Over the past few years, consumer behaviors have changed dramatically and, most likely, permanently. We are now more than ever relying on online shopping for our buying needs. A great option for businesses today is to add another sales channel to take advantage of new opportunities that exist beyond your physical location – eCommerce can help you do that.
Integrating Online and In-store Sales Channels
Having a great website is just the first step in your business’ journey to increasing revenue opportunities. As your online store grows, it will quickly become apparent that there is a need to minimise the burden of manually maintaining stock information and sales transactions across multiple systems.
Foresiight ProfiitPlus and Alchemii business management software can be linked directly to your online store with our purpose-built eCommerce Interface module. Automatically publish stock updates to your website including descriptions, pricing and inventory levels. Once a customer makes a purchase online, a Web Order is automatically created in your ProfiitPlus system, ready for your staff to pack and send.
No more double handling of data – keep your inventory always up to date. And keep your customer sales history all in one place, no matter where they transacted – online or in store.
The eCommerce Interface add-on module includes a comprehensive integration with two popular eCommerce systems, Magento and Neto, giving you the freedom to choose the platform that best suits your business’ needs. Foresiight can also build custom integrations, and additional platform integrations are coming – please call us to discuss your specific requirements.
Magento is a mature eCommerce platform, used by a huge number of online businesses both in Australia and around the world. Magento is available in both enterprise and open-source versions, meaning Web designers can implement the core system and then extend its functionality by writing custom modifications or adding plugins. A marketplace is available with an enormous number of plugins and extensions, providing popular functionality such as Payment Gateways and Shipping Extensions. Many integrations are also available for more specific features such as email marketing and social media.
The possibilities are endless with Magento, but this can come at a cost – the work involved to design and deploy a heavily customised Magento eCommerce system can be significant, so most Web Developers will tend to charge more than you might spend on some other more basic platforms. Still, this is a great solution for established businesses looking to build upon an online sales platform that allows maximum flexibility, and is based on proven and widely-supported technology.
Neto (Maropost) differs significantly from many other platforms in that it is provided entirely as a Software-as-a-Service solution, meaning the eCommerce software environment is hosted on Neto’s own servers. As a business using Neto, you pay a regular monthly subscription fee that includes the use of the platform and software updates, as well as the hosting and maintenance services.
The SaaS nature of the Neto product means that the time to get up and running can be relatively short. A variety of site templates are available “off the shelf”, providing a quick and easy way to apply some colour and an impressive look and feel to your site. Of course, a polished and professional site will require help from a specialist web designer and greater investment.
The Neto Marketplace provides a host of optional add-on features such as payment gateways, marketing, analytics and shipping integrations. Another key Neto feature is the eBay integration, allowing you to manage your eBay listings and Orders all from within the Neto ecosystem. Both eBay Orders and Neto Orders flow through to your Foresiight system via the eCommerce Interface module, combining with your traditional in-store and phone order sales to give you true multi-channel sales capability.
Whilst the Neto platform is not quite as customisable as a system like Magento, it still has more than enough features out of the box to suit most retail and wholesale businesses, and the list of core features and add-ons is growing constantly.
New integrations coming soon
Keep an eye out, we have some more exciting integrations on the way…
More information
Whatever your business requirements, wholesale (B2B) or retail (B2C) – there is a solution to suit. But setting up your business to sell online is a project that should be approached with careful research and planning. A good way to position yourself for success is to embark upon your online sales channel almost like you would when setting up a new physical store or location.
Talk to your Foresiight Consultant today if you would like to know more about how to get the most out of your online presence.
For more information on eCommerce integration, email us at solutions@foresiight.com.au or call us on (07) 3356 2772.