Having worked with a number of e-commerce clients over the years, at VARTEQ we know how to tell your retail business is experiencing setbacks. Here, we are willing to share some of our expertise which you may find helpful.
Growing your retail business from SMB project to an established company takes time and concentrated effort. Historically, the most daunting pains of e-commerce retail have included customer identity vs privacy issues, nabbing a market niche which would set you apart from competitors, dealing with returns and reclaims and maintaining a reasonable balance between competitive price and bulk purchase costs to ensure your business is even viable. This has been a part of your daily struggle, while you were at the initial phase.
At some point, quantity turns into quality and your business starts to grow exponentially. But while you may feel like breathing a sigh of relief, this is when you are beginning to face major hassle.
As your sales grow, your logistics and warehousing needs start to expand proportionately. Warehouse inventory and shipment control, previously carried out seamlessly by one (rarely several) of your employees become harder to manage. Simply put, the more complicated your business gets, the more room there is for mistakes and confusion. There are just too many things that have to be taken into account and a shortage of resources, a situation, which perfectly defines “bottleneck”. There’s the ubiquitous human factor, impossible to eliminate… because we know, you’ve tried.
Here’s how we know your business is facing setbacks. As we start to analyze our e-commerce retail clients, we ask them one simple question:
Are you using Google Docs to manage your shipment tasks, accounting, and warehouse inventory?
Yes, it’s as simple as that.
Let’s get this straight: Google Docs is a great solution: it’s free, it’s cloud-based and accessible anytime from anywhere. At some point — but only at some point — it serves you well before your business makes this giant leap and starts growing faster than your crew can adapt to changes. There’s only one problem with Google Docs: you have to enter the information manually. Someone has to take care of the database, so you still can’t escape the human factor.
As your business expands, each mistake is beginning to cost you dearly: any confusion in your shipment tracking will be automatically reflected in United Parcel Service records and the IRS, which could result in fines and penalties, licensing issues and major reputational risks.
On the front end, your store may have great usability, functionality and design and your team may deliver excellent customer service. On the backend, your retail business may be in dire need of technological advancement and RPA (robotic process automation). The truth is – you can’t afford to overlook what happens on your retail backend, moreover, improving your back office technology may give you distinct competitive edge.
Surprisingly, a lot of entrepreneurs pay little attention to their backend processes — they tend to identify with their end clients who are looking for competitive pricing, fast and problem-free delivery, and great shopping experience. The truth is, when a retail bottleneck becomes too tight, your customers can feel it too, as the purchase and delivery process is being hampered. Legal aspects are yet another matter which calls for tech innovation and automation.
At VARTEQ, we help you eliminate Google Docs. We offer you a middleware solution which seamlessly syncs your store front-office with your back office, moreover, it can be easily customized to sync with your CRM and facilitate your communication with UPS and accounting service companies. Most importantly, our backend solution for retail helps you avoid inevitable mistakes, get rid of retail bottlenecks and eliminate the human factor. Our backend middleware pinpoints discrepancies in your databases before they translate into major confusions and revenue losses; it also generates reports, integrates with third-party software and automates repetitive tasks, so that your staff can deal with more important issues.
Here’s why it makes sense to choose us: tech giants like Google or IBM will offer you similar back office solutions, but, apart from being too expensive for small or medium businesses, these solutions are usually extremely difficult to integrate into an existing organization environment. Using them will require you to change your entire ecosystem, while here, at VARTEQ, we are flexible, ready to adapt and individually approach each client.
The new technological era may be at your doorstep, but the truth is — it takes time, money and expertise to develop business intelligence solutions in-house. At VARTEQ, we offer you custom-made software for your retail backend, help you boost productivity and eliminate performance bottlenecks.