When a company has been in business a long time, it can seem very daunting to make the leap to selling online. But in these digital times, it has become impossible to ignore the fact that the Internet is the first place many customers will look for products and company information. In order to stay current and competitive, a strong web presence is crucial.
Each company has its own concerns about selling online, including:
- Managing web inquiries/orders and merging them with offline data.
- Handling the expected increase in order volume.
- Moving what may be a very large product catalog to the website.
- Collecting and creating the content for the catalog (photos, descriptions, etc.)
- Trusting another company with internal information.
- Fear over seeing a return on the investment in such a drastic change.
Every one of these is a very valid worry. While each company will face different hurdles, they can all be overcome with adequate research, planning and preparation. With a competent, experienced, well-supported eCommerce platform, the solutions to these issues are all within reach.
The key to juggling the new orders and integrating them with legacy systems and the order process to which your company is accustomed is integration. Whether the company is married to the order and fulfillment management systems that have previously been used, or looking for a change, the eCommerce system can and should integrate with them. With behind-the-scenes connectivity, financial data is transmitted into accounting programs, website support requests are tracked through CRM systems, and fulfillment and order management share data with the eCommerce platform. Streamlining the efficiency of these back office processes by integrating them with the eCommerce platform hub will also improve staff effectiveness, enabling them to manage the increased number of orders.
There is no denying that large catalogs of products require a good amount of time to implement in an eCommerce website. But the process can be made more manageable by:
- Choosing the best selling products and plan to launch the website with only some of the offering. Although it is nice to have the full selection available online, it is often more cost effective to choose only the products or lines that sell well. These will garner the most traffic, and will deliver a faster return on investment.
- With the reduced list in hand, creating a spreadsheet of the products.
- Collecting all product photos. Ideally, the photos should be around 550-650 pixels at the largest (and not smaller than 500 pixels wide for the larger online versions). If photos are not available, the manufacturer may be able to provide some. The images online will not match if they come from different sources, but nice, non-matching images for every product is better than none.
- If possible, arranging to have new photographs taken, starting with the images that will be included with the initial site launch. A good, full-service eCommerce company will offer product photography as well.
- Assembling descriptions for the products that will be included. It is common to have a short description for the search results or department page, and a longer one for the product page. The descriptions should be rich with search terms but still accessible for shoppers.
- Consulting with the eCommerce firm about other data or formatting that needs to be considered.
If there are different pricing levels or customer groups, the eCommerce provider must support the ability to serve different pricing or information based on the customer account once they log in. This would allow wholesale customers to automatically see their own pricing structure, provide information only for approved customers, etc.
These days, a retail or wholesale business is expected to have a strong online presence, including eCommerce. With proper planning and professional assistance, all of this is within reach.