Managing Inventory Online

Posted on August 18, 2008, by Cheyne Rood

How can you keep an online inventory in sync with your business? Your product data - quantities, pricing, part listings - are constantly changing. It is essential that a sales website properly reflect the most up-to-date information. For electronics distributors considering new revenue opportunities on the web, effective inventory management should be a key concern.

Generic eCommerce packages require manual updates to your online inventory. That may make sense for a business with only a couple hundred product listings, but most distributors carry thousands of parts in inventory. Efficiently updating information for such a volume of parts is nearly impossible with a manual system. Though a generic eCommerce system may have an attractive price tag, the expense skyrockets when you add in number of administrative hours and headaches spent keeping the system up-to-date.

At the other end of the spectrum are integrated eCommerce solutions. These are systems that integrate with your business's inventory database in real time, typically offered as a package by your inventory software provider. This will keep your website in sync with your inventory software, although there may be certain aspects (such as images or datasheets) that you would still handle separately. The cost for this kind of system often ranges into the tens of thousands of dollars. For many electronics distributors, the price tag is simply too large to justify an investment. Also, it is important to note that eCommerce is not the core focus of an inventory software provider's business. Users may find that important elements such as customer ease of use and order processing are lacking.

Neither of these options is particularly attractive, and so it is daunting for electronics distributors to implement eCommerce in their business. In the case of generic eCommerce products, the upfront cost is reasonable but the system is very difficult to efficiently maintain. Integrated eCommerce solutions solve some of the administrative problems, but have their own issues, including substantial costs. This is the problem we are addressing with DistiSuite eCommerce.

In DistiSuite, we have developed a system that is ideal for electronics distributors, combining the best of web technology with automated online inventory management. For many business owners, it makes more sense to make a fairly modest investment, and to assess the results before expanding the online sales portion of their businesses. Because DistiSuite is a scaled system, we are able to offer a comprehensive solution at a fraction of the cost.

If you are curious to see this system in action, contact us for a demo walkthrough. In addition to learning more about us, the demo would give us a chance to learn more about your business and how we might work together to open up your business to the many revenue opportunities available on the web.

Principles of Online Sales Success

Posted on June 26, 2008, by Cheyne Rood

What makes a great eCommerce website? Leaders in online selling generate impressive revenues every year - What is the secret to their success? Is it pricing? Ease of use? Cross selling? No, these are all merely effects of an underlying cause. Companies that drive new revenue streams and develop new customer relationships with their websites are successful because they commit to a comprehensive strategy. They understand that, out of the many factors, most important is the core function of eCommerce: Facilitating online sales.

In other words, successful companies make every element of their website and every step of the online selling process as easy and optimized as possible. The visual design is clean, professional, and straightforward. Customers know how to find the products they are looking for, gain the information they need to place an order, and easily understand the order process. A great eCommerce website meets its customer's needs, but there's a lot more to consider behind the scenes.

It is easy to ignore the administrative side, which is equally important. All too often, companies put a lot of effort into the customer experience without thinking about how to efficiently administer their eCommerce website. An effective website will organize orders, making it easy to handle purchases and notify customers about order status. Business is constantly changing, and it must be efficient to update inventory information, upload data sheets and images for your products, and change the featured products and information on your homepage.

The final, crucial element in the equation was the focus of last month's newsletter: Getting customers to your website in the first place. Since a great design is meaningless if there are no customers coming to use it, a solid search engine strategy is critical for success in online selling. There are a lot of marketing strategies available to begin funneling in prospective customers from search engines and listing sites, but a search engine-friendly website design is your foundation.

A company profits from its eCommerce website is because it commits to a comprehensive strategy. It understands that, like many things in business, success in online selling depends on a balance of many factors. Building the online branch of your business is becoming more and more important. Whether your company is venturing into online sales for the first time, or thinking about ways to enhance an existing sales website, think about these principles and whether the customer experience, administrative backend, and basic foundation of your website is doing its part to facilitate online sales.

More News...

» Finding New Customers Online with eCommerce [5/28/2008]
» Welcome to the DistiSuite Newsletter [5/27/2008]