e-Commerce Websites Offer Unique Opportunities for Medical Practices and Spas
The Internet offers medical practices and spas with the unique opportunity to reinvent themselves as virtual organizations. As the importance of physical boundaries is irrelevant to the Internet marketplace, the medical and spa communities are capable of achieving levels of business performance never before possible. One of the most substantial benefits of e-commerce is that it provides small offices the same “reach” as the larger practices. While large “branded” practices may be given a formidable advantage over smaller medical or spa offices, the Internet allows consumers the flexibility to research products. The Internet allows for the smaller offices to have a web presence and perform highly targeted online marketing to specific groups of customers.
Through the use of an e-commerce website, the smaller medical or spa practices can optimize their site to attract consumers searching the Internet for hair, nail and skin care products. In doing so, the smaller medical practices and spas can open up markets they may never previously had an opportunity to reach. In addition, continual sales to new and existing customers may also be attained, due to the ability to instantly obtain information about patients and consumers purchasing habits. To take advantage of the Internet’s limitless possibilities, medical professionals and spa owners have entered the online marketplace in droves.
As a means of obtaining additional annual revenue, many doctors and spa owners have had e-commerce websites (known as web stores with shopping carts) developed in order to sell skin, hair and nail care products to consumers via the Internet. Unfortunately, the website and e-commerce shopping cart systems some doctors and spa owners have implemented were not designed to integrate with business management software. As a result, the lack of e-commerce and business software (accounting, customer relationship management and inventory management) integration has wasted an inordinate amount of time as well as their practice’s resources.
For the medical professionals and spas selling instruments, skin care creams, hair care products, lotions and more, the installation of a single application for accounting, e-commerce, customer relationship management (CRM) and inventory management, such as Comgine e-Commerce for SAP Business One, is critical. The e-Business system is extremely efficient because when a customer purchases product via the e-commerce website all of the online transaction data immediately goes directly into SAP Business One as either a sales quotation, sales order, or invoice. If the system is set up to automatically process the invoice it can:
- fulfill the order from stock
- create replacement inventory orders from vendors (if necessary) as well as create a payable
- create the picking/packing ticket
- ship the product
- apply the web payment to the invoice
- automatically email the paid invoice and tracking information to the customer
Practices and spas using an integrated e-commerce, accounting, CRM and inventory management system reduce transaction costs, streamline the online ordering processes, and generate additional profits from their webstore sales. When items are purchased through an integrated e-commerce website, as opposed to a non-integrated system, pertinent information is processed all the way through the accounting and inventory management software, without any duplication of data entry. Unlike many other electronic commerce applications, when using the complete e-Business system, Comgine e-Commerce for SAP Business One, the built-in automation of processes is extremely efficient.