Taking ecommerce to the next level in 2021

2020 saw many retailers embracing ecommerce for the first time. 2021 will be the year successful retailers take their ecommerce strategies to the next level and fully integrate them into their business model.

2020 was a year a sudden jarring change for many retailers. Covid-19 forced many to embrace ecommerce for the first time and many more started to treat ecommerce as a core strategy whereas previously it was a rarely used add on to their bricks and mortar shopfront. This change wasn’t always planned but it did have the advantage that customers were forced online at the same time. This meant that instead of a “build it and they will come – eventually” scenario, retailers benefited from a situation of “build it quick because they are already there, like it or not”.

For large numbers of retailers that first step into ecommerce was getting a shopping cart website built. Typically this took the form of something like a Wix, Square, Woocommerce or Shopify website as a stand alone online shop with little thought for the impact on the existing business model. In many cases the existing model was being impacted by partial or full lockdown and not functional at the time anyway. In that environment integration of stock control and order fulfilment processes were simply not an immediate issue.

With lockdowns reducing but the likelihood of rolling lockdowns through 2021 it is now time for retailers to step back and consider how well their business model is working and to start planning for taking the ecommerce strategy to the next level.

The second level of ecommerce is when the retailer moves to omnichannel selling. Your ecommerce website is perfect to serve existing customers but how do you grow? When your prospective customers are on Amazon, Facebook and ebay you have a choice. Try to outspend those platforms on marketing to get the customers to your site or sell your products on those platforms as well. Obviously the second option is the way to go for pretty much all retail businesses.

This second level of ecommerce is the most stressful and the one that will create the most problems. How do you track stock across multiple channels? How do you maintain pricing and specials. How to do handle multiple orders coming from different platforms? How do you incorporate realtime shipping costs calculations? The amount of backend management goes up exponentially as you add more channels especially if you are still trying to manage your shopfront walk-in customers at the same time.

Fortunately, with a little planning you can move from level one directly to level three and avoid the issues of level two. The next level ecommerce strategy is omnichannel integration. I believe 2021 will be the year of omnichannel integration for successful retailers. Only when systems are integrated can the business experience substantial growth without chaos.
Moving to an integrated omnichannel sales strategy does take more planning that the initial website strategy. The planning steps include:
1. Doing an audit of existing systems. The reality is that many of your existing systems may need to be replaced if they are not able to integrate. Those systems include
a. Website platform
b. Stock control
c. Accounting software
d. POS
e. Pick and Pack systems
2. Identify the platforms or channels that you want to add such as:
a. Amazon
b. Ebay
c. Facebook
d. Google shops
e. Catch
f. Other
3. Do you have “influencers” on social media willing to promote your products or sell them through their own platforms?

Now you know where you are and where you want to be, your focus will be on the ecommerce website. This is typically the platform that will be central to managing the other online sales. Woocommerce is without doubt the most popular ecommerce platform. Unfortunately that is because it is the only platform known to Wordpress developers, not because it is necessarily the best platform. Woocommerce requires multiple third party plugins to be functional as an omnichannel platform.  It can work but falls short in functionality, ease of use and stability. The main contenders in that space are are Square and Shopify. For Australian retailers I would normally recommend Shopify due to shortcomings in Square’s Australian offerings.

Shopify offers an excellent POS option for bricks and mortar retailers as well as built in integrations for the major channels. That reduces the cost of ownership considerably as well as reducing the potential for plugins/apps conflicting with each other. It also handles stock control across multiple sites (especially important if you have more than one retail outlet or warehouse) and integrates nicely with Xero, MYOB, Quickbooks and other popular accounting software. You can add a Scan and Pick option for order fulfillment as well. Shopify also supports adding BUY buttons to third party websites (eg. Influencers and partners) which is a very easy way to offer third party site integration.

Having worked with a wide range of website platforms and ERP systems over the past 20 years, Shopify stands out to us as the best choice, for most small to medium retailers, for integrated ecommerce strategies now and as your business grows in the future. 2020 was the year of standalone ecommerce websites. 2021 will see a clear divide between those who stay with the standalone site, managed as a separate entity within the business, and those who take the next step with an integrated omnichannel platform.