Multichannel Ecommerce
Utilising multiple channels to sell online
The great thing about online technology is that it's ever changing, usually providing a better 'experience' and cutting time (and sometimes money) spent to perform a task. This is very true in the field of ecommerce (electronic commerce) websites and means that there are now lots of ways to find the products we all look for online.
Multichannel Ecommerce describes, not surprisingly, utilising multiple channels to sell online. These channels change all the time and depend on the retail sector you are in, but some fairly constant channels would include e-commerce enabled websites, auction sites (ebay etc), Amazon, Play.com and also online brochure channels such as Google Merchants (formerly Google Products, Base and Froogle).
Of course the smart retailer now utilises as many selling channels as possible, allowing exposure through each one of these channels as well as email marketing, affiliate marketing (displaying banner ads on other sites for your business) plus of course promoting your services offline. The overall effect of using these multiple channels are two-fold: better exposure for your business (and therefore products) plus more actual exposure for your products directly where people are directly able to buy them.
Multichannel ecommerce before multichannel systems were invented
Multichannel ecommerce has previously had the major disadvantage that multiple channels required many different admin systems to enable upload of products, therefore adding to workload of the shop owner. If many different systems are needed to control stock on a selling channel then also sales reporting becomes a major task, with multiple reports from each system to log and the distinct possibility of over / under sellilng stock or even selling stock that you don't have!
Of course trying to utilise multiple channels for selling is not really a good idea unless you have a coherent stock system from which to control all channels at once! For this reason, multichannel stock control systems were developed which drive all of the separate channels from one database.
Correct use of multi channel e-commerce stock control
Once it had been identified that utilising multiple channels for selling online was a good idea, systems were developed which allowed all of the relevant data which needed to be controlled from all of these channels to be recorded and changed from just one stock control system - this means that all sales, prices and any other useful data for products can be controlled and logged from one system - this drastically cuts down on workload for the shop owner and means that coherent stock data can be kept. Products can be priced 'per channel' and then uploaded to each channel if required from one system instead of having to log into several systems and write out product descriptions individually - a major improvement for busy retailers!
The Connect Multichannel Ecommerce system
Intelligent Retail Connect consists of an EPOS system (Electronic Point of Sale) which is driven by an integral stock control system. This connects to multiple selling channels such as an e-commerce enabled website, directly via a feed to Google Merchants and also to Amazon, Ebay and many other online selling channels.
If you would like to see the Connect Multichannel Ecommerce system in action, give Intelligent Retail a call on 0845 68 00 126 or email us via our website at http://www.intelligentretail.co.uk/contactus.irs.