The technology stack defines what an e-commerce business can accomplish, influencing both customer service and internal organization, along with scalability.
For most ecommerce sellers, technology serves as their core - it facilitates selling, managing inventory, communicating with customers, and tracking orders from manufacturer to warehouse to shipping provider. This technology stack indicates the capabilities of an e-commerce venture, impacting external customer service as well as internal management and growth potential.
As businesses expand to multi-channel sales, this becomes increasingly vital. Brands operating across diverse platforms often experience up to 3X the engagement compared to those relying on a single channel. However, success in this area frequently rests on whether the technology stack can manage the necessary channels.
Retailers utilize platforms like Amazon for visibility, while also leveraging additional revenue sources such as Walmart.com and eBay, alongside Shopify or their own sites to foster brand loyalty and retention.
In today’s e-commerce landscape, having synchronized processes and data across applications is crucial. Connectivity is becoming ever more essential, leading firms like Pipe17 to focus on providing robust connectivity solutions tailored to the unique requirements of e-commerce brands and merchants.
Synchronized Data Fuels Multi-Channel Sales
Successful multi-channel selling hinges on synchronized data. This means that each of your e-commerce platforms must communicate as close to real-time as possible. Without real-time inventory management, e-commerce stores cannot expand. If inventory counts cannot be updated across channels, you risk incurring high costs and the dangers of split inventory to avoid overselling.
Synchronized data also affects routine operations, including data entry, product orders, and invoicing. If all your sales platforms interact through a single data hub like Pipe17, which keeps everything in sync, data entry specialists can focus on more critical tasks.
Conversely, if this isn’t the case, you’ll need someone to manually transfer orders from one platform to another. You’ll have to manage orders across several platforms, introducing many risks such as increased human error and potential missed orders.
Too Many E-Commerce Systems Lacking Connection
While there is a growing demand for e-commerce platforms to communicate with one another, the actual progress has been slower. The current e-commerce market is saturated with new applications and tools, which is generally beneficial; sellers have more options than ever to expand their businesses.
Yet without a strong foundation of comprehensive connectivity among these tools, sellers often need to make choices about sales and fulfillment channels based on what their ERP can accommodate, or the costs involved in that integration. There are various methods to achieve this connectivity foundation.
Many systems boast an API, and 67% of developers adopt API-first development, but utilizing an API requires either in-house developers or the expense of custom connectors, which can run into thousands of dollars initially. Most e-commerce teams aim to keep operational costs manageable, making custom development less appealing.
Certain applications come pre-equipped with connectors, but these often fall short since they don’t encompass the complete range of e-commerce applications and processes needed. The connectivity problem extends beyond just connectors:
Some connectors transmit only limited data types and do not address all the use cases customers require, such as product catalog synchronization.
Connectors that only send data in one direction. For instance, while Amazon and Walmart can update inventory in the ERP, it’s also essential for the ERP to automatically sync reconciled inventory back to those marketplaces and other channels to avoid overselling.
Managing multiple point-to-point connectors can lead to sellers losing track of connections, resulting in unnoticed failures and disruptions to the entire process.
Many APIs impose limits on expected connections during a given period. If those limits are surpassed, the API may simply deny connections, complicating matters during sudden spikes in sales unless you have communicated with developers ahead of time.
Numerous vendors might propose to ‘customize’ their connectors for an extra charge, but this significantly raises costs (returning to the issue of funding development) and once created, these become unsupported software requiring user maintenance.
However, the issue of connectivity delves deeper than merely connectors and data synchronization. The future is in connectivity that not only supports integration but also adds greater value by understanding the nuances of e-commerce.
For instance, envision connecting: Shopify, Point of Sale, 3PL, wholesale systems, EDI, financials, returns systems, etc., to your ERP. If the connectivity recognizes that the specific data it’s transferring is an “Order,” it can provide additional services like routing to different locations based on the SKU or flagging specific high-dollar orders for approval. Picture intelligent connectivity that genuinely enhances operational efficiency.
In summary, if your e-commerce tools and platforms lack communication, you’re compelled to choose tools predominantly on whether they work alongside one or more elements in your current setup. If they completely lack connectivity, it creates a needless demand for data entry, extending the time needed per order and increasing your team's workload.
Headless Commerce and Connectivity
More and more e-commerce sellers are adopting Headless Commerce to enrich customer experiences. The principle behind headless commerce is to detach commerce and fulfillment features from the visual and content layers that customers engage with (the “head”). This allows sellers to innovate their customer experiences while the stable aspects of commerce and fulfillment can easily be shared across multiple touchpoints, like websites, mobile platforms, point-of-sale systems, etc. For example, with headless commerce, it becomes easier to provide customers with a unified account for purchases, whether they shop in-store or online.
Headless E-commerce is currently one of the most dynamic sectors, with providers such as CommerceTools, Chord, Fabric, Spryker, Commerce Layer, and many others vying for customer interest. All these platforms necessitate a strong connectivity solution.
To decouple the commerce platform and allow connectivity to other applications, custom connectors must be established. This enables the platforms to send data back and forth in near real-time. Generally, this involves synchronizing inventory, orders, inventory flows, and other data among shopping carts, marketplaces, 3PL, or fulfillment vendors, warehouses, and ERP systems. Ultimately, this integration connects to order and inventory management as well.
Businesses like Pipe17 are collaborating closely with headless commerce providers to deliver solutions that are both adaptable and straightforward to manage.
Concluding Thoughts - Leveraging Smart Connectivity for Multi-Channel Sales
As more tools emerge, e-commerce sellers are increasingly in need of additional data entry or in-house developers to link these technology stack components. Smart connectivity solutions like Pipe17 eliminate this necessity by connecting all applications to function together seamlessly. Crafted specifically for e-commerce, they are more capable of supporting a wide array of e-commerce applications and processes.
