Your eCommerce store is NOT your ERP
Starting an eCommerce store has become so easy these days due to platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce, open-source software such as WooCommerce, OpenCart, PrestaShop, and so on.
The recent pandemic has opened up great opportunities for businesses of all sizes. From daily essentials to motor vehicles, anything and everything now sold online.
But, most eCommerce entrepreneurs make that one big mistake, which will eventually become the barrier to scale. Sometimes this might be a shock for you but, trying to run all your business operations using an eCommerce platform leads to more negative outcomes than positive ones in the long run.
Imagine your eCommerce store as a very talented salesman but can’t gain any additional skills to become the CEO of your company. Will you take that risk? Exactly! So don’t try to delegate all your business processes to it. It can’t and won’t do a better job.
Your target should always be conversions, conversions, and conversions. Aim for better SEO, product images, variants, descriptions, payment, and delivery options to satisfy your customer at any time. Always focus on optimizing your online store for sales — not operations.
“How do I run my operations then?”
When your eCommerce store takes care of your sales process, plenty of tools are available these days to handle customer relations (HubSpot, CapsuleCRM, PipeDrive), accounting (QuickBooks, Xero), human resource management (OrangeHRM, TimeDoctor, MiHCM) and so on. These tools have pre-built plugins for popular eCommerce platforms and also have APIs which you can use for deeper integration with your business processes.
Invest your time in selecting the best tools for the rest of your business processes. Give attention to how far you can automate them with very little human interaction on repetitive processes. Found the correct tools? Invest some more time thinking about and figuring out how to link them together to achieve a seamless workflow.
“This takes a lot of time!”
Indeed. But it saves a lot of time in the long run. You don’t have to do this from day one. But, when your online store starts attracting more and more people, your focus should be making more sales and fulfilling those orders as fast you can — not scratching your head looking at the operational mess in front of you.
How’s the current experience with your eCommerce store?
