Multichannel eCommerce Software Development To Expand Your Reach & Revenue

Multichannel eCommerce is certainly the future of retail – especially as social shopping continues to prosper. Modern-day customers prefer shopping in more places than ever. Therefore, the brands need to get in their feeds across all touchpoints.

Though, many of the retailers often tend to face challenges while selling their products across different channels. This could be across the management of products across varied categories and on disparate IT systems. Without a centralized system – order & inventory management can become complex while reducing business efficiency, increasing error probability, delay in order deliveries & ultimately – driving away customers to the competition.

This is where a multichannel eCommerce management system can prove to be a game-changer. Think of it as the H.O.M.E.R handling the entire fleet of Iron Man’s inventory, armors & projects! (Geek Level 100). Read on to uncover our eCommerce management software development capabilities & how you can leverage them to drive more sales & delight customers.

Let’s start with a few basics!

What Is Multichannel eCommerce?

It is the practice of leveraging several sales channels across different marketplaces and platforms.

• This helps retailers to increase their brand exposure and customer reach. This, in turn, translates into more sales.
• The strategy involves utilizing the website as a hub with different platforms connected to it. And, instead of repeating tasks like uploading products and updating inventory for every single channel, many of these sellers streamline their workflow by utilizing dedicated software.

Why Multichannel eCommerce Management System is a Must-have

For starters, it empowers merchants to provide a seamless service to customers. This is while keeping inventory, sales, support tickets & customer communications in order. And, taking advantage of tools designed specifically for multisource sellers helps save time, money and manpower costs. Further, investing in multichannel eCommerce software development can bring businesses the following benefits:

• Diversify Risk & Drive Several Streams of Income
• Personalized Customer Experience
• No risk of Overselling & Overstocking
• Eliminate Human Error & Access Data Anytime, Anywhere

If you’ve read so far, you’re possibly convinced that a multisource eCommerce model can unlock new opportunities for your online business. But before you take the plunge, here are some top tech trends in the retail industry which are greatly influenced by multichannel eCommerce growth that you must consider.

Key Trends in Multichannel Retail

Here are some tech trends that can increase customer engagement, satisfaction, and sales.

Social Commerce

130 million Instagrammers click on promotional posts & ads every month. No wonder eCommerce businesses are cashing-in on impulsive buying decisions. With social networking sites, this advantage is amplified. Popular sites like Instagram & Facebook enable seamless online shopping without needing your customers to leave the platform!

eCommerce Voice Search

40% of consumers use voice search to purchase products every month. It’s gaining popularity among online shoppers who’re looking for a hassle-free experience. After the introduction of Alexa by Amazon, voice-command has become a must-have feature for modern eCommerce businesses today.

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

While eCommerce brands are constantly looking for ways to increase sales & improve CX; the best way to achieve both these goals is by leveraging PWAs. They offer all the benefits of a smartphone user experience to boost your engagement & conversion rates, cost-effectively. Did you know – PWAs have a 36% higher conversion rate as compared to native apps.

Omnichannel Selling

The CLV (customer lifetime value) for omnichannel shoppers is 30% higher as compared to people who shop from a single channel. To capitalize on this trend, your business needs to be well-positioned on social sites, marketplaces, in-store & online. Now is the time to pop-up in their feeds across all touchpoints!

Dynamic Order Fulfillment

69% of consumers are less likely to buy from a brand in the future if their order was not delivered within 2 days of the promised date. This clearly shows they want fast yet flexible delivery options. And so, retailers are turning towards convenient order fulfillment options such as:    

• Order online & pick from the store
• Shop online & return at the store
• Place an order at the store and get it delivered to home
• Get out-of-stock products from the brand’s warehouse

Chatbots

55% of retailers that deploy interactive bots land more high-quality leads. Plus, this technology keeps eCommerce businesses up & running 24×7 while saving their time and money. Smart bots can be leveraged to address customer queries, provide personalized recommendations & process transactions faster.

AR & VR

A cosmetic brand recorded exponential growth in sales after launching an AR filter. The adoption of VR in eCommerce has also increased online shopping conversions by 17%. Progressive retailers have started leveraging AR & VR to enhance the shopping experience with true-to-scale 3D products. Shoppers can now see how a product will fit and feel in the real world.

Live Streaming

The retail revenue generated from live online shopping is anticipated to increase 3X, reaching 35 billion dollars by 2024. Being both engaging & immersive, live streaming can accelerate your conversions, enhance the brand appeal and strengthen your market position with existing customers while attracting new ones.

Expanding your business with multisource selling means you’ll have to do much more than – tracking inventory, sales, orders, and customer data. Rishabh Software helps eCommerce businesses with custom solutions to streamline product showcase, scale operations & address the ever-evolving customer demands while leveraging B2C & B2B channels. Further, we help integrate POS systems, accounting, logistics and more to cater to the current and future business needs.

Must-have Modules & Features of a Multichannel eCommerce Management System

Rishabh can help custom build a feature-rich SaaS-based retail management system. It combines inventory, order, vendor and customer management into one centralized system, that can be accessed anytime, anywhere.

Let’s look at the essential modules and features that can be part of such a platform.

Inventory Management

The module effectively manages your inventory online.

Its core features include,

Multi-channel eCommerce Inventory Management

• Create/manage seller profiles for various platforms
• Manage stocks for all marketplaces and define inventory re-order rules for warehouses from a single dashboard
• List your inventory on multiple seller portals with automatic, accurate synchronization of products, bundled items, and other components

Tracking of Manufactured Items

• Monitor status & costs of manufactured products by creating work orders
• Get real-time inventory updates from various integrated platforms such as Magento, Shopify, or BigCommerce
• Download & import product details from all sales channels by a single click

Order Management

Effectively handle customer orders from integrated sales channels using this module of the eCommerce order management system.

It enables you to,

Consolidate Orders from Different Sales Channels

• Centralized system to view/edit orders, print shipping labels, packing slips, and lists without logging into each sales channel
• Define rules to route requests to suppliers or third-party fulfillment partners automatically
• Set automated notifications for order status & tracking

Streamline Order Fulfilment Process for Multiple Warehouses

• Import order details by creating automated feed using APIs
• Create a workflow for automatically transforming orders from one warehouse to another in case of sold-out items
• Generate invoices, labels, and tracking numbers with complete order details

Vendor Management

A dedicated dashboard of the multichannel eCommerce software allows vendors to register quickly and manage their product catalog with swift data maintenance.

It also helps to,

Manage Profiles

• Upload/Manage vendor profiles along with their biographical information, product niche, and other data
• Set-up custom priorities to sell items from multiple suppliers based on location, prices, and availability
• Connect seamlessly with shipping carriers, virtual marketplaces, POS systems, and other platforms

Update Product Price & Quantities to the Marketplace

• Add/Modify your selling price for specific products with an automatic update of vendor costs
• Publish full product catalogs, define workflows, and track inventory
• Set notifications to get alerts for any price or quantity change on any marketplace

CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

The system offers vital enterprise-level insights to bring brands to life and create meaningful customer experiences.

It is with;

Customer Management

• Enter, store, and manage prospect and customer details
• Enable multilingual, multicurrency support on the eCommerce website & application
• Track previous communications and respond to customer queries, feedback via in-built chat, email, or calling features
• Create business-specific workflows and use integrated tools to manage marketing campaigns

Controlling Logistics & Returns

• Manage a pool of shipping providers by prioritizing the shipment and selecting courier partner based on the customer location
• Set rules for customer-initiated returns and direct courier returns to establish a better vendor-customer relationship

Product Management

Helps to manage & monitor products across all sales & distribution platforms in real-time. Key capabilities include:

• Display catalogs that allow customers to filter products by several attributes
• Archetypes that can be used to add & manage the variants of products that are similar
• Customize retail, wholesale, sale price and other variations of product prices with promo codes, discount offers, BOGO offers & other pricing mechanisms.
• Assign products to different sale groups having a different discount percentage

Warehouse Management

Organize, pick, pack and transfer inventory between warehouses with features like barcode scanning, batch & bin picking, and automated routing for faster order fulfillment.

It helps minimize errors with shipping and optimizing the processes that allow:

• Checking inventory levels across warehouses
• Choosing what products need to be transferred
• Tagging products to different warehouses so you can pick a warehouse to check the stock availability in real-time
• Choosing shipping points and direct order dispatch to the nearest distribution point
• Batch shipments based on address type, carrier, sales channel, priority, fulfillment method and more

Analytics & Reporting

A single-view dashboard allows granular level insights into business data, uncover shopping trends & make better business decisions with accurate reports.

• Inventory & order analytics, product analytics, and accounting analytics
• Set alerts on different metrics such as inventory replenishment, order dispatch, returns, refunds and more.
• Stay on top of total sales, cost of goods, profits, discounts, taxes and business performance across sales channels

Success Story – Multi-channel eCommerce Management Solution

Explore how we helped an Asia-based eCommerce solution company automate and centralize their listings on leading marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal  & more. Major highlights of the multichannel eCommerce management system were a dedicated vendor dashboard, advanced analytics & CRM.

Value delivered:

• 80% client retention
• 4x increase in operational efficiency
• Modern & responsive UX to increase user satisfaction

Concluding thoughts!

Multisource selling will continue to enable retail business owners to sell more and earn more. But when expanding to new channels, growth can be hindered in absence of a proper eCommerce management system. And, market reputation could be at risk if the orders get delayed or customer queries go unanswered for too long. Eventually, it might hurt your visibility on the online marketplace as well.

Be prepared for the challenges that come with multisource selling by investing in software that is specific to your business ecosystem. Rishabh Software can help develop a custom multichannel eCommerce management system that can offer businesses the best chance of success. You can even explore our comprehensive portfolio of eCommerce website development services to learn how we support businesses to scale up profitably.