How to Scale Your Ecommerce Business
Congratulations! So you have successfully launched a successful e-commerce business. Now what?
At EIZ, we know a thing or two about e-commerce. And it doesn’t just come from designing and developing technology solutions for industry. It also comes from the close relationships we’ve built with thousands of customers – successful and growing e-commerce businesses like you – and dozens of solution partners, over many years.
Here we would like to focus on one key aspect which we believe is too often overlooked. Scaling. What it is. Why it matters. And what simple steps can your business take to ensure you’re properly equipped to handle growth.
Understanding Scaling
To put it succinctly, scaling is simply the ability for your business, as it grows, to manage that growth, while still meeting the demand of your customers. This includes managing customer expectations and the relationships you have established with your suppliers and partners.
In this article, we briefly discuss the top three things your eCommerce business needs to do to ensure that you are able to scale.
Omnichannel
Dot one. Your business must be “omnichannel”. Of course, when you’re just starting out, selling your wares on one or two marketplaces, like eBay and Amazon, might be enough. Likewise, setting up a freight account with one or two carriers may be enough to meet your shipping needs. But what happens when business increases and you need more market exposure and better carrier rates?
You’ll find that managing multiple sales channels and freight carriers can be a tedious task and, eventually, with enough growth, a full-time job in itself. This is where the right software and technology platform becomes essential, capable of integrating and seamlessly processing as many requests, from as many different sales channels, as you wish, all from a single interface.
Volume management
Dot two. As a business grows, its volume also increases. This will require you to keep track of more inventory, know where that inventory is in your warehouse, and be able to continuously design and execute the most efficient picking cycles. What about when you outgrow a single warehouse and need to manage multiple separate physical locations? Upgrading and retraining staff can be a time-consuming and costly undertaking. So make sure your inventory and warehouse management system is built to scale from day one.
stay nimble
Dot three. If your business is ready to embrace the latest craze, react quickly to shifts in customer sentiment, and can develop immediate workarounds to any market disruptions, then the technology solutions you rely on will also need to be nimble enough to handle these. changes. .
Often the core functionality of ordering, shipping, inventory, and warehouse management systems are bundled together and hard-coded, making them difficult to pair or sync with other systems. E-commerce-friendly add-ons or apps that provide access to additional functionality can be a boon in these situations, and you need to make sure these systems can communicate with each other.
put it all together
Scale is the ability for you to manage your business as it grows. In order to scale effectively, e-commerce businesses need true omnichannel platforms for their marketplaces and operators, right from the start. Any platform capable of integrating more channels will need to meet increased demand with scalable volume management. Staying nimble means you can avoid pitfalls and bottlenecks. We hope these tips help you understand what your business needs to scale.
To find out how EIZ can help you grow your e-commerce business, contact us today at enquiry@eiz.com.au.