Nowadays integration between two business systems is very popular among business organizations. A business integration not only integrates data but with this data integration platform we can set the business processes also. So, in this blog, we will explore the 5 reasons for integrating a Shopify store with ERP or CRM system. As a case study, we will take the example of a customer who has launched a new Shopify store for online business and has an ERP with existing business data.
5 Reasons to Integrate your Shopify Store With back-end ERP/CRM System:
1. Customer Management
For successfully running the business, primary data like customers needs to be matched between both the ERP and Ecommerce systems. Previously, the business owner managed the entry of data by manually entering it but with the introduction of the web store, it becomes a mammoth task to manually enter data especially with the growing popularity of the web store. Because customers will log in from the virtual environment and to enter the data, first business owner need to collect the data then he or she can enter the data in the existing system. So, there will be a delay in the business process. By using integration platform, we can make this process faster and accurate.
2. Inventory Management
Another important scenario will be managing product and inventory in both systems. With the introduction of the web store, a client need to sync his/her thousands of existing products in the web store. And also, if he creates any new product in the web store that needs to also sync in the ERP. So manually entering those products in web store or vice versa will be resource hungry and chances of mistake will be high. Apart from that, managing the inventory of the products in Shopify and back-end ERP is important. Inventory in both systems needs to be up to date with the product actual stock unit. So, calculating and manual entry of stocks for thousands of products will be a time-consuming job and as a result, high changes of mismatched entries will be there. And this will hamper business, especially in order management. So, if we implement an integration platform we can overcome this scenario by making inventory management more accurate, fast and automated.
3. Order Processing
The main part of any business organization is managing its order cycle. Typically, an order cycle comprises of the following part placing the order then the invoice will be created for that order after the creation of invoice the order is delivered to the customer and after delivery, the stock of the products associated with the order needs to be managed. Now imagine in the web store every day thousands of orders will be placed and the customer always wants quick delivery of the items to them. Now if we do this order processing cycle manually for every order imagine how much time it will take for a single order and the order completion time will vary from one week to 10 days in an ideal scenario. Now using an integration platform, we can do this within few hours and with 100% accuracy.
4. Business Process Streamline
Every business runs based on a business process set by the business owner and stakeholders. And it changes based on a situation. For example, with the introduction of the website customer wants to implement partial delivery and refund of orders in his order cycle for the web orders only. So, using the integration platform we can do it quickly by configuring it based on the changed requirement and it needs to be changed only in one place. But if we don’t use an integration platform then we need to train every manual entry operator and the transition phase will take a long time in case of large businesses.
5. Resource Utilization
Implementing an integration platform will help the business owner to utilize his resources in a more efficient manner. There will be no need for manual entry so less human resource will be required. As everything will be automated and the platform is being pretested so it will be accurate and chances of data errors will be less. Any changes will be adapted to the system very fast as no training is required.
These are the major benefits of using an integration platform with the Shopify store.
Now, you can easily integrate your Shopify store with your back-end ERP/CRM or POS Systems to automate the business process!
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