ERP & e commerce integration – what you should know

The Background

ERP and e commerce integration is critical for retail businesses with a web presence as it offers critical business functionality and productivity. In the year 2014, commercial transactions via the internet alone amounted to more than USD $ 300 billion. Sales of retailers via the internet have been growing at a rate of over 15% every year for five years before 2014 and the trend continues. This points to the fact almost all businesses cannot ignore interaction and compatibility with e-commerce. ERP is a game changer for all types of businesses regardless of the size and scale. ERP systems in the retail domain must be integrated with e commerce channels to stay relevant.

It is best to choose an ERP solution that automatically integrates with e commerce channels.

Why the need

E commerce does not just mean a web store run by an application but also e-marketplaces. An ERP refers to a system that manages business data in real time and business processes.

Integrating your e commerce sales channels with your ERP system allows you to operate more effectively. Sales data – order, inventory, item, customer, shipping, and tracking information– is automatically updated thus saving on duplication of effort and time.

This saves on manual practices like data entry of sales orders into an ERP, updating product information in Excel and then uploading to the web store with manual inventory reconciliation. This could be a major problem that may cause a disconnect between sales orders and actual inventory stock.

With lack of automation and repetition of manual effort, other critical errors could creep in like incorrect dispatch addresses and other sensitive information.

It should allow for order completion across geographies, product information updates, pricing management etc with seamless integration in real time.

The customer experience factor

The customer experience is critical for repeat orders and referrals. It is severely compromised as errors and disruptions in the sales process may creep in. A model with two standalone systems has a higher cost burden in terms of effort and process times required with a greater possibility for error. A disgruntled customer will tell ten more and amplify the damage to a large extent on social media. The damage done to the brand may take a while to repair and it may happen again. Moreover it makes better business sense to integrate in terms of operational efficiency too.

Key Benefits

Some of the key benefits that you will see will be:

Reduce manual entry time and error possibilities
Streamline inventory synchronization and updates automatically across the ERP and e commerce channel
Automatically intimate customers when shipping is done and allow delivery tracking of the shipment
Simplify price and product changes in the inventory
Flexibility to add multiple offline and online sales channel easily without effecting operational efficiency
Easily meet tax and compliance needs that are relevant to the nature of the order or the geographical need
No need to add to human resources for increased order loads as the process is automatic

ERP and e commerce integration options

There are various integration options available:

Point to point platform: It is an affordable solution for the smaller players. It cannot be scaled up and has poor flexibility with regards to adding more channels.
Multi-channel management platform: This is the best way to achieve ERP and e commerce integration. It is affordable and easily scalable. This technology is usually cloud based and the platform works as the hub between the ERP and the e commerce channel.
Custom integration: To create a custom solution, you would need to do dev work with the existing API’s available in your ERP system. It would have to be based on the data flows between the ERP and the e commerce channels. With dev effort needed, it is expensive and cumbersome.

Why Versa Cloud ERP

We at Versa have created a secure cloud based comprehensive multi award winning ERP solution that is e commerce ready. It addresses key concerns on e-commerce by having the leading multi-channel management platform nChannel being inbuilt in our ERP solution whereby eliminating any need to look for an integration solution. Our ERP solution does not need a connector and automatically integrates with shopping carts after set up. The Versa Cloud ERP will redefine the way you operate and grow your business.

We’d love to hear from you.

To know more, please visit www.versaclouderp.com or contact us directly.