How Efficient Is Your Ecommerce Website?

According to Forrester, a leading research firm, by 2015 retail ecommerce sales are expected to reach $279 billion.  As the price of gasoline remains high, more people are opting to shop online as opposed to drive to a store to purchase goods.  In this day and age, people are Internet savvy, and often research products online before making a purchase.  With prices at the pumps remaining extremely high and more people eager to save money, industry experts believe that many will not only research products online, they will also purchase items from web stores.  If the price of gas continues to remain high for an extended period of time, the convenience of online shopping at home could boost retail ecommerce sales to well over $300 billion in the near future.

If you are the leader of a wholesale business, have an existing ecommerce system, and are selling Business to Business (B to B) and/or Business to Consumer (B to C), now may be a good time for you to review the effectiveness of your online web store.  If web orders are coming in through your ecommerce site, but are not being efficiently processed or managed, your business is losing a substantial amount of revenue.  When your ecommerce shopping cart is not seamlessly integrated with a business software system of accounting, customer relationship management, and inventory control-tracking-management, instead of having the application do the work for you, your staff members are responsible for processing all orders that come in from your web store.

With Comgine for SAP Business One, the integrated system of ecommerce, accounting, customer relationship and inventory management acts as one completely unified application which can auto-process web orders and do the work for you.  Businesses using an integrated e-commerce, accounting, customer relationship management, material requirements planning, and inventory control-tracking-management system dramatically reduce transaction costs, streamline the online ordering processes and generate additional profits from their online store sales. The reason is that pertinent information is processed all the way through the accounting, customer relationship management and inventory management software, without any duplication of data entry. An integrated enterprise resource planning application unified with e-Commerce software is 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 (and if necessary create replacement inventory orders from vendors as a payable also is created); create the picking/packing ticket; ship the product; apply the web payment to the invoice; and, automatically email the paid invoice and tracking information to the customer. Accordingly, a unified and streamlined ERP and e-Business system, such as Comgine e-Commerce for SAP Business One, saves time and permits easy maintenance of accurate, up-to-the-minute product, customer and vendor/supplier data.

 

SAP’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for small to mid-sized businesses, SAP Business One, integrates sales, accounting, and operational functions in a single, unified and flexible application.  By design, the tools, features and functions within SAP Business One allow wholesale distributors to reduce operating expenses while improving margins.  By automating the supply chain and distribution network, it can streamline the entire order-to-cash process.  It can optimise inventory management and significantly reduce costs by eliminating waste, manual paperwork, and shipping errors.  By enabling more efficient quoting and providing greater visibility into the true cost of orders, it can support better, more profitable business decisions.  And with faster, more accurate order processing, it can contribute to increased customer satisfaction, affording vital competitive differentiation.

 

Wholesalers are empowered to take a more systematic approach to their operations with the SAP Business One application.  The ERP system streamlines the order-to-cash cycle– from order entry to processing invoices and returns, and simplifies vendor performance analysis.  It improves inventory management with real-time availability checks and automatic replenishment, and automates the application of discounts to various transaction types.

 

SAP Business One is a complete, integrated application that enables wholesale distributors to take a more systematic approach to their operations by streamlining and automating key processes.  With Comgine Ecommerce for SAP Business One, wholesalers can have each area of their business connected and have all of their data in one, single, unified system.  For more information about the benefits of process automation for your wholesale distribution business, please contact Cornerstone Consulting by calling 813-321-1300 today.

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