Integrated vs Non-integrated eCommerce
So you know that you need to offer your products online in order to succeed in today’s digital retail world. As a small business owner, your next question needs to be, “should I go with integrated ecommerce or not?”. Integrated ecommerce tends to cost more than non-integrated solutions so it is an important decision to get right.
For the sake of this discussion, integrated eCommerce is when your eCommerce website is connected to your in-store point of sale system and keeps inventory counts, items, and customers updated between the two (and any other sales channel you might be using).
For many smaller retailers, keeping costs down is crucial for survival. However, you don’t want to be “penny wise and pound foolish”.
To determine if you need integrated ecommerce, ask yourself the following questions:
Do I have more than 30-50 items to offer for sale online?
Will I be handling more than 1-3 orders per day?
Does my current point of sale system have a built-in integration to an eCommerce website or do good 3rd party integrations exist for my point of sale and one or more of the main stand alone ecommerce options (like Magento or Shopify)?
What is my budget?
If you answered “Yes” to either of the first two questions and the answer is “Yes” to the third, then you definitely need to take a look at integrating your eCommerce site with your point of sale system. If you answered “Yes” to BOTH of the first two questions and the answer to the third was “No”, you need to seriously consider a different point of sale system for your business as having integrated eCommerce will be that crucial to your ongoing success.
For a small business with a limited number of items that are either a) “one of a kind” or b) will always be in stock, non-integrated ecommerce can be an inexpensive way to get started with online selling. Keeping inventory levels accurate in either situation isn’t difficult and until the daily number of online orders starts growing, the additional work to maintain the site and process the orders won’t be overbearing.
HOWEVER, if you are going to maintain more items and inventory count accuracy matters or if you are processing several orders a day, integrated eCommerce begins to be important, if not necessary, to running your business successfully. Integrated eCommerce can save you a lot of time and trouble by removing the need to maintain two databases of item information, manual entry of your online orders into your point of sale system for sales and inventory tracking, and improving your customer’s online shopping experience by virtually eliminating issues like selling items that are out of stock.
Finally, you need to consider your budget. Even if you answered “No” to the first two questions, I am an advocate of integrated eCommerce if you can afford it. If you grow your online sales over time, you won’t have to change ecommerce platforms in the future if you are already integrated. If you do choose not to use integration initially, at least try to select an eCommerce platform that you can integrate with later if your business grows. Switching eCommerce platforms is almost always painful from both a time investment perspective and from lost page ranking as your new site is re-indexed by the search engines. If you answered “No” to the first two questions and don’t plan on trying to expand your business via eCommerce then a non-integrated eCommerce website can work for you.
To learn more about both integrated and non-integrated eCommerce options, feel free to contact me.
Good Luck Selling!
Jim