It is important to understand the basic definition of Ecommerce Platform Services before you delve into further details.
Ecommerce Platform Services
In simple terms, eCommerce platform services allow online businesses to manage and maintain their website, sales, marketing and operations. So, the kind of services you choose has a drastic impact on the stability and profitability of your business.
What are the Important Features of an eCommerce Platform?
Any practical eCommerce platform will enable customers to purchase your services and/or products from your online store. eCommerce platforms provide the amalgamation of important business processes where these businesses can get complete visibility across their organization and fulfill all their customers’ expectations. An eCommerce platform should be able to:
Provide a holistic customer view
Deliver personalized and consistent cross-channel experiences and exemplary eCommerce customer service with a single view of all customer transactions and interactions across all the channels.
Manage orders intelligently
Surpass and set new consumer expectations for purchasing, fulfilling, and returning purchases, both in stores and online. Maximize the profitability margins by consolidating order management and having a single view of inventory across all supply chain business units.
Deliver unique consumer experiences
Swiftly and efficiently create innovative and personalized web, mobile and in-store customer experiences to distinguish your particular brand and surpass consumer expectations.
How Will Ecommerce Platform Services Benefit My Business?
Apart from the protection of your precious data and scalability, eCommerce platforms, whether hosted in the cloud or on-premises, offer a plethora of operational advantages and business tools
Some of these tend to encompass:-
- A product management suite
- Pricing
- Extensive search capabilities
- Promotions
The ability to personalize eCommerce services and sales to meet your preferences (for example: marketing features, payment options, add-ons and so forth.)
Merchandising
eCommerce platforms offer the luxury to business owners the ability to tailor product information to best fit their own online retail requirements and the eCommerce services that they provide. This can be mutually beneficial for both the customers and the business.
Likewise, other advantages of eCommerce services include its around-the-clock availability, the speed of access, a wider selection of goods and services, accessibility, and international reach.
Regardless of whether you do business in the B2C or B2B domain, your eCommerce platform services need to do a lot more. It’s more than merely facilitating transactions if you desire to be competitive in fast-moving markets. To sum up, a complete ecommerce platform that ticks all the checkboxes can provide numerous benefits over competitors who are not making use of similar technology.
As a business owner, you can consider outsourcing the eCommerce services of your business to a reliable agency. There are several benefits in doing this. We have listed a few of them.
Little or minimal investment from the business owner
When the eCommerce services are outsourced, the business owner saves money. The business owner does not have to invest in setting up the infrastructure to run the eCommerce business. Research studies have proven that when eCommerce services like inventory management, warehousing technology implementation, fulfillment, business infrastructure, and customer support are outsourced to a reliable outsourcing partner, the business owner will save about 85 percent on upfront costs. Furthermore, if an in-house team is established to manage the eCommerce activities, the business owner will have to invest in setting up a team, training the team, providing a monthly salary and incur other costs. Besides this, the eCommerce business owner will also have to incur costs to ensure that the setup is up and running, month after month and year after year. This is a recurring expense for the business owner which can be saved when the eCommerce services are outsourced. However, when the eCommerce activities of the business are outsourced, a sizable investment is saved on platform implementation, web development, systems integration, and logistics. A small investment is required when the services are outsourced to a reliable partner or a service provider. The cost factor is one of the primary reasons why many eCommerce business owners are outsourcing services.
Increase in business production
As a single eCommerce business venture, you are unlikely to accomplish the economies of scale that eCommerce service providers offer. It is owing to the sheer volume of business that the latter conduct with technology partners, carriers, shippers, and packaging suppliers. You will not have access to the best rates in different aspects by doing everything yourself. These include web servers, payment processing, tax solutions, web developers, warehousing, and shipping.
Furthermore, it is also highly improbable to see economies of expertise. Your core competencies are most likely not to include product fulfillment, eCommerce conversion, managing subscriptions, global localization, and other complex details of global eCommerce services.
It means that you will not be very efficient at managing orders, maintaining your supply chain, and swiftly fixing problems as they surface. Thus, a feasible solution is to outsource the eCommerce activity of your business. It is proven that business owners, especially the small and the medium ones, have recorded increased business productivity. It is one of the reasons why business owners are considering outsourcing the eCommerce services of their business.
Focus on core activities and business expansion
When the eCommerce services of the business are outsourced, it gives the business owner enough time to manage the core activities of the business. A section of business owners states that outsourcing the eCommerce activities of their business helps, especially when expanding the business.
A word of caution to business owners who are considering outsourcing the eCommerce services of their business is to not be in a hurry of any kind to commit to services provided by an outsourcing service provider. Also, before you sign up for eCommerce outsourcing services, you must research the service provider. And you must make sure that you are partnering with a reliable service provider. You can take a closer look at services provided by Vserve. Vserve is a one-stop solution provider for all your eCommerce service needs.
As an eCommerce business owner, you should know how to extract yourself from the day-to-day business operations. It is possible by outsourcing your business’s services.
If you wish to seek eCommerce outsourcing services, be sure to get in touch with Vserve if you are an online business owner looking for superior eCommerce support services. To sum up, from Electronic store development to customer support, we have got you well and truly covered!
