all your sales channels. Making sure that brick and mortar stores, the online store, live shopping channels and others are all in sync can become complicated. Retailers need to get all departments, all sales channels, suppliers and fulfilment operations on the same page. That’s why I’ve put together a list of the top software vendors in omnichannel commerce – to help you skip the software sourcing part.

It’s not an easy task to connect an omnichannel software vendor to existing systems.  Fortunately, some companies are really good at it. Others – just good at saying they are.

And here come the knights in shiny digital armor to rescue the day. The following 5 vendors have built omnichannel retail capabilities ready to be plugged into existing retail ecosystems. They are now the go-to elite for large retailers in need of upgrading their IT infrastructure.

5. Kibo – unified commerce.

Number 5 on our top software vendors in omnichannel list is Kibo. In 2015 former Shopatron became Kibo. The company now sports an API-first, microservices based platform that enables B2B and B2C ecommerce as well as order management, inventory systems and point of sale solutions.

Kibo – unified cloud commerce – number 5 on top omnichannel software vendors

The company was founded in September 2000 by Ed Stevens and Sean Collier. Since then, it has evolved into an integrated SaaS platform that connects offline and online orders management, making it easier for customers to purchase from retailers.

The company offers specific omnichannel solutions, most important being:

  1. in-store pick-up
  2. ship from store
  3. inventory lookup
  4. vendor dropship

Shopatron targets midsize retailers and its main benefit is the advanced order routing. The platform combines online and offline sales and claims inventory visibility across channels.

Pros:

  • great fit for midsize companies
  • developer friendly and easily integrate-able due to its API-first architecture
  • headless commerce structure – enables building disconnected systems on existing software structure
  • good fit for larger retailers that look for a quick roll-out for the solutions listed above
  • can connect multiple sales channels and direct orders to the right fulfilment point
  • works for both B2B and B2C commerce
  • reduced costs and quick roll out

Cons:

  • implementations can become costly due to development costs
  • backend can seem outdated or complicated
  • analytics may not be its strong point

4. NetSuite Suite commerce

NetSuite was already rocking a great SaaS ERP product and a fully flavored ecommerce solution when it acquired OrderMotion in 2013. Now the company can provide inventory management across channels, a single customer view, business intelligence data and omnichannel order management. In the past years the product has made the company one of the top software vendors in omnichannel with its SuiteCommerce collection of products.

Suite is no. 4 on our top software vendors in omnichannel commerce list

The company, among the first to bet on SaaS platforms, was acquired by Oracle in 2016 for $9.6 billion and its multi-channel software became the go-to option for its 23 000 Oracle customers.

NetSuite started as NetLedger, envisioned as an online accounting tool, that later turned to an wider array of company management tools.

Prior to its Oracle acquisition, Netsuite was very active in acquiring companies itself. In 2013 it acquired Retail Anywhere, a POS solutions company that became its POS commerce solution. In 2014 it acquired both Venda, an ecommerce SaaS company, and eBizNet Solutions, a company focused on WMS (warehouse management system) solutions.

Netsuite has decided omnichannel is a perfect mix when it connects companies focused o separate blocks in the retail chain.

Pros:

  • Extensive know how of retail operations management
  • Integrated SaaS solutions
  • Great record of acquisitions
  • Single view of customer across channels
  • Multi-channel channel inventory view and order management
  • Extensive list of customers, a lot of them enterprise Oracle customers
  • Great uptime

Cons:

  • NetSuite is “broadly focused”: its solutions work with healthcare, finance, manufacturing and many, many others. That leaves little room for actual retail innovation
  • Expeeeensive
  • The solution is targeted at enterprise customers or midsized to large companies, a lot of them Oracle customers
  • Complicated to operate and train staff on
  • Complex pricing and licensing structure

3. New in the top software vendors for omnichannel: VTEX

VTEX was nowhere to be seen on this list 5 years ago. The company started in Brasil as an ecommerce company catering to the local market. It’s innovative technology caught the attention of Walmart as it entered the Brasil retail market. They’ve created a solid presence for the company in the country and expanded regionally in LATAM.

Companies such as Sony, Samsung, Adidas and many others has chosen VTEX as their B2C and B2B multi-channel software suppier.

From all the other companies on this list VTEX is the best in many fields, chief of which is its modern infrastructure, matched only by the likes of Shopify, which is more aimed towards ecommerce rather than multi channel sales.

Pros:

  • Great user experience
  • Headless, API-based ecommerce
  • Microservices based
  • Available globally
  • Apps marketplace and third party developers
  • Great developer support
  • Fast time to market implementations

Cons:

  • Not much customisation can be done on the core platform. It’s a multi-tennant cloud platform.
  • The platform can be sometimes slow

2. SAP Commerce

SAP commerce was once a thriving, innovative company called Hybris. Afterwards SAP purchased it and there’s almost no way to find out how you can implement the software. Just trolling. The solution is good and it used to be number one on this list. Not anymore.

This omnichannel solution is scalable and built on a modern and flexible architecture, that allows interaction with all interfaces. Its order management solution, inventory and commerce application are built to work together seamless and easily connect with other systems.

SAP commerce’s solutions work both B2B and B2C and can handle inputs from multiple inventory sources and outputs on multiple sales channels. Moreover, the solution features a central content management system that enables retailers to push content across a multitude of interfaces.

Pros

  • scalable solution
  • feature packed
  • fully integrated solutions
  • works B2B and B2C
  • modern architecture
  • supports multiple interfaces
  • works online, offline and on multiple other channels
  • flexible enough to work with open source technologies

Cons

  • training may be expensive
  • professionals able to implement and train are hard to find, due to an increase of platform demand
  • customization and setup can be time and resource consuming
  • it’s part of SAP

1. Shopify Plus

Shopify is an amazing company and its communication, style, products and company culture really stand out. It used to be the small kid on the block but now, in term of product, market reach and its huge growth in 2020 it really shines.

It makes sense that its core enterprise product can work on multiple channels. It’s incredibly stable as an ecommerce platform, migration is extremely fast, works as a point of sale solution and you can integrate all logistics on it. Plus, it comes with the experience of having more stores on its platform than any other company.

Shopify Plus takes the crown on my list of top vendors for omnichannel software, 5 years after it was not even included here. Kudos, Shopify.

So that’s it – these are the best of breed. Of course, there are more out there that deliver great products and I could name Intershop or SalesForce Cloud . They, however are less inclined to omnichannel or have a really new found love for omnichannel retail. The vendors mentioned above are leading the pack in omnichannel retail implementation, especially for large customers.

Ecommerce sales strategy for beginners in 2021

Ecommerce sales strategy for beginners is a must. Even if it sounds a bit daunting at first it’s a must have if you are planning on stepping up your sales in 2021. 

Maybe you’ve just set up your online store or you have some traction already but you know there’s room for improvement. I’ll help you understand how you can extend your online sales with additional channels and strategies you haven’t thought of. 

Let’s dive in with a favourite topic of mine:

Using new Sales Channels in your ecommerce Sales Strategy

First of all – what is a sales channel? Simply put: any method of getting products to the market so customers can purchase them. For example, your online store is a sales channel. It showcases products, it tells their price and allows customers to purchase the products.

Let’s assume that by now you have already started your online shop. Ecommerce strategy for beginner tip no.1: start an online store 🙂 . Alright, that was obvious.

The web store is up and running and customers start showing up. But the web store should not be your only sales channel. Your customers are real human beings with all sorts of habits. One day they’re browsing your store, the next they’re hanging out on Facebook and meanwhile they search product info on their mobile phone. You should be there also.

Start a live shopping session. Maybe add your products to a Facebook store. You could build a mobile app that engages customers outside your store and collects orders.

It’s not just online, either. Offline engagement shouldn’t be a taboo either. Maybe a brick and mortar showroom for your main products is not cost – effective. Especially during a global pandemic. But you could set up a pop-up shop occasionally, following health protocols and engaging your fans.

There are numerous ways you can add sales channels to increase your market reach and some are really easy to set up. Others are a bit more complicated but in the end it’s mostly about your product, your brand and of course your budget. Let’s see which are the most popular sales channels and how you could benefit from them.

Live shopping

Live shopping has taken the world by storm. It’s engaging, fun, allows you to connect to your fans and has conversion rates of up to 9%. It’s one of the most effective ways you can use to improve your conversion rate while also improving customer experience.

The basic concept is that you start a live video stream and present and sell products to your customers. They are watching you either on their favourite social media or on your website (this can be done with a live commerce software). They interact with you by asking questions or chatting with one another. Through these interactions you get a sense of what the market actually needs and wants from you.

This is a great ecommerce sales channel for both beginning ecommerce startups as well as big retailers. In China, for example, it’s so big that some live shopping assistants can sell up to $140 million worth of merchandise a day during live shows.

Call center

Out of all the sales channels you may choose there’s really just two that really fit together with your online store. One is live shopping, presented above. The other one is the call centre, which can be as simple as a phone line for customers that need more info on products. But it can also be much more than that.

Ecommerce sales strategy for beginners: the call center

(Zappos’ call center is legendary and effective. It’s both a sales and support channel.)

It can just as well be a full fledged business operation with live assistants answering calls and helping customers choose the right product, handling orders and managing complaints. It can also mean people calling prospects or indecisive potential customers or just plain cold calling sales leads. Or sending them personalized SMS’s. No matter the choices you will be making, the phone is a great connection to the customer and you should build a smooth phone support operation.

Social media

You could ask – isn’t social media more about marketing and communication, connecting and understanding your customer? Yes it is but it can work just as great as a sales channel.

For example – Facebook is betting big on ecommerce, Twitter used to test ecommerce options (they’ve since dropped it) and YouTube partnered with QVC to set up live shopping. Pinterest is huge for ecommerce and their users spend 50% more than other users on online shopping. That is great news as Pinterest is more efficient into turning views to sales than any other social network. It works awesome for industries such as travel, home-deco and fashion.

Mobile Apps

What is the device you think customers use the most throughout the day? It’s the smartphone. Mobile usage has gone through the roof lately and it’s bound to continue.

Ecommerce sales strategy for beginners: phone usage is growing
Smartphone users in the US has vastly increased in the past years. Source.

So you want to be close to your customers. Mobile apps provide a special sales channel, one that’s personal and it makes impulse buying all the more attractive.

How do you add a mobile sales channel?

There’s an app for that. Actually more:

  1. Shopgate makes it possible to turn your store into an app. It connects with Magento, Shopify, Prestashop and other ecommerce platforms to enable store owners to build mobile apps. It works on both iOS and Android operating systems and provides support for both smartphones and tablets. It also allows you to set up online to offline processes such as order online, pick up in store.
  2. Shoutem is not built specifically for eCommerce but among others it supports building mobile apps for your Shopify store. The interface is quite simple and doesn’t offer many options but it gets the job done if you happen to be a Shopify user.

Give mobile apps for your store a try. The more smartphones become a part of our daily lives, the more we will use them. Your store can benefit from it.

So that’s that for mobile sales strategy for ecommerce beginners. Let’s step up your game with …

Pop-up Shops

I know. The physical stores are dead and all. Except they’re not. People still like to see and feel products.

Pop up shops are temporarily stores, in the real world, where online store owners can showcase their products and interact with their customers. The pop-up shop sales channel has really taken off (with a bit of sudden drop during the pandemic but don’t mind that). Store owners have started adopting this online-offline connection. It’s effective, doesn’t tie you to a long, fixed cost and it allows you to get an upper hand, especially if you have a great personality. Which I bet you do.

(Adidas pop-up shop. Not exactly low-budget but hey – one can dream, right?)

Setting up a pop-up shop is a personal choice but works great if it’s posted either in a high-traffic area (such as a popular shopping center) or at an industry event. For example you could set up a pop-up shop at a home-deco event if you are a store selling home decorations. It is a great way to interact with customers and get feedback on your merchandise.

Companies such as Storefront help shop owners find retail space temporarily by connecting them with retail space owners. To help online stores they’ve put together an ebook that is free for download. I encourage you to have a look at it as it explains the main steps in setting up (pup-up) shop.

Online Marketplaces

Last but definitely not least – the marketplaces. Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, Sears, Buy.Com, NewEgg.com and more. You name them. They provide lots of options to lots of users and chances are your next customers are there shopping right now. Now more than ever as many buyers are flocking to the online marketplaces to discover things they cannot buy in store anymore.

( Ebay – the original online marketplace )

Online marketplaces are key to ecommerce strategy for beginners. The reason marketplaces are the last on potential sales channels is because I want to emphasise just how important they are. Just like the “old” shopping centers, customers go to marketplaces because diversity means options and options mean they can find what they are looking for.

Diversity drives customers. It drives sales. So you want to be there but plan ahead before you dive in.

As an online store start-up you should be looking for as much exposure as you can get but still try to focus on the right marketplace. Amazon and Ebay key parts of the ecommerce strategy for beginners but before you join them, ask yourself:

  • are these marketplaces right for me? Not all that’s great is great for you. Just because they have traffic, that doesn’t mean you will get traffic and if you do, you don’t know whether that traffic will turn to sales. The most important aspects you should be looking for are exposure and sales.
  • can my product be found? expect to have competition. If you are among the few selling the product AND your product is popular, then the answer is YES, the product will be found by the customer. If your product is also sold by hundreds of other sellers, there are thin chances you will be the one showcasing the product. Part of your ecommerce sales strategy should be to make your product stand out. That means – make it look special and attractive through copy, media and of course, price.
  • will my product be purchased? If you have indeed managed to get customers to have a look at what you are offering, you must also get them to buy. Most important things are the way you showcase the product to create urgency and scarcity. Think of this in terms of sales strategy: “A beautiful hand-crafted lamp” is … meh. “A beautiful hand-crafted lamp in LIMITED offer” creates the feeling of scarcity and therefore urgency in purchase decision. P.S. – just to seal the deal – add a sprinkle of affordability (“just $49.50“).
  • do customers trust me? Marketplaces usually have some sort of peer-review mechanism. Customers can review sellers according to their fairness. Your reviews are your digital reputation. Positive reviews mean more sales, negative reviews can mean NO sales. So try to be as fair, effective and open with your customers.

Handling orders from marketplaces.

Part of the ecommerce sales strategy for beginners is making sure you can receive and fulfil orders. Listing your products on all marketplaces can seem like the right choice but it’s usually not. Each marketplace is a sales channel itself. You should be sticking to those that work for you and improve your experience there. Until your business is large enough to allow you to handle orders from more marketplaces, focus on fulfilling orders effective and quickly.

Most marketplaces offer some form of integration with your existing store and you should use those. If not native, there should be some plugins or products that make integration possible.

Product information should be going out of your online store and orders should be synced with your order management system. This way, the order management team can have a single point of entry for orders instead of getting lost in a dozen of order management systems scattered throughout the marketplaces you are using.

The big ones will get bigger

Marketplace orders will continue to be a large part of your business. You can be sure this is a cornerstone of ecommerce strategy for beginners. Marketplaces will become so large in the future that they will dwarf those from your online store. The reason is people tend to gather and shop where they will find diverse products and retailers. Just like in the real world. Online is even more so – marketplaces get even more traffic from search engines, have more money to spend on ads and are better at keeping customers returning.

Connecting sales channels – a key part of ecommerce strategy for beginners

Each sales channel you will be adding will bring you more exposure and more sales if handled correctly. The sales channels I’ve described so far are the most popular ones right now. But they are not the only ones. As technology evolves, so will commerce. Live shopping didn’t register as a trend until two years ago. New channels will pop-up and some I haven’t mentioned here will probably increase in importance.

Think about the impact Internet of Things will have. Maybe in the future the greatest sales channel for groceries will be smart appliances. Think of a refrigerator than can place orders for customers when it’s depleted. It sure is going to be an interesting challenge to integrate those in a sales channels mix.

( Multichannel sales strategy may prove to be a winning formula)

Ecommerce marketing strategy for beginners

Marketing – used by many, done by few, deeply understood by very, very few. You need to incorporate marketing and especially digital marketing in your ecommerce sales strategy, even if you are a beginner.

Marketing means first of all communication. Talking, showing, describing products to the people most likely to buy it.

It’s that simple. The basics need to be simple.

If you are going to survive as an online store owner, you need to keep your marketing basics simple. You have a product. Hopefully a great one. There are people who want to buy that product. Most don’t know they want to buy it from you. You need to show them why they should buy the product you’re selling. You need to show them why they should buy it from you. And then, if everything I’ve shown you so far has been decently implemented, just let them buy it.

Everything else is gimmicks. If you’ve got the basics right, everything else will fall into place.

Ecommerce sales strategy for beginners: find the right market

To get people to buy your product, you need to know who these people are, what they want and how they act. Most likely not everybody will want your product. But if you’ve done even a bit of ecommerce sales strategy for beginners, you will be in the upper percentile in your market.

Targeting demographics

Yup, your customers are “the target”. Why is it called that, you ask? Well, because your communication targets them. Until the internet became the norm and we’ve started gathering more data than we can handle on customers, we used to define them through demographics. That means basic info on consumers. Age, sex, marital status, location, education … this kind of data.

( Pictured here: advertising in the 60s – the Mad Men show. Not pictured here: Google algorythms and tabacco advertising ban )

These targeting methods were made popular when mass marketing was just blooming, in the days of TV, print and outdoor ads made by the likes of Mad Men. When you ran your ad in the magazine or on national TV, you needed to know who’s going to use your product, make sure you understand their psychology and shout from the top of your lungs how cool the product is. Once the ad was approved, there was no going back. Advertising agencies would research, create and test the ad before the campaign was launched because there was no way you could change, tweak or even pull back a campaign in real time.

So demographics were the bread and butter when you would push your message to the market. But the Internet changed that into …

Ecommerce sales strategy for beginners: Targeting behaviours

Basically, if you were a mid-class urban wife with no college education in the 60’s there were slim chances you would receive ads trying to sell you repair tools for your car. Even if you were actually a mechanic. The same would hold true if you were a man and would be looking for a sewing machine to fulfil your lifelong passion of becoming a fashion designer.

You would have to find those products yourself. We’ve come a long way and thankfully, we now have the freedom to fix our own cars and sew our pants, no matter the gender. Note: we should make this better.

Big changes in sales and marketing strategies started being needed when contextual marketing (the ads you see when searching on Google), interactive advertising or behavioural marketing hit the … shelves (?).

The last one, behavioural marketing, is probably the single most important aspect in online retailing. Technology now personalizes marketing and responds to customer behaviour.

For example Amazon’s recommended products (“See what others have purchased”) is a form of behavioural marketing that is based on a complex research on previous customers behaviour before they purchased something. Simply put, when people would purchase something, their interaction trail (the products they’ve seen so far) becomes an indication that people taking the same or similar steps would most likely purchase similar products. This is called a recommender system (or recommender engine). It’s kind of a big thing in our world today.

The ads you see on Google feature a similar concept. They are shown as to answer your needs. Some ads respond better than others at what you are looking for and thus have a better chance of getting clicked. Google trusts this system so much that they invoice advertising on clicks, rather than how many people have viewed the ad.

In terms of sales and marketing strategy we went from effectively targeting people to targeting people’s behaviour. Still, demographics and customer profiles are very important and a lot of what you will be doing is to try to guess customer responses based on demographics assumptions. Such assumptions might mean you will favour ladies over men if you are selling women’s clothing (doh!) or rather more complex assumptions such as “Men over 32, employed and married are more likely to buy a family car”.

Indifferently of your assumptions, test them and always quantify your results with …

How to use analytics software in your ecommerce sales strategy?

Here you go … numbers. Charts. Estimates. Hope Miss N., your math teacher, was your favourite back in school, because this is going to be damn complex. Nah, just kidding. Most analytics software is pretty much plug and play and the numbers and charts I mentioned are usually generated on the fly and in such a manner you can easily understand.

You can’t have marketing without analytics and research. Fortunately, it is a lot easier now for a small online store than it was 40 years ago for the largest companies in the world. What is not so fortunate is that it’s easier for everybody so you’ll have to dive deep and understand what your analytics are saying. So will the competition.

Once you have installed Google Analytics or one of these other ecommerce analytics software, you will probably dive in and see what your customers are doing. What you will want to look for is patterns that lead to increased sales. Patterns are key in ecommerce sales strategy for beginners (and advanced) retailers. Special products, a certain type of copy, products featuring media versus those that don’t have media. Look for what makes your sales increase.

Targeting, knowing, marketing – the most important ecommerce marketing strategies for your online store

So you know the target, you have the analytics figures, now it’s time for the actual marketing. The web is full of resources to fine tune your online marketing understanding. I will show you which are the most effective ways of marketing so you will have a bird’s eye view on what makes an online store sell.

Search Marketing: SEO

As a startup there are really little things you can do better with smaller budgets than writing quality content and optimizing for search engines. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a really large concept and many people earn their living through SEO services. You will probably ask a SEO expert to help you find the perfect balance so your store will show up in search engine results. But before you do that, have a look at the basics. These are the things you will need to keep in check so Google will bring the right customers to your store:

  • content: write great and extensive content. For humans. Describe your product like you would want it described for yourself. Don’t do “keyword spamming” which is the result of cramming keywords in your description so more people would find you. It just doesn’t work that way.
  • code: your ecommerce store is visible on customers’ browsers thanks to programming languages that output information in the way we are accustomed to. Search engines index this information and if you are to have your store indexed properly, you need the right code. If you are not technically savvy, better call someone who knows what they are doing.
  • links: get other (relevant) websites to post links to your store. This must count as number one when it comes to SEO in any ecommerce sales strategy for beginners. Links are the key for search engines (aham…aham…Google) to rank your website.

Email marketing

Ask your customers to leave you their email address so you can update them on news and offers. This is a great way to get people right back on your store.

But don’t annoy them and don’t do spam! Everybody hates unsolicited email. Make sure your customers give you their permission to send them emails. You can use apps such as Mailchimp or CampaignMonitor to save customers’ emails and then send them newsletters.

Social media marketing

Where would you go if you were to market a product? The answer is fairly simple: where people gather and interact. Social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest are now used by billions of people. That’s where your online store should be.

Just like interacting with friends, some things work better than others. Here are some tips on how to use social media to interact with potential and existing customers:

  1. listen first, talk later: social media is a great place to gather insights on your market, your products and even your brand. Some of those insights may not be friendly but you should pay attention to them nevertheless.
  2. focus on building strong bonds rather than gathering masses: it’s just like with your friends. It doesn’t matter if you have 10 or 10 000 friends. What matters is how strong your connection with said friends are. And probably you will not reaaaaly have 10 000 real friends. It’s better to have few, engaged fans rather than many fans that do not relate to your brand or product.
  3. find the influencers: some people wield more influence than others in their social circle. And they somehow do it naturally. You should get close to these people, develop relationships with them, show them your products and share content they might find interesting.
  4. provide value, not sales pitches: yes, your products are great but don’t bore people with constant product sales. Provide content. If you sell hats, show fans their history, tell them about the manufacturing precess, showcase famous hats. Make it interesting and valuable.
  5. be patient and constant: don’t tweet 40 times one day and than stop for a month because no one followed or retweeted you. Social media success takes time, patience and constant effort.

If your social media strategy is not going the way you’d want it to, there are always the ads. Most social networks provide ways for you to get closer to your potential customers, faster. Most people call them ads  . Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest – they all provide advertiser with the possibility of engaging fans through ads.

And speaking of ads, one of the most effective way of advertising your store and products is …

Using paid search as key driver in ecommerce sales strategy for beginners

Remember those Google ads I’ve mentioned earlier? That is Google AdWords, a very effective form of advertising that places ads on search results, ads that are directly related to your search.

For example, if you were to search for “cars”, you will be shown the natural search results AND special search ads. These ads are fuelled by advertisers that pay each time someone clicks one of their ads.

You can be one of those advertisers. By carefully analysing traffic and allocating search ad budget, you can determine with high accuracy the number of clicks you need to convert visitors to buyers. Because search ads are contextual, this means you can optimise your ads in such a way that only those interested in purchasing your product might click it.

However, paid search campaigns are usually better managed by professionals. Even though you might spend a little extra for someone to handle your ads, just leave it to the professional.

And one more thing: Google is not the only one providing the option for paid search ads. Bing does it and so does Amazon.

Performance marketing

Performance – well that sounds nice. What is it?

Performance marketing is a broad term that means advertisers pay a fee depending on how well an action is performed. This action can mean showing an ad a certain number of times or making that ad transform into a special action. The standard actions you might want to encourage are:

  • clicking
  • downloading a certain file (say a product catalog )
  • showing interest in a product (the user becomes a lead)
  • buying a product

And because marketing people happen to love acronyms, you might find the info above coded in three-letter words:

  • CPM means Cost Per Mille (that’s Latin for thousand) – one thousands being the standard minimal block of ad views you can purchase to show an ad.
  • CPA means Cost Per Action – the generic code for any action you might define with those selling the ad space. It is used for sales and therefore sometimes referred to as Cost per Acquisition.
  • CPC means Cost Per Click – the cost you will be paying whenever someone clicks on your ads
  • CPL means Cost Per Lead – the cost paid whenever a visitor shows interest in your product

Performance marketing is sometimes used interchangeably with affiliate marketing. That is  more of a misconception, as affiliate marketing, though popular, is a subset of performance marketing. It works as a shared revenue deal, where the retailer shares a portion of the revenue with the publisher (the one displaying the ad), whenever advertising turns into purchases.

Which are the major affiliate marketing sites?

Affiliate marketing is a very important part of any ecommerce sales strategy for beginners. Affiliate ads are ran through affiliate marketing services. These cover three very important aspects: they connect advertisers to publishers, they make sure all sales are registered and attributed to the right publisher and they handle transactions between advertisers and publishers.

If you decide to go along the affiliate marketing path, here are the most important affiliate networks that can help you sell your products:

  1. CJ Affiliate (formerly Conversion Junction) is the global leader in pay for performance programs. It is the home to many publishers that can help you run your ads.
  2. Rakuten Advertising is the big contender to CJ Affiliate and a fast growing one.
  3. ShareASale is a great affiliate marketing resource for retailers. Slightly smaller as it may be, it is still very effective.
  4. ClickBank works great for entrepreneurs and content creators. It is effective and easy to use.
  5. 2Checkout is another fast growing performance marketing company that’s focused on software and digital products.

Using Comparison Shopping Engines to get in front of your customers

A great way to get your product out there is to place it in comparison shopping engine. These applications gather information from more online stores and show potential customers what is the best way to shop in terms of pricing.

It basically works for those that are price competitive so before you join such a program, make sure your prices are aligned with the market.

(Shopzilla is one of the most popular comparison shopping engines)

Most comparison shopping engines are CPC based and you will pay anytime people click your products, arriving at your web store. The top four most popular are Google Shopping, Shopzilla, Shopping.com and Pricegrabber. Getting listed can draw targeted traffic and can mean a very scalable way of converting traffic to sales.

Other marketing options

So there you have it – these are the most effective ways you can market your new online store. This is the start of creating an amazing ecommerce sales strategy for beginners. But don’t stop here, don’t settle. Marketing in the digital world is usually a matter of imagination. Be curious and try new things that might be fit for your online store.

For example you can attract relevant bloggers to mention your store and review the products. You can put out press releases and talk to the media. You can  run contests and sweepstakes to increase reach and turn fans into loyal customers. Once you have the basics up and running, you will be ready to add more and more marketing options to your online store.

Testing and optimising your ecommerce sales strategy for beginners

Remember: your work is never done. If you want to keep your customers happy and sales growing, you need to constantly optimise and tweak your store. To do so you can run tests that determine what works and what does not. When testing you will be looking for either errors, bottlenecks or usability issues. Do so through:

  1. Functional testing: test your store’s functions. The navigation, user account, user login and others. Each needs to be thoroughly tested and improved
  2. Process testing: we are talking business processes here. These are things like managing orders, fulfillment, shipping or warehouse management. If your company process don’t run smooth, customers get their orders delayed, mixed or canceled.
  3. SEO testing: as I’ve mentioned previously, search engines will always be a very important factor in driving traffic to your online store. Check to see how you stand against competitors and against previous positioning.
  4. Mystery shopping: put yourself in the customer’s shoes and see how’s everything going. Place an order and see how operators behave, how long does it take for the order to arrive and more. You might find some interesting things there.
  5. Hot areas testing: some parts of your shop are more important than others. You can improve conversion rate through a careful  inspection and recurrent A/B testing of what you could call “hot areas”:
    • Homepage
    • Product page
    • Checkout cart
    • Payments
    • Forms requiring customer input
    • Mobile interfaces

Customer journey maps

A great way to see how customers interact with your company is using customer journey maps that help improve customer experience. These “maps” show your existing sales channels and how customers interact with them. Customers may find you on social media, browse products on the web store and place orders through the phone. This is a customer journey map.

When these journey maps get too complex you have to constantly test and look for signs of problems of sources of frustrations for your customers. It may be a poorly designed checkout cart or the voice of your phone operators. By understanding your target customers and their journey maps you can have a guide to testing what works and what doesn’t on your store.

Testing means improving and you should strive to make your store better and better. Little improvements and constant focus on making the customer experience better turns your store into a success. So keep testing :).

This is your basic ecommerce sales strategy for beginners

Wow!  If you’ve managed to get this far I believe you are ready to start your own store. Give yourself a pat on the back for having the patience to get through all this data. It’s not easy, I know, but it is a lot easier than just starting a store and then figuring it all out along the way.

I am more than happy if I’ve managed to help you on your path to becoming an ecommerce entrepreneur. If this guide was useful to you, please refer it to someone else who may be in the need for know-how.

You’ve taken a large step ahead to running your own business and online store. You may be anxious and a bit scared but rest assured. So was Jeff Bezos when he started Amazon. Knowledge, hard work, innovation and persistence will get you far. Have a safe trip in reaching out for your dream!

Ecommerce fulfillment: The 2021 guide

You are an ecommerce professional, you are receiving orders from customers and you want to understand how to better fulfill orders. This guide is all about ecommerce fulfillment.

Let’s get started:

What is ecommerce fulfillment?

Good question! Although the term fulfillment is used quite a lot, not everyone has a clear grasp on the whole idea. I mean – why fulfillment? Well, it’s actually a pretty simple concept. Order fulfillment for ecommerce is anything that has to do with fulfilling your promise to the customer. That promise is you’re going to ship the products they’ve purchased, those products are going to be in good condition and they will arrive as soon as possible.

Ecommerce fulfillment also covers the reverse process (also called reverse logistics). That means getting merchandise back from the customer. That type of operations happen:

  • in case of a package return
  • when the customer refused the package
  • the shipping company was not able to deliver the goods

So basically when your ecommerce business is fulfilling an order, it is actually making good on its promise to deliver merchandise in the best way possible. Although the concept is not that really hard to grasp, making it happen is a little bit more complicated. No worries, I’ll walk you through the process.

In order to make sure your ecommerce fulfillment operations work perfectly, you’ll have to look for the answer to four very important questions:

  1. am I moving the goods in the most effective way? This is a question you will always have to be answering to. The answer is usually no. If you have answered yes too many times – you are not really trying that hard. The truth is ecommerce fulfillment operations are evolving very, very fast and there is probably always something you can do better.
  2. am I always shipping the right products? You have to understand that sometimes you will not be shipping the right products. Yup – that’s a fact. It may happen when you’re using a drop-shipping service or when your team is overwhelmed with the number of orders (say during the holidays). You have to minimize these type of mistakes and always strive to improve on the way you do business.
  3. is my team working in sync or are there any communication or operational bottlenecks? Your ecommerce business will not always run smooth. The most common reasons are either the team is not communicating properly or the IT systems are not fully connected (say your order management and inventory management tools are not synced). You have to stay alert and solve these type of issues as soon as possible.
  4. is my ecomerrce fulfillment scalable? You won’t need to ask yourself this question in the first days but eventually you will have to check if your operations are ready to scale if you’re successful. To do so – try wondering what will happen if all of a sudden you were to receive each day ten times as much orders as you’re expecting right now. How about if your sales were to increase one hundred or one thousand times? Would you be ready? How would you manage this change?

The 5 steps in ecommerce fulfillment

Fulfillment is probably the most complex and tedious part of ecommerce. It is also the one thing that is the least talked about in terms of ecommerce. It’s not flashy and it’s not cool. It’s complex, involves a lot of tweaking and a lot of work to getting it right. While most ecommerce guides will point out to the importance of picking the right shade of orange for the “Buy now” button, few will speak of how important fulfillment is.

Just to get a glimpse of how important fulfillment is – think of your car. While having the right color and the right type of leather is important, the car won’t start without an engine. Fulfillment is the engine that keeps ecommerce going.

There are just five basic steps in fulfilling ecommerce orders. Four of them are mandatory and one is optional. Hopefully you will cover this last step as few times as possible. These five very important steps are:

  1. Receiving the orders
  2. Receiving the products
  3. Processing the order
  4. Shipping the ordered products
  5. Handling order returns
Ecommerce fulfillment process

Overview of the Ecommerce Fulfillment Process (including returns)

1. Ecommerce fulfillment: Receiving the orders

Customers will place the orders through one of your sales channels. It may be your online store, on the phone or through a mobile application or a pop-up store.

There is a great variety of order management software out there. What matters from a ecommerce fulfillment standpoint is what the order info should contain. Here is the minimal information you will be needing:

  1. who is handling this order (who will be managing the order and who will actually be picking and packing the products)
  2. the customer info – usually name, address, whether the customer is a person or a company, whether the customer has already purchased from your store before
  3. special discounts or shipping conditions – this may happen when the customer has used a voucher or a special promotion and is entitled to a smaller shipping fee, a gift or a bonus product.
  4. order info – total cost, estimated shipping cost, whether the order is prepaid or paid on delivery, and where you will be shipping the products from (either internally from your warehouse or from a drop shipper)

Most of the time, you will be receiving more info from your order management tool but these are the essential blocks of information to keep in mind.

2. Ecommerce fulfillment: Receiving the products

Before moving on to the actual order fulfillment bullet points I have to make a point. You don’t HAVE to fulfill the orders yourself. Some companies outsource their fulfillment to other companies. My advice is you should keep most of your fulfillment operations within your company. You won’t be able to ship products across the globe but you can pick, pack and carefully wrap orders for your customers, especially if you are a growing ecommerce business.

When medium and large online stores are fighting each other over consumer mind share, we only see the marketing and superficial aspect of this battles. But the fact is, underneath all this visible struggles, the real battles are won in the warehouse. Your real chance for success stands in picking, packing and shipping the right products, within the timeframe you’ve promised.

It may seem hard to handle ecommerce fulfillment operations and it sure is. But because it is hard, you have to master it before the competition does. Walmart and Amazon, two of the largest retailers in the world, have also two of the best supply chains in the world. It’s not that these companies have developed spectacular fulfillment operations because of their huge sales but the other way around.

Glad we’ve got that out of the way. Now – what’s the best way you can receive products in your inventory?

It all starts with an order to your supplier. It is usually called a “Purchase Order” as you are placing an order to purchase products. We will assume that you have already set up an agreement with your suppliers and they will ship the products. You will probably pay as you place your order, when the order arrives or at a given time after the order has arrived, if you have agreed as such with your supplier.

How to check the products received from my supplier?

Once the products have arrived at your warehouse you will need to:

  1. verify their integrity – check whether the goods are damaged and if so return those that are damaged
  2. count the number of products – check if the supplier has indeed shipped the correct number of products
  3. check if the product cost is the one agreed upon – if you have agreed to either pay on delivery or at a given deadline you will probably receive an invoice with individual costs split. Check to see whether these costs are those you have agreed upon when placing the order
  4. add the product SKU’s to your inventory management – Standard Keeping Unit or simply SKU is what retailers use to define unique types of products that can be sold. They are used to track goods movement through inventory. The SKU is not to be confused with the product model no, although this can be included. The SKU code is formed using product characteristics (such as manufacturer, size, color etc.) and it is usually used as a barcode or QR code so it can be tracked easily using bar code readers.
  5. add bar codes corespondent to the SKU’s you’ve just issued for the products. You can do this using special bar code printers and special stickers that will be attached to the product package.
  6. once the product is received and marked it will be sent to your storage unit (or warehouse) where it will be placed in a way that it can later be easily picked and packed.
Receiving products from suppliers - checklist

( Basic check list when receiving products from the supplier )

Placing the products in the inventory is a very important part in receiving the products. The better you keep track of where the products are, the less time and effort you will need when picking and packing the products.

How should I store products for ecommerce fulfillment?

When placing the products in storage you need to keep in mind some very important aspects:

  1. not all products are equal: products should be placed according to how popular you expect them to be. Some products will be sold faster and they need to be easier to reach. Either closer to the packing unit or lower on the shelves so they can be easily picked.
  2. however, all products have to have their position in stock clearly assigned and saved. Each SKU should have a clear position in the warehouse. You will probably develop your own warehouse numbering system but you will probably have to add things such as aisles, sections, levels and positions to keep product identification easy and scalable.

Hopefully at this point you have managed to get the products in your inventory, they are correctly marked and stored and you are ready to pick said products for the orders you are going to be shipping.

3. Ecommerce fulfillment: Processing the orders

Once you have the products in the inventory and orders are coming in, it’s time to process these orders.

Order processing for ecommerce stores

Order processing is split between four main areas:

  1. picking
  2. packing
  3. quality control
  4. movement to appropriate shipping station

What is the best way to pick products from inventory

Picking is probably the most time consuming part of order processing. It also gets a lot more complicated as your business grows and it may be prone to errors. Having more products in your inventory will increase the complexity of picking the right products in the fastest way possible.

If you’ve managed to place the products in the right spots (as stated in the step above – receiving products) your chances of correctly processing orders increase big time. The reason is it will be easier for picking staff to move fast through the aisles and pick the right products.

How does product picking work?

To have a streamlined picking process that works just as well with 10 orders per day or 1000 orders per day you have to decrease the chances for errors. To do so, your picking staff will cycle through these steps:

  1. Receive a pick list – the pick list is a … well … list of items to be picked from the inventory. It may vary depending on how you run your fulfillment operations and what kind of software you are using but it usually contains:
    1. Product location (section A, aisle 3, level 3 etc.)
    2. Product code (usually the SKU)
    3. Quantity to be picked
    4. Product description and image (for quicker identification)
    5. Barcode (usually used to confirm product picking directly into the inventory management system)
    6. Product bin
  2. Create the optimum route to pick products: usually picking staff will collect more orders to improve efficiency and gather all the products in one trip. This route is usually generated by the inventory management software based upon the warehouse layout.
  3. Pick products and place them either in separate bins based on ordered items or a general items to be sorted later at quality control or packing stations.
  4. Bring products to the Packing Station, where they will be sorted, placed into the right packages, and so on.
Picking list example

( A basic example for a picking list )

How to pack ecommerce orders?

Packing is the next step in the fulfillment operation. Once the products have been picked from the corresponding aisle, shelf or bin, they are sent to the packing station where they will be split into orders and prepared for shipping.

The packing operation is usually split into these further steps:

  1. Choosing the right package – depending on the products shipped, they will be placed into special packages, according to specific needs. For example a wine bottle will be shipped in a different package than say, a dress or a cardigan.
  2. Scanning and marking the package – after the products are placed into the right package, products are usually marked with specific documents, usually used by the shipping company so their transport progres can be tracked. They are also scanned so the inventory management software will register said products as getting ready for shipment.
  3. Adding invoices, product slips or other documents and / or marketing prints – this step includes placing needed orders information or documents (warranty certificate or invoice), as well as marketing materials that should reach the customer (say a discount voucher or a bonus product).
  4. Preparing the package for quality control and shipping

Quality control for ecommerce fulfillment

Once the products are placed in the right package, a quality control station will check for any errors that may happen.

Quality control personnel will usually check for one of the following errors that may appear:

  1. Wrong products: products may sometimes get mixed or the wrong information has been sent somewhere along the order management process. The most important aspect is that quality control will make sure the customer gets what he or she ordered.
  2. Wrong address / customer: sometimes orders get mixed and orders are sent to the wrong customers.
  3. Wrong payment information: there is a multitude of payment options and you do not want to ask your customer to pay something that was already paid for.
  4. Shipping options: maybe the customer opted for a quick delivery option. Quality control needs to make sure the product gets to the customer in the specified time frame. Another shipping mistake happens when online stores work with multiple shipping partners (say one for internal shipping and one for overseas shipping). It is important for the order to be routed to the right shipping partner to avoid delays or extra costs.
  5. Specific order information: quality control also needs to check for specific demands such as gift wrapping or a specific timeframe to be shipped at.

4. Ecommerce fulfillment: Shipping orders

Once the products have been picked, packed and quality control made sure there were no errors in the order management process, the package is ready for shipping.

Online stores usually partner with one or more shipping companies to deliver the goods. The shipping station will check the package weight and direct it to the right shipping partner.

Most shipping companies will provide you with a general framework on how to handle packing and preparing for shipping. Here are the most popular ones:

When these companies (and others) will charge you for their shipping services they will take into account some (or all) of the following variables:

  • package weight and size
  • departing country and arrival country
  • departing city and arrival city
  • shipping insurance
  • tracking services (now most of these companies offer this service bundled with others)

Once the orders are picked by the shipping company, the order status is constantly updated so customers and the online store knows where the packages are at the moment.

When the products are delivered the status is updated and the order is confirmed. After this point the product is in the customer’s ownership and any reverse process wil be treated as a return.

5. Ecommerce fulfillment: Handling ecommerce returns

Oh, returns – can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Just kidding. A clear and friendly return policy is what sets the likes of Zappos.com apart from the competition. They will let you return the products you’ve purchased within 365 days, free of charge and as their return centers will check the products you will be credited within 7 days with the money you’ve spent.

Great, right?

Ecommerce customers love a great return policy and you need to be ready to handle one. The logistics involved in such a return process are usually dubbed reverse logistics. This means you will reverse the steps mentioned above.

Basically you will unship the products, unpack, unpick and un-order everything.

If you offer free shipping, you will have to handle the shipping costs from the customer to your return center (for small and medium companies, the return centers are the same as the fulfillment facilities).

Now, the big problem when getting information on handling returns is that most of the resources out there are either

  • irrelevant (usually stating how important return policies are or how to market your return policy) or
  • boring (usually a bunch of text mixed by logistics experts that have no need to explain how reverse logistics work)

What will follow will hopefully be a bit more relevant and a bit less boring. The big idea you have to keep in mind is returns are the reverse process of everything you have read so far.

You will have to tailor the following concepts to your specific company structure, accounting, IT systems and processes.

That being said there are three main areas you need to focus:

1. Getting the products from the customer and into your fulfillment center.

There are usually three main options to do this:

  • using your shipping partner: most shipping companies offer return services. What they will do is go to the customer, pick up the package and send it back to you. Either you or the customer have to pay for these services. Companies offering free returns also include a special options for customers to use within a certain timeframe, in order to ship products back. This is usually a special voucher the shipping company will then use to charge you instead of the customer.
  • using your own network of brick and mortar stores: if you also have a network of stores (either classic or pop-up stores) you can direct the customers to these stores to save on shipping costs

2. Getting the products back into inventory

Once the products are back at the fulfillment center you will have to get them back into inventory. The process is similar to what you would do if you were to receive goods from your supplier. The main differences are:

  • in terms of accounting this operation will be treated differently
  • products need to be checked for damage or missing items
  • instead of paying your supplier, you will either credit the customer

3. Returning payments to the customers

Once the products have been checked and returned to the inventory, you will need to issue a refund to the customer and inform said customer of these changes.

And … that’s it.

It may seem complicated right now but keep in mind that thousands of online store owners are doing all these things. Now that you’ve got the basics, you will be able to deal with most of the operation challenges you will face. If there is anything else you need to know – just ask in the comments sections bellow.

How to find the best dropshipping suppliers in 2021?

Dropshipping suppliers are those businesses or individuals that are willing to send your customers the products they purchased and paid to you. For each product sold and shipped they will bill you.

One thing to keep in mind – these suppliers need to have a cost that makes your business operate at a profit. Dropshipping is hard as many people are doing it today so you need to understand how it works so you can find your edge.

How does dropshipping work?

So how do you find the best dropshipping suppliers? Well say you’ve started your ecommerce business and you will be selling plain t-shirts. You know you can buy those t-shirts for $20 at the closest store. If you do buy t-shirts in that store, you will be buying them at end consumer value. You are the end consumer. Because you cannot price them at a higher level you are basically stuck with them – hence the “end” in end consumer.

What you need to do is go find yourself some dropshipping suppliers that are willing to sell you those t-shirts for less than $20. Why would they do that, you say?

Some companies just work this way. They manufacture the products or sell them in bulk and let other companies sell directly to the end consumer. They then send the products to the customer (like what Dropshipping Supplier A does below)

Using dropshipping suppliers to fulfil orders

( This example combines dropshipping suppliers with your own operations )

How do I negotiate with dropshipping suppliers?

When dealing with dropshipping suppliers in 2021 you usually work together towards a commitment before you start doing business together. This commitment can come in many forms but usually it’s one of the following:

  1. commit to a target and pricing: maybe you are not willing to buy 50 plain t-shirts from your dropshipping suppliers, because you don’t know what your potential customers are willing to buy. You are, however, confident they are willing to buy something. So you commit to a monthly, quarterly or yearly sales agreement. The dropship supplier will then give you a startup discount for purchased products or some good terms, like white-labeling the shipping packages . This discount can increase as you sell more and more merchandise. You can list the products on your online store, stock as little inventory as possible and ship and restock when orders arrive.
  2. buy products in bulk: say you are willing to buy 50 of those plain t-shirts. You can negotiate your purchase price down to $15. Willing to buy another 50? Maybe the price can go even lower, to $10 and so on. The thing you have to remember here is that although bulk buying can be a potentially great deal in terms of price discounts, you also have to sell those products. If you get stuck with $500 worth of t-shirts that you are not able to sell, you have just wasted your money. It doesn’t matter how much you saved purchasing said products. What matters is making a profit and making your customers happy.

Once you’ve made a deal with one or more suppliers you will be selling your products right on your store. When the orders start pouring in (or maybe just trickle in the beginning) you have to make sure customers receive the products they’ve paid for. This part is called “fulfillment” as in fulfilling your promise to send the product to the customer in exchange for the payment you have received.

What is fulfilment in dropshipping ecommerce?

Fulfillment means any task done inside or outside the company that assures the right products are shipped to the customer. Usually this means:

  1. order management: checking order information (customer info, address, number of products etc) and forwarding order details to the right fulfilment center to be completed. If you are a startup this may mean you will be checking the customer details, maybe confirming the order and then planning on where to get the products from.
  2. pick and pack: this is the usual term for picking products from the warehouse shelf and packing them to make sure they are ready for shipment. With dropshipping suppliers, they are the ones doing this.
  3. shipping the products: once products are picked, packed and ready to go, they have to actually leave your supplier (if you’re doing dropshipping) or your warehouse. This happens through company specialized in shipping (such as FedEx or UPS) to do so.

How to work with dropshipping suppliers to send ecommerce orders?

Fulfillment can be done either within your company, by the dropshipping supplier or as a mix between the two. Let’s have a look at these scenarios:

  1. fulfilment is externalised as suppliers “dropship” orders:  this means you can just showcase products on your store and orders are shipped by your dropshipping supplier. Rather than stock on products, you can just forward orders to your product supplier and that company will take care of the shipment. The individual product is then shipped to the end consumer and you are invoiced for said product. You profit from the difference between the retail price (the price you posted on your website) and the price you’re paying to the supplier.
  2. fulfil orders within the company: this is the way most medium to large companies fulfil their orders. They build inventory for most of the products they’re selling (especially popular items), stock them in warehouses and when orders arrive, employees in the warehouses fulfill these orders. This process implies a rather large inventory and it can be an ineffective way to handle orders for startups. That’s why most ecommerce startups require another form of collaboration with suppliers:

Usually, most online retailers (such as yourself) choose a combination between the two and maybe some other processes.

Using dropshipping suppliers to fulfil orders

( This example combines dropshipping suppliers with your own operations )

For example, let’s say you partnered with two suppliers (see figure above). Supplier A will provide you with plain t-shirts. Supplier B brings in sneakers. After you start your store you receive two orders. Customer X is asking for 2 plain t-shirts. Customer Y is asking for a plain t-shirt and a pair of sneakers.

This is what happens when you are NOT using a dropshipping supplier:

How to work with suppliers

You will have to treat these orders differently. Order number one, the one where customer X paid for 2 plain t-shirts is forwarded to Supplier A and he will dropship these items and then invoice you for the products.

Order number two is a bit more complicated. You will have to ask supplier A to send you one plain t-shirt (if you don’t already have it on your inventory) and Supplier B will send you a pair of sneakers. You will be invoiced on those products and once you have them in your warehouse you can pack and ship them to the customer.

You can also choose to work with external fulfillment services, such as ShipBob or Fulfillment by Amazon. These services relieve you of the burden of picking, packing and shipping your orders. For a cost.

By building and interlinking separate operations such as those mentioned above, you are actually building what is called a supply chain. The supply chain means any interlinked process that enables you to move products from the manufacturers or wholesalers to the consumer.

The supply chain is not a static structure. It can and it will change as your online store evolves. As you partner with new suppliers, your ability to distribute products to consumers will increase and so will your revenue. But speaking of adding suppliers to the supply chain …

How do I find Dropshipping Suppliers for my Store?

Yeah, how DO you find dropshipping suppliers for the online store? Now that you’ve got a sense of why you need suppliers, how to negotiate and deal with them, let’s have a look at how to actually find them. When you’re looking for merchandise suppliers you’ll see that you have two big options when choosing, each with its pros and cons. These two options are domestic suppliers and overseas suppliers.

Assuming you are in the US, using domestic suppliers will be a very viable option but you should also consider the second. Overseas suppliers can be a great addition to your ecommerce business. They can be used when in need of additional product options or lower prices. Let’s have a look at the pros and cons of using these two types of suppliers.

Why should I choose US-based ecommerce and dropshipping suppliers?

Pros:

  • (usually) higher manufacturing standards
  • improved shipping time
  • intellectual property protection (might be really important if you design your own products)
  • no cultural or communication barriers
  • no import taxes
  • safer business relationship
  • easier to check references for reputable manufacturers or wholesalers
  • lower minimum level ordered quantities

Cons:

  • higher prices
  • less products to choose from (not few, just less)

US based ecommerce and dropshipping retailers you can work with in 2021:

Here are some of the US based ecommerce and dropshipping suppliers you can work with:

Suppliers marketplaces operating in the US

( Directories providing links to domestic US suppliers )

Overseas ecommerce and dropshipping retailers you can work with in 2021:

The most important thing you need to remember when dealing with overseas dropshipping suppliers in 2021 is that you have to be diligent in working with them. If you are inexperienced, you should ask for professional advice on how to get the best deals and protect yourself from fraud. Also – if you do find yourself in need of doing business with overseas ecommerce and dropshipping suppliers, choose to contact those that provide a local sales office or agent or order using established marketplaces that provide escrow payment options.

Pros:

  • (usually) lower prices
  • ability to deliver unique items to your customers through dropshipping
  • a wide array of ecommerce and dropshipping suppliers you can choose from
  • established online marketplaces provide an one-stop shop for retailers
  • innovative products

Cons:

  • you will have to deal with customs, local taxes and special conditions when importing
  • problems with supply chains being disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak which lead to longer shipping times
  • cultural and communication problems
  • harder to check for supplier references

Overseas ecommerce and dropshipping retailers you can work with in 2021:

Here are some of the US based ecommerce and dropshipping suppliers you can work with:

Ecommerce supplier marketplaces that operate overseas.

( The most reliable services that connect you to B2B dropshipping suppliers overseas in 2021)

Although the services mentioned above are a great way to find the right suppliers, you can also do your own digging and search for independent manufacturers or wholesalers.

How do I find independent dropshipping suppliers in 2021 ?

There is no standard way of doing this but some tips may help you get closer to your ideal suppliers:

  1. Contact the manufacturer directly: saw some product you’d like to have? Probably your customers would also. Have a look at the label and contact the manufacturer. They must at least have a name and using that, you can use Google to find out more about them.
  2. Speaking of Google: try going deeper in your search results. B2B traders and manufacturers are not really great at marketing (that is the retailer’s job) so their websites scream “so 90’s” and they are not really optimised for search engines. That’s why you should click further than you’re usually used to in order to find a hidden gem.
  3. Trade fairs: yeah, people still do that, while a lot of them are online this year, given the pandemic. You can find a starting list here.

So hopefully you now know a thing or two about finding dropshipping suppliers and in 2021 you’re going to get the best deal possible. Great! What’s next? Oh, yeah, prices:

How do I set the Price for ecommerce Products when working with dropshipping suppliers in 2021?

When it comes to pricing, you have two rather simple concepts to always keep in mind:

  1. Cost of goods sold (COGS): this is the cost you have paid for the goods plus any costs associated to getting the goods in your inventory and ready for sale. This includes, but is not limited to: shipping, handling or customs taxes.
  2. Operating expenses: this is the total cost associated with running your business. This includes rent, utilities, wages, marketing costs and others.

Basically, the prices of sold products have to cover the sum of these expenses. The bottom line is always the same: Profit = Revenue – Costs.

Your company will report a gross revenue by selling products. Profits come when you are selling enough merchandise, at the right price, to cover your costs.

Of course, it’s a bit more complicated than this but you get the picture. You have to price your sold products where you can be profitable. However, prices need to stay competitive to the market. This means that there’s a balance you have to keep. Prices should be big enough to keep you in business but small enough to be competitive with other online retailers.

What are the best pricing strategies when working with dropshipping suppliers?

1. Markup on cost means you add a certain percentage to he cost associated with the product. It is usually a standard percentage somewhere between 15% and 40%, enough to keep you profitable and your prices competitive.

The formula works like this:

Item cost + (Item cost x Markup Percentage) = Price

Say for example we are selling plain t-shirts, with a cost of $20. We’ve set the markup at 30%. The the price would be:

$20 (Item cost) + ($20 x 30%) = $26

2. Manufacturer suggested retail price (MSRP) is another way small businesses can set their prices in such a way that they are profitable but not too expensive. MSRP is the price the manufacturer recommends to resellers so they don’t start price wars that can benefit no one. This type of price setting leaves out a lot of options for the online store owner and should not be a general rule in the long run.

Above are just two of the simpler ways prices can be set to attract the consumers. We will get into a lot more details in the “Marketing your store” part of this guide so stay tuned.

For now, this concludes part two of the “How to Start an Online Store” Complete Guide. Part three will focus on building your fulfillment operation (picking, packing, shipping and returns) and how to build a brand identity and the actual store front. See you soon!

How do I register my ecommerce business in 2021?

You are now ready to start your online store but you’re asking yourself – “How do I register my ecommerce business”? This short guide will show you how to register your business and how to build the operations basics . At the end of this article you’ll find a link to an article that shows how you can find ecommerce dropshipping partners, suppliers and how you can integrate with those suppliers.

How do I register my online store as a business in the US?

Note: This part of the guide is intended to work as a guide mainly for readers that want to register an ecommerce business in the US. That’s why some of the acronyms and type of companies you’ll find in here are going to be aimed at those of you registering your ecommerce business in the US.

That being set, most of the information you’ll be reading here is in essence applicable in other countries or regions. Even though business structures may have different names and have slightly different usage in different parts of the world, their purpose remains pretty much the same, as globalization tends to level the playing field.

First off: why do I want to register my ecommerce store as a business?

Sure, planning and building your business is a great way to spend your time and effort. But you also need to work as a legal entity.

There are basically two ways you can register your business:

  • as an un-incorporated business (solely owned or owned by a partnership) or …
  • an incorporated business.

How do I register my ecommerce business as unincorporated?

You can start as a Sole Proprietorship (the most popular type of business for ecommerce entrepreneurs) and move to other forms of businesses as your chances of success increase.

If you are the sole owner of an online business, the Sole Proprietorship (also known as DBA – “Doing Business As“) is the easiest form to register and manage your business. So if you ask yourself – how do i register my ecommerce business  if I’ll only work myself on it – this is a good choice. It actually works as an alias for the individual doing the business.

Do note that the owner is personally liable for the company. That means that all debt is imputable to the owner. However, as Sole Proprietorships are usually low-liability businesses, a lot of startups work under this type of legal entity.

The second big option in starting an un-incorporated business is the General Partnership. In Partnerships, more individuals get together to start some kind of business. This is a great answer if you’re asking yourself – how do i register my ecommerce business with someone else. Just like the Sole Proprietorship, Partnerships are easy to set up and manage and because partners share equal control on the company, the liability and profits are also shared.

how do i register my ecommerce business - unincorporated

How do I register my ecommerce business as a corporation?

Like I’ve mentioned above, the second category of companies falls under the “corporate” model. When you’re incorporating your company you don’t become a corporate behomoth and you don’t automatically get billions in revenue, as one might expect. It just means you’re operating under a different set of rules. Plus you get to do a bit more paperwork.

Why should I incorporate my ecommerce business?

Let’s say you might think – how do i register my ecommerce business as a corporation and why?

The most important reasons to incorporate your company as an entrepreneur are liability protection and documenting deals with partners.

By far liability protection is the most important reason to incorporate your company. Under a corporate structure, your business is treated as a separate legal entity. If things go awry in your registered ecommerce business (and sometimes they do) the company is liable for paying all debtors, not you. That, of course, if you have been operating your business in a legal manner.

Basically, registering as a corporation will keep your assets (house, car, golf clubs) protected from any issue that might arise operating the business.

The second important reason to incorporate your company is documenting a business deal with partners. Whether you are raising money from investors or selling shares in your company, you need a corporate structure to do this.

Cons of incorporating my ecommerce business

You may hear other reasons why you should incorporate your company, things such as tax benefits, business credit and transferable ownership. But don’t rush to register your corporation just yet. Most entrepreneurs are doing just great running un-incorporated business in the beginning. Tax benefits are usually tangible when your company is already successful enough. So if you are just a startup, you can probably forget about tax benefits.

Building business credit means companies are evaluated independently from their owners but that doesn’t necessarily have to be a good thing. If you are a startup with no cash in the bank, no sales and no clear plan, that fresh business credit won’t be of help much.

Finally, saying an incorporated ecommerce company is a lot easier to transfer to other individuals or companies leaves out a very important aspect. Before transferring your company (hopefully selling it for lots of cash) you need to build this ecommerce company. So again – this won’t help you that much either.

But the biggest disadvantage small ecommerce businesses that incorporate have to face is paperwork. Lots of paperwork. You will have to fill in state reports, organize annual meeting and deal with involved bureaucracy.

Then there’s the fees. You’ll be paying fees for legal council, tax filling and others. Professional help is not cheap. Plus you get the minimum franchise taxes and others. These amount to thousands of dollars in fees, which is a bit much for small business owners.

So incorporating a company is no easy feat. Or better said – it’s not easy to manage an incorporated company if you are a small ecommerce business owner working alone or with a small team.

But if you do find yourself in need of incorporating the business, here are the most important type of corporations you can choose:

LLC – Limited Liability Company

You have probably heard one thing or two about LLC (Limited Liability Company). It’s the most popular form of business among small and medium businesses, including online store owners. It combines what is called pass-through taxation for its members with the limited liability corporations provide.

Although not technically a corporation, it is a great choice for those that want to join a limited liability partnership. It basically works as partnership or sole proprietorship in terms of taxation. This means the owners (called members) pay taxes on the LLC’s profit directly. The company doesn’t fill taxes separately, which makes things a lot easier to manage.

This types of businesses are actually pretty young as a commercial concept. The LLC structure was first formed in 1977 and now it’s accepted in all US states and a throughout most of the world.

At the heart of LLC stands the “Operating Agreement“, a document signed by all members, setting the rules under which the company will be managed. It covers things such as profits sharing, company management, adding or removing members and more.

The LLC is the most popular choice in the world right now for forming partnership, usually chosen by groups of up to 5 members.

Although starting and managing a LLC is less complicated than a corporation, it is still more complicated than starting and managing a sole proprietorship or a partnership. You will probably have to hire a legal counselor to help you with the set up and operating the company.

The Regular Corporation (C-Corporation)

The Regular Corporation is … well … the corporation. A company organized as a corporation is a separate legal entity from its owners (called shareholders). The company can thus protect owners from liability issues or company debt.

The corporation provides advantages such as:

  • easier capital inflow (through stock sales),
  • ownership can easily be transferred through stock transfer
  • being a separate entity it can and will act independently from its owners. This means it can sue and get sued, it can own property and it will be taxed independently from its owners
  • tax advantages can be substantial (a lot more business expenses can be deducted)

Once the corporation is set up, it will pay taxes separately from its owners. This can lead to double taxation as companies are taxed on profits and once those profits are distributed, shareholders will also have to pay income taxes. The double taxation problem is solved by incorporating as a S Corporation (see below).

Corporations are not necessarily ran by its owners. The shareholders own company stock. This gives them the ability to elect Directors, organized under a board of directors. Once this board of directors is set up, they appoint Officers (CEO – Chief Executive Office, CFO – Chief Financial Officer etc.), which are the people that actually run the company on a daily baisis. Of course, if you own 100% of stock, you can appoint yourself as the one and only director, be the officer and run the company.

On the other hand, if your company will be owned by more individuals, the Board of Directors and the Officers will run the company. Both the Board of Directors and The Officers have to abide to an internal company document called “Corporate Bylaws“. This document sets the rules on operating the company and can be extended or modified as the company evolves.

The Corporation is a lot more formal than the LLC and of course, the Partnership or the Sole Proprietorship. The records have to be carefully maintained, there is a mandatory yearly Directors and Shareholders meeting and every decision has to be documented and reported.

Although the corporation is harder to form and maintain, it is the oldest and most reputable form of business organization.

Registering as a S-Corporation

When registering as a corporation, you should take into account the S-Corporation. By filling in the appropriate tax election form to the Internal Revenue Service, the company will be taxed as a Sole Proprietorship or a Partnership.

The main advantage for you and your partners is that income and profit is passed through to the shareholders, thus solving the double taxation problem mentioned above.

Even though you’ve solved the double taxation issue – you’re still stuck with the paperwork and specific regulation, which can be a burden for online retail startups.

To wrap things up, here is a rundown of the main types of incorporated business structure you can choose, each with its own pros and cons:

How do I register ecommerce business as a corporation

Once you have decided on whether you’re registering your business as a sole proprietorship or incorporating it you can check the specific regulations for your state here and start the registration process.

Top 8 Online Beauty Ecommerce Stores in 2021 – How do they sell online?

The Beauty and Cosmetics category is one of the fastest moving digital commerce areas. It is a highly competitive and innovative market with large brands quickly adopting digital models and challengers innovating their way to the top.

The emergence of the ecommerce sales channel for beauty brands has seen a long wait. The time has come for beauty retailers to align with the customer’s demand and specific requests. For example, a recent AT Kearney study showed 28 percent of online shoppers use the digital media to get informed on products. They carry this information in stores where they are sometimes more knowledgeable than the store assistants, which may pose a real challenge for beauty brands.

The AT Kearney study shows that only 16% of all online shoppers are online enthusiasts. The rest either use the digital media for information or for shopping for products they are already familiar with:

Beauty shoppers split

Online shoppers are more inclined to shop for particular products, such as skin, personal and hair care. Products such as beauty tools and nail care are less likely to be purchased online, unless is a very specific product, one the customer is already familiar with:

In this post we’ll get a glimpse of the eight most important type of beauty brands that engage their users through digital commerce (also). We’ll have a look at a selection of global champions with different backgrounds and different models. From digital pure-plays to established brick and mortar brands, let’s have a look at some of the most interesting approaches to beauty and cosmetics digital retailing:

1. Amazon Beauty

As expected, Amazon leads the way when it comes to online beauty retailing also. Customers are delighted to almost 2 million products, including luxury brands.

Its Beauty category is the go-to place for most of online enthusiastic shoppers, where Amazon is available. And with Amazon’s shipment policies, that’s basically everywhere.

Amazon’s secret weapon lies in its free-shipping policy (for orders above 25$), a great motivator for online shoppers and a better threshold than challengers Sephora and Beauty.com.

Another great asset Amazon will use to gather shoppers around its beauty retailing section is the fact that more customers use Amazon (30%) than Google when doing online product research.

2. Sephora.com

Sephora is generally seen as the actual leader in the digital beauty commerce. Though it lacks Amazon’s ecommerce strength, the company is part of the largest luxury high quality goods (ahem…ahem) group, LVMH, packing a lot of beauty retailing know-how.

The company has developed a great omnichannel model that focuses on mobile as a bridge between online and offline.

One of the best things Sephora.com has implemented in its web store is the content marketing and digital assistance features. I’ve previously covered the subject and praised Sephora’s efforts to offer quality content, as praised are due.

The curated content customers find is a great choice to build loyalty. So is the Community where customers can browse among the knowledge base or post questions and interact with professionals.

As mentioned, one of the greatest assets Sephora has is its focus on digital rich content. Users are treated to:

  1. Sephora TV, the go-to area for video advice, how-to’s and trends
  2. Sephora Glossy – a fashion, beauty and style blog that offers great advice from beauty professionals in a great, visual format.
  3. The Beauty Board – an user generated gallery from customers that upload pictures to showcase how and which products they use.

Some other touches make Sephora a great choice for beauty products customers, not the least of which are the three free samples with each order (a great way to drive future orders) and the mobile apps that make us of barcode scanning to offer price info and customer reviews.

3. Beauty.com

Beauty.com is an online retailer so it has no apparent need or intention to leverage offline or omnichannel sales. It has developed specific filters and features to cater to customers that either know what they want and want the best price or they can quickly decide.

The auto-reorder option seems to be a great first step to a subscription program.

Customers can set an auto-reorder flag for certain products, which can be shipped each 30, 60 or 90 days. Before the order is shipped, customers receive an email notifying them and they can pause, skip or cancel the auto-orders. The customer incentives are savings and free shipping.One of the features that really stands out (they have a pop-up to insure it stands out) is “Auto reorder and save” option. Simply put, the online retailer has noticed the habitual purchase beauty customers take and leveraged it.

Another great feature that lets customers reach the right product is the filtering option which is set not only for product features but also customer concerns and specific needs. In the Make-up section, the eye category, one can find brand and ingredients options, but also filters such as concerns (acne, dryness or oiliness), benefits (curling, hold or smooth) and skin type. Unfortunately, the filters are not usable on the smartphone version of the web store.

Just like its direct online competitor (Sephora.com), Beauty.com offers free samples, free shipping for orders $35 and above, free returns and 5% back through its loyalty program. It also features great content areas, such as its Beauty Blog, with Romy Soleimani, The Latest Trends section reviewing product news and a Beauty Videos section, ranked according to customer reviews. A great no-no on the video section is the fact that videos embedding is restricted to affiliates only, leaving a lot of marketing potential untapped.

Download the rest of the report below:

What is Demand Sensing? It’s a $1.1 Trillion Opportunity for Online and In-Store Retailers

Consumer demand is the one thing that can decide whether a retailer is successful or not. Of course, there is a whole field of marketing studies to determine how we can influence consumers to purchase. But a really important aspect of how good retailers fare in the market is their ability to “sense” demand, not just influence it.

In a recent study, IHL Group claims Overstocks and Out-of-Stocks cost retailers almost $1.1 trillion world-wide. To put it in perspective, that figure is the size of Australia’s GDP.

What that means is that Overstocks and Out-of-stocks, collectively defined as Inventory Distortion, are a problem that cost retailers world-wide 7.5% of their gross revenue.

The most important overstock causes

The figures translate into poor performance, decreased customer satisfaction, decreased sales and increased costs of inventory warehousing and inventory spoilage. Basically there are two really simple outcomes:

  • Either retailers stock up on too much inventory which turns to increased warehousing costs and spoiled products.
  • …Or they don’t and they miss on sales opportunities

Either way, one thing is for sure: Inventory Distortion leads to poor commerce performance.

How do you solve Inventory Distortion? (Not exactly) Simple: Demand Sensing

Demand Sensing is a concept and set of technologies that make use of analytical and prediction models to estimate … well … demand. Imagine a retailer that runs a network of 10 stores, one online store and has a mobile app that drives sales also, along side a call center. Maybe they engage in some sort of live shopping to improve their performance.

Said retailer probably has an inventory management system, an warehouse management system, a sales reporting tool and probably some type of integration with suppliers and manufacturers.

Let’s imagine this retailer selling a type of red shirts that is available in one of the 10 stores and that inventory is not available online. If a customer will visit 3 of the stores in search of that particular red shirt and then search for it online and still not find it, it will probably consider it to be out of stock and the retailer would lose a sale opportunity.

You probably see where the problem lies: even though the product was available, it was not available to the customer and opportunities were lost. The same thing goes for products that are not exposed to the customers, or they are, say, unreachable on the shelf or unfindable on the web store if the search engine is not fit for the job.

The opposite situation, where demand is not correctly estimated and out-of-stocks become a reality, are just as bad as sales opportunities are lost.

The solution lies in gathering enough data across all sales channels, compiling this data and using models to predict demand. That easier said than done because …

To make demand sensing a reality, inventory transparency has to be achieved

As you are reading a blog on omnichannel retail, the term was bound to appear somewhere along the line. So here it is. You can’t have Demand Sensing without a connected sales operation and inventory transparency. All inventory sources have to be connected and data should be generally available. So should sales data across channels.

The picture below shows an example of omnichannel supply chain, one where all the operational pieces work together and share data. When such a structure is implemented, demand is easily “sensed” and estimated and thus inventory distortion can decrease.

So now we have the data. Implementing omnichannel retail can lead do a better demand sensing and therefore improve inventory distortion, a small glitch in the global retail system costing “only” $1.1 trillion.

How do pickup lockers work?

As online and offline commerce are getting closer to each other and customers schedules are getting more and more crowded, pick up lockers seem to become more useful and popular. Ever asked yourself – how do pickup lockers work? 

Listen to this article below:

They are versatile, easy to use and something customers need from online and in-store retailers. So let’s dig in and see how they work and who should use them.

What is a Pick Up Locker?

First off – what is a pick up locker? Simply put it is an area of lockers where retailers can drop off merchandise and customers can pick it up. Amazon has been a pioneer in this field, with Amazon Lockers opening up the gates to a new type of fulfilment.

The pick up lockers work by assigning a specific location to packages and sending pick up codes to customers. The customers can then go to their designated pick up location, enter the security code and grab their packages.

After Amazon has built their first experimental pick up lockers, others soon followed.

Some of those that developed their own systems of pick up (and ship) lockers are 3PL companies. For example FedEx and UPS have developed quite advanced pick up and drop off locations. UPS has named theirs “Access Points” and they’re building a network able to sustain growing demand.

FedEx has developed a network of “Ship&Get Self Service Lockers“. With their lockers one can drop off items for shipment or receive packages.

Both are growing really fast and soon others will follow suit. Even startups have ventured in this area with some highlights being Swapbox, an Y Combinator startup and Bufferbox, a company that was recently acquired by Google. However, due to the fact that this is a very competitive, capital intensive niche, both startups are now dead.

So yes, they are popular but how do pickup lockers work, especially from a retailer point of view?

How do pickup lockers work for large retailers?

One very specific use case for the pick-up locker system would be large retail chains. For example Walmart announced their Grab & Go lockers following their Site to Store Self Service Lockers experiment.

Apart from the internal fulfilment challenges, retailers need to focus on some key aspects regarding the development and implementation of such pick up locker systems:

1. How can pickup lockers be secured?

For obvious reasons there needs to be a secure access to shipped goods. To do so each drop off will have to issue a security code that can be decrypted and accessed with the private code the customer will receive.

The systems will also have to have fall-back security systems such as video surveillance and locking systems in case of hacking attempts (there will be some).

Security code should work online but also have a fall-back local solution that can work in case internet connection is off.

2. Connecting the lockers with logistics

The pick-up locker system works with other fulfilment operations and will have to input status data directly into TMS (transport management systems) so shipping personnel could be directed to the correct pick up locker area and the specific pick up locker.

As packages differ in size, specific information regarding the type of lockers that are available should be available in real time so packages are stored correctly.

3. How do pickup lockers communicate?

So far most pick up lockers use alphanumeric codes to help users get accustomed to picking up their packages without any hassle. But these codes pose threats in terms of security. While these codes can always be an option and can be easily sent to any device, with smartphones and smartphone apps on the rise, some other solutions may work even better.

One such option would be QR codes embedded in the retailer’s mobile application. The codes can be generated on the fly based on a secured algorithm that neither exposes the code and can also work within the application the customer already uses, thus improving loyalty.

4. What is the future of connectivity for pickup lockers?

With so many developing their own pick-up locker systems, a connectivity protocol should become the norm. With such a protocol FedEx could ship to either Amazon, Walmart or even UPS lockers for example, improving cross-retailer experience and creating economies of scale.

That being said, the development of pick-up locker systems is obviously a bit more complex than these few paragraphs but I wanted to give you a starting point and explore some of the challenges.

The 6 Key Factors in Implementing Omnichannel Fulfillment

Ecommerce is growing at double digits and people are spending more and more online. US Customers, for example, have spent $322 billion online in 2013 and figures add up to even more this year.

So why not bet everything on ecommerce? Why change direction again and include those “old” brick and mortar stores, and warehouses and such? Why build omnichannel retail facilities?

Short answer: because the customer is not a robot. The customer does not have to shop online. It will shop online when it feels better.

Only 2% of retailers believe their companies are highly competent in managing omnichannel retail. Source.
Only 2% of retailers believe their companies are highly competent in managing omnichannel retail. Source.

Ecommerce is indeed a revolution in the way we do business and indeed it has changed the retail landscape but consumers still exist in the physical world. Consumers do spend time online but they also walk by store fronts, they like to touch the products they buy and they like to see how fashion items, for example, look like in real life.

That means that real life stores will continue to exist. But so will online stores, sales call centers, interactive kiosks and marketplace outlets.

Retailers need to figure out how to connect all these channels. This new wave of customer centric retail is called omnichannel retail. The term means that no matter the sales channel, everything behind the scenes is connected. The inventory is universally available to all stores. The customer info is available on all channels also, so he or she can be instantly recognized and offers personalized. Product info is also available cross channels but most important – Fulfillment can be managed on all possible points so as to serve the customer in the timeliest and most effective manner.

Managing Omnichannel Fulfillment

One of the biggest challenges in omnichannel retail is fulfilling orders cross channels. Today, retailers that deal with both online and offline sales have to split fulfillment in two separate areas, each with specific operations.

Customer service is the top priority in omnichannel fulfillment. Surce.
Customer service is the top priority in omnichannel fulfillment. Source.

The first is offline fulfillment, namely what happens in brick and mortar stores. Offline sales have been optimized to run on a pretty specific supply chain, not very flexible. It starts with the manufacturer, continues with forwarding merchandise to the wholesale buyer and then products end up stored in the retailer’s warehouses and stores.

Because ecommerce came as an addition to existing sales channels, it was added to the existing supply chain as a type of extra store, with its own specific operations.

However things got complicated when the web store had to split into the mobile store, the interactive kiosk, the marketplace outlet and others. Then customers wanted to buy online and pick up offline. But they didn’t stop here: they wanted to order in the store and receive home, ask for inventory info in the offline store and more. Pretty soon they started demanding it so now omnichannel retail is a question of customer service.

Retailers realized that what the retail world is facing is both a huge challenge in terms of customer demands and a huge opportunity. Those companies shifting their business strategies to fit the new, empowered consumer, will be the leaders of tomorrow.

Macy's has developed great omnichannel retail policies.
Macy’s has developed great omnichannel retail policies.

But to do that, retailers need to develop new order management software hubs. These order management hubs need to connect all fulfillment options to all sales channels. That means that all stores, all warehouses, all suppliers, all drop shippers need to be connected and managed by an order management tool that filters orders from all stores, both online and offline, interactive kiosks, call centers, mobile apps and others.

Some companies are handling omnichannel orders just great. Others need to improve their policies and most of all their IT infrastructure. To do that they have to figure out what factors need to be taken into account when fulfilling orders. Here are the top 6 most important:

Most important factors in omnichannel fulfillment

1. Proximity to customer – this obvious indicator will track which is the closest fulfillment outlet that can ship orders to customers.

2. Inventory levels across all fulfillment outlets – that includes inventory levels in the warehouses, stores, goods in consignment, drop shippers or even supplier and manufacturers. Yes, sometimes it can be more effective to ship directly from the manufacturer or the supplier than it would if the goods were shipped from the store or the warehouse.

3. Order split costs – orders that have more than one product per customer sometimes need to be split to multiple locations that have the products in stock. Products can be shipped individually or shipped to a single fulfillment facility (store or warehouse) and then shipped to the customer. Ideally, orders are fulfilled from the same point but sometimes that is not possible. In this case, the order management software should recommend the most efficient route products should take to the customer.

4. Information on customer history – fulfillment has to factor in the customer previous purchases and behavior. Retailers have loyalty programs that offer better costs and features to more loyal customer. A speedy fulfillment, complimentary gifts or just a thank you note may be outputs from the customer history.

5. Fulfillment capacity per location – estimating the maximum fulfillment load for each location can help prevent overload situations where store associates have too much orders to fulfill and can’t manage their day-to-day tasks. It can also prevent overloading several warehouses and leave others with zero workload, just because a specific area has placed more orders.

6. Seasonal fluctuations – stores get really crowded on holidays and store associates are way better answering customer questions than they are packing orders. Seasonal fluctuations need to be taken into account when implementing omnichannel retail.