Offline Ecommerce Business Solutions
Are you currently or intending to run an ecommerce website?
Well this is not just another article on SEO, I’m not going to be talking about increasing your conversion rate, instead I will be discussing the offline aspect of running a successful Internet retail business.
During my consulting work I come across many Internet retailers selling a wide range of products online, some more successful than others. The majority of these businesses have one major aspect in common, their offline operation sucks!
What do I mean ‘offline’?
When discussing offline aspects of an ecommerce business I am talking about tasks including:
- Dealing with enquiries
- Inventory management
- Order dispatching
These are the crucial steps which go on behind the scenes of all ecommerce sites, and can be the difference between a smooth, peaceful operation or absolute chaos!
Whilst the above factors are not an exhaustive list of offline functions, they represent areas which can definitely be improved upon in many ecommerce businesses.
Dealing With Enquiries
How do you respond to customer enquiries?
These may arrive in the form of a telephone call, email or even the newly popular ‘live chat’ interfaces which are popping up around various websites.
However they arrive, timing is crucial. It is unacceptable to list a telephone number then leave it unanswered during core business hours, it gives a bad impression of your business to potential clients and leaves them frustrated.
As with telephone calls, all email enquiries should be dealt with promptly, I recommend a response time of no longer than 1 hour during trading hours, emails received outside of business hours should be dealt with as soon as is possible, however waiting for the next working hour is usually acceptable.
Live Chat is useful as you can instantly indicate whether you have a representative online to field questions, however on busy sites, dealing with more than 3 – 4 chat sessions at one time per operative can lead to problems, including slow response times, and confusion as to who asked what.
Our advice is to try and work smarter if possible. For example, if you receive more than a couple of calls per week asking the same questions, why not try and include this requested information directly on your website, then potential clients will not need to call you quite so much.
Also if you have many enquiries for which the information is already online, maybe taking a look at your website architecture would be beneficial. Even providing a simple link from a product page to a related F.A.Q. section could cut down your call numbers.
Less time spent dealing with enquiries will give you more time to develop your business, and could even save on costs associated with answering enquiries such as staffing or call charges.
Inventory Management
Whether you store all your stock directly on your premises or simply relay all orders to a 3rd party drop-shippers outfit, you must have a handle on inventory information.
Does your website accurately convey current stock levels to potential customers? I have more than once seen orders made online for items which are actually out of stock, or are on a 3 – 4 weeks delivery schedule, without the customer being aware. This is really poor service and definitely leads to angry customers.
If an item takes an extended period of time to reach a customer after an order is made you MUST make this clear directly on the product information page. Some people would argue that showing this information would put off potential customers, however I have found most people are happy to wait if it’s explained clearly the reason for this. Also in the majority of case’s customers choose to simply cancel their orders once they are made aware of the delays.
Many online retailers don’t hold stock, and have to arrange delivery directly from a 3rd party. This has many advantages, also with a few drawbacks, however this is not a discussion on the merits of drop-shipping.
If you do operate in this fashion, you must be on top of your suppliers. Many times I have witnessed an order arrive then the site owners flicking through reams of papers looking for the supplier from which they based their prices off. All this information should be sorted out and organised so that all members of your team have access to an easy to use list immediately identifying product sources.
When prices change or new suppliers are added you should immediately update your list. An excel spreadsheet is perfect for this task, and it should be someone’s responsibility to keep it up to date.
Order Dispatching
Dispatching any order should be a painless task which anybody in your business can do.
Your ecommerce solution should be able to handle tasks including:
- Email order confirmations sent to customers
- Update online stock records
- Updating accounting systems
- Print off customer delivery address
- Print off packing slips
The product(‘s) ordered should be located and prepared for delivery. As simple as this sounds I have seen sites attempting to get by without a proper product id system setup, when orders arrive they could spend up to 10 minutes or more just identifying what product was actually requested. This may sound extreme, but it does happen.
A well designed order management system should take all the pain out of dispatching, if your current ecommerce solution can’t do this, a custom built addition to your store could be purchased. Despite an initial outlay the savings a system like this can make are vast.
One particular client I visited had a massively convoluted order process:
Upon receiving an order they manually emailed back a confirmation to the customer, then hand wrote the order details into an order book which they used to track the order process through to completion.
Next they contacted their suppliers to place the order via telephone, and once again recorded call details in the order book.
After the order was placed with their suppliers they printed off all email correspondence and order details and placed them in an ‘order tray’. Upon dispatch of the item, they again manually emailed the customer to inform them, then printed off the emails and stored them with the original order.
All paperwork was moved to a filing cabinet when the order was delivered, and they kept records pretty much indefinitely.
Their website was quite popular and often they received a few orders in the space of 30 minutes, watching them go through this process was difficult, knowing that an order management system would eliminate around 80% of their required effort.
The moral of this little story is that we currently live in the year 2007, the technology is available to automate many of the mundane tasks involved with many business operations both online and off, if you find yourself repeating many tasks over and over, take a step back and think about investing in some smarter technologies.
Final Thought
Running any business is a massive undertaking, and making a profit is even harder! There are many different articles and opinions on the front end of an ecommerce operation, and investment in that ‘shop front’ can make an unbelievable difference to the success of an online trader.
Paying attention to the back end operations, and perhaps investing in an offline ecommerce business solution will only enhance your business, freeing up your time and energy to focus on other areas.
A nice website will attract the first time buyer, but amazing customer service provided off the site will keep the customer coming back again.
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Darren Atkinson @ August 13, 2007