According to the Statistica reports, the revenue of the Philippines eCommerce market is projected to show an annual growth rate of 16.7% (CAGR 2020 – 2025), leading up to the rise of market volume to US$7,665m by 2025.

With the rapid increase in the number of online shoppers which is expected to grow further up to 47.8% by 2025, the industry is all set to experience a massive boost in sales to the eCommerce sellers, retailers, businesses and to the overall economy of the country.

Opportunities to Sell on Marketplaces & Carts

Local as well as global users browse through the eCommerce arena of the Philippines giving way for small to large eCommerce players to multiply their sales and increase their customer bases.

Apart from this. consumer behaviour has now shifted from making trips to retail outlets to shopping remotely and getting their products delivered right at their doorsteps. 

With an increase in the number of online shoppers, the need to be present everywhere has magnified as well. You can no longer just sell from offline and match the level of competition around you to experience true growth and profits.

Benefits of Selling on Marketplaces & Carts

Being on marketplaces and carts gives your business the chance to double your sales and grow your consumer base. 

Once you have made the shift from selling just offline to now being present online as well, you get to experience some huge advantages. The biggest benefits of selling online include:

1. Lower Costs of Handling – In the absence of paying for physical stores and with low staff requirements, you automatically save a lot when you sell online.

2. Bigger pool of Customers – When you start selling on marketplaces and carts, your products are accessible to a wide range of shoppers, increasing your sales and overall profitability.

3. Data-Driven Operations – Marketplaces allow you to collect data insights about the choices and interests of your customers, helping you plan better sales.

4. Complete Automation – With the automation of operations and lesser dependency on manual efforts, you get more accurate information about your business and experience higher productivity.

Top 8 Marketplaces & Carts in the Philippines

The future of eCommerce in the Philippines is going to be huge and if you plan to expand your online business here, it is necessary for you to start selling on the top marketplaces and carts that have made a mark in the country and are soaring up with a rapidly growing list of shoppers.

#1 Lazada

Lazada.com.ph is the most renowned eCommerce marketplace in Philippines with a wide range of products that allows something for everyone and has been a key player in scaling up the online shopping trends in the country.

Lazada has gained immense popularity ever since it began operating in 2011, not only in the Philippines but in other regions of Southeast Asia as well including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam as well.

The platform is the first choice for sellers for a lot of reasons, including their preferred Cash on Delivery (COD) mode of payments that allow the majority of eCommerce businesses in the Philippines the ease to accept payments without relying on banks. 

The huge list of products on the platform with over 300 million SKUs from all shopping categories and with 25.6 million visits each month, Lazada becomes a necessary place for sellers to be present at.

#2 Shopee

Although Shoppee.ph was launched just 5 years ago, the platform has managed to attract a lot of customers and thousands of sellers on it making it one of the top competitors of Lazada in South East Asia.

Being the most preferred platform for over 15 million shoppers, Shopee has grown big in the region. The platform has a rapidly growing seller base with a catalogue size of over 3 million products from various categories.

In order to be a successful seller on the Shopee, it is necessary to be socially active, maintain good customer feedback and provide highly satisfactory customer service. The platform provides paid ad services but charges 0 fees for listings. 

Shoppee serves in Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam with a product range consisting of essential products, apparel, electronics and even pet foods. The platform also allows reselling, making it a more popular online shopping destination.

#3 Zalora

Zalora is yet another top eCommerce selling platform in the Philippines that provides a huge platform for apparel and shoe brands to showcase their products to a wide list of shoppers.

The platform is well known to have some of the biggest global names in the fashion industry such as H&M, Adidas, Superdry, Nike., etc be a part of their online marketplace and offers a variety of wearable items right from formal to casual wear. 

At present, Zalora offers over 120000 products and allows Cash on Delivery payment method, as well as free returns, making it easier for sellers to build trust amongst their customers.

The platform as a huge social media following and has also collaborated with the biggest fashion icons in the region such as Isabelle Daza-Semblat, Solenn Heussaff-Bolzico, Georgina Wilson-Burnand and Liz Uy, to curate a label ‘the__edit’ making it a top choice for budding as well as known fashion houses to sell online.

#4 Amazon

Amazon has ventured into the Philippines eCommerce industry as well, and being an international marketplace, it immediately caught the attention of online shoppers in the region as well. 

With the biggest range of almost all kinds of products available on Amazon, it is one of the most visited marketplaces in the region. Amazon FBA has allowed tons of Filipino sellers to showcase their products locally as well as globally, expanding their poll of customers.

The platform has a well-defined product listing guideline that helps new sellers to set up shop easily, and gives them equal exposure with other competitors, driving good sales for them. Apart from this the built-in affiliate program of Amazon FBA provides complete assistance to sellers right from handling their products to shipping them, to even managing their returns. This helps online sellers save huge on inventory management, manpower costs and returns. 

Once you begin your eCommerce journey with Amazon, you can grow seamlessly as it takes care of your audiences, your marketing strategies depending on your budget and a lot more of such highly impactful features to help you boost sales.

#5 eBay

eBay Philippines was brought to the Filipino eCommerce market to help sellers get a well structured and easy to use online platform to sell their products. 

As the platform allows selling new as well as used goods, sellers from all sections could make immense profits with a wide reach within the region and around the globe. 

The platform is very user friendly and all it requires for you to start selling online is to sign up, create your account and make your listings.

eBay serves over 180 million shoppers around the world and you can begin selling without having a company website or full-time resources to manage your promotions. 

With a dedicated Seller Hub, eBay provides complete assistance to sellers and even lets them print their own shipping labels, have knowledge of the best performing products, etc. making it a top choice for new online sellers and homegrown brands.

#6 Shopify

Shopify is well known for its ability to kick start an online business by allowing sellers to create top-notch websites, add products, and more such plugins to tackle crucial operational tasks. 

This fully-hosted platform gives Filipino sellers a free 14-day trial and a completely streamlined experience to enable them to make the switch from their retail business or just start selling online from the first go.

Thousands of eCommerce businesses in the Philippines operate via the online shops created on Shopify and utilize the multi channel selling capabilities. Shopify allows sellers to sell directly on Facebook, Instagram, eBay, Amazon, etc making it a one-stop solution.

With features such as 1 click upsell, abandoned cart recovery and with thousands of pre-built templates, the process of creating an online shop becomes very easy for sellers and gives a user-friendly experience to the shoppers.

#7 Magento

Magento is yet another highly trusted and sought after eCommerce platform in the Philippines where sellers can easily start selling online and make good profits.

The platform offers unique and customizable options to create your own website, add as many features you want and a lot many third-party integrations to tackle every aspect of your e-commerce business.

Magento also allows sellers to create personalized marketing promotions, provide recommendations, instant purchases and much more with the use of drag and drop tools to help them serve better to their customers.

#8 WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a plugin of WordPress that serves as an exclusive eCommerce platform for sellers who create their websites via WordPress.

This free plugin offers a variety of options to the sellers including highly customizable features to handle your eCommerce website, thousands of extra plugins to increase performance and create a user-friendly experience.

The platform is very convenient to use and has a lot of shoppers logging in each day to shop for hundreds of products.

Start today, Choose the right platform for your business!

These top 8 marketplaces and carts have been offering the best online selling experience to eCommerce businesses in the Philippines and have built a strong customer base for them.

Multichannel selling can be a little tricky if you do it alone because big exposure to consumers requires faster operational efficiency and better customer experience to achieve profits.

When you sell on any of these big marketplaces and carts, handling your inventory, orders, sales and accounting manually can be a tedious task and may lead up to errors, but with the right multichannel management software, the process can be truly simplified!

Each business has its own requirements and expectations when selling on these platforms and we at Unicommerce bridge the gap between you and the right choice for your business to thrive in the online eCommerce business.

The robust plug and play features of Unicommerce’s Order management Software to any of these 8 marketplaces and carts combined with completely automated operations, in built collaborations with Logistics partners, ERP etc can give your e-commerce business the much-needed boost it requires to increase profitability and enhance the customer experience.

Interested in building an advanced, feature-rich ecommerce dashboard tailored to your business needs? Give our solutions expert a call today!

Related read:

• UniShip – Advanced Logistics Tracking Platform
• UniReco – Automated Reconciliation of Orders, Returns and Payments
• Key Challenges & Benefits of Marketplace Payment Reconciliation
• Benefits of Shipping Notifications
• How to Sell on Zalora Marketplace in the Philippines?
• How can you overcome Supply Chain Challenges in the Philippines?
• Apparel Industry in the Philippines: Opportunities, Challenges and Solutions

The post Top Marketplaces & Carts to Sell Online in the Philippines: Lazada, Zalora, Shopee & more appeared first on unicommerce.com.

It’s time to optimise your retail operations to leverage business growth and increase the footprint in the market.

The first thing that any retail business should ensure is consistent inventory.

Inventory visibility – is the chief contributor to retail success. To ensure round the year inventory visibility across multiple channels of sales, maintaining accurate inventory is necessary. The business should have a inventory management software system that automatically manages inventory levels and visibility. Optimising the fundamental and critical factor like inventory ensure business success.

Efficient order fulfilment – Pick pack and ship on time and intact is what makes your customer happy and wants to come back to you again and again. You cannot do that without gearing up and streamline how orders are managed and fulfilled till the last mile.

Warehouse planning – Lesser wastage of warehouse space is a great way to push your sales volume to the ceiling. Any retail needs to plan and store the inventory in warehouses intelligently, without unnecessary stocking up of a non-moving stock. Planning the warehouse space is critically important to ensure optimum stock availability and order fulfilment.

Scale up to the challenges of omnichannel – Establishing tandem between online and offline sales operations and order management is essential to any retail success. Since the market is moving towards omnichannel, efficient management of both physical and digital processes significantly contribute to the optimising of your retail business.

Seamless shopping experience – Plan your physical retail space to offer the enriching experience of shopping to your customers as an extension of the digital channel. Creating a seamless shopping experience that enables placing an order, paying as convenient, picking up the order from a preferred mode, returning on the most comfortable channel; accelerate the retail business growth many folds.

Cross-selling – of hit and the slacking stock is a smart way to ensure healthy stock rotation and its optimum level. Simultaneously it positively affects the productivity and profitability.

Unified marketing activities – Tailor the promotional activities taking into account your customers’ preferred shopping channels, their shopping pattern, season etc. The activity should have a specific motto to excite and drive the customers to your brand.

Let your data do more – How you handle the data from various channels almost instantly shows on your other retail activities. Analysing and taking action on the periodically generated data helps the businesses steer clear of the non-contributing, unprofitable channels, stock and operations.

Automation is the key – There are two ways to keep a tab on your data flow. One periodic audit of all the retail operations or automating the whole process of inventory, warehouse, orders, offline sales, sales promotional activities etc. Automation of operations not only gives you ample space to work-out your go-to-market strategies but utilises lesser resources to the fullest, increasing productivity.

So, here are some of the tips to optimise your retail operations. To know how best you can automate your operations so that you can focus on core activities of business development and management, check out Unicommerce – suit of e-commerce products.

Our Ecommerce Solutions for Ecommerce Businesses:

• E-commerce marketplace integration software
• Warehouse management system software
• Order Management System (OMS)
• Inventory Management Software

The post 9 Efficient ways to Optimise Retail Operations to accelerate business growth appeared first on unicommerce.com.

On 18th of June, 2016, Unicommerce organized an Ecommerce Sellers’ Meet in Pune. The purpose of the event was to educate ecommerce sellers about how Unicommerce can help make online selling easy for them. Unicommerce not only ensures that the sellers have more time to focus on their core business operations, but also reduces their day to day hassles of order processing and inventory management.

The event started with a presentation providing an overview and key features of Unicommerce, followed by an interactive discussion with the sellers. They discussed clearly about the issues they faced on daily basis and were satisfied with the responses they got from the team.

Besides, there was a special segment in the event where our existing customers shared their experiences with Unicommerce. Most of them stressed on the necessity of having Unicommerce for hassle free online selling, saying that one can trust the product with their eyes closed.

Although initially the event was scheduled for 2 hours, we extended it to another 1 hour due to the overwhelming response from the sellers. Everybody was intrigued by the information shared in the event. And a lot of them requested the team to organize more such events in Pune in the near future.

The event came to an end with high tea arrangements for the sellers, which served as a good networking opportunity for them. We must say that it’s been a great experience for us. We look forward to reaching out the dynamic online seller community across India. For further details on the same, please watch out this space.

The post Ecommerce Sellers​’​ Meet by Unicommerce in Pune appeared first on unicommerce.com.

The post How I Bought My New Mobile Online – PPT appeared first on unicommerce.com.

India is progressing but the Indian buyer’s mentality is essentially still old school. Not much progress there. I too belonged exactly to this frame until some time back.

Earlier whenever I thought that I’d pick something online, I’d visit some forums and then drop the idea altogether. Never thought – I would buy my new phone online

I’d love to walk you through some of my concerns while purchasing online –

What if old items were passed on as new?

This was one of my most grounded fears. Now I must say that this was also the most baseless.

Reputed online stores go length and beyond to give the best of all products to their customers. They offer a guarantee on their products. Also they don’t just mention informally. There are proper disclaimers that clearly state the status of the offered products. And nowadays, online sellers are going far and beyond to ensure customer satisfaction. They are enhancing their efficiency with order management software to retain and attract customers.  

Some stores do offer used products too. But you’d find it clearly mentioned in the product page.

Whom will I chase if I need a replacement?

You could need a replacement for several reasons. Either the product may not be good or it may be different from what you expected. With physical stores, you know whom to reach out to if you need a replacement.

However, on ecommerce marketplaces, several retailers offer their products. I was afraid that if I picked a random seller from that platform and they shipped a rather damaged phone to me, how will I ever get a replacement?.

This again is not a problem at all. You can file your complaints through the central platform itself.

Each sale is ultimately the responsibility of the online platform. They validate the entire process.

If you have spent some time in the customer support section of such platforms like Amazon and Ebay, you’ll see that they are available for contacting almost through all means. Be it through the phone, email or live chat, they are there to hear if you have any problems at all.

You’ll be amazed to find them to be even more responsive than your traditional retail outlets.

What if I am credited the bill, but I never receive my purchase?

This again didn’t look like a problem once I started exploring the options in online buying. Cash On Delivery safeguards you against all chances of frauds. Pay once you have your goods delivered to you. You get the COD option for almost all major products. Online tailors are approaching the number of good logistics partners. Moreover, smart sellers use supply chain management software which allows them to track the order status as well as delivery so that the customers can receive their orders at the earliest.

How can I wait for so long?

First, you don’t have to wait forever.

Second, you save days of research by looking up online. All online platforms give you the means of comparing your final shortlisted options. You can compare them side by side and take your decision.

In fact, they suggest phones based on the models that you were initially searching for. In my case, I dropped the model that I intended to buy initially. I picked from one of the suggested models.

Besides, leading online stores are prompt with the delivery and tell you exactly when to expect your parcel. Also, they deliver sooner than they promise.

How could I buy – without physically seeing it?

This is entirely a subject of preference. Some people are indeed very particular about this. I too, was. But then I had repeatedly been hearing my friends yapping about how great their online shopping experiences had been. I didn’t want to feel left out (read: outdated).

There’s no texture really to feel about a phone. The product pages are made pretty explicit to cover even such details. Whether a product has a plastic body or a metallic one, you can find very articulated information over the product page.

All the details that you would need to make your purchase decisions are presented to you in the products specs.

There are several images too along with the dimensions.

The most useful of all are the user reviews, stuck right at the end of each product page. Learning from the existing users is one of the best ways of knowing what to expect from your purchase.

You’ll be amazed to see your buying decisions get influenced by these.

What if the Warranty goes void?

Each brand has its list of official vendors. Official vendors are the retailers or retailers that are authorized by the brand to sell its products.

Companies often offer exactly the same warranty to both its online and offline vendors.

A customer has to be careful to buy a product only from a registered vendor. Sellers often certify when they are officially affiliated with a brand.

I verified this while buying my phone. I strongly suggest that you must also always verify if you are indeed buying from the authorized sellers.

How do I trust if, right products will reach me

 Such concerns are only based upon the inherent hesitation to buy online. Online buyers get complete access to raise their voices in the support forums.

It’s really not possible to sell substandard stuff online. There are extensive review boards. You can check them to see that consumers can report their problems and they can do so at a mega-scale.

Such exposure makes cases of fraud or duping almost impossible.

An Indian purchasing cycle can never really be complete without some bargaining.

But online stores already offer products at highly discounted rates. You don’t have to budge any stubborn seller to get a discount that you are entitled to. 

Imagine shipping in a product for far less than what you would have traditionally spent. That too, without bargaining.

Just in case, this discount is bugging you, understand that online stores can afford such heavy discounts as they do business on a very big scale.

They operate very similar to your traditional wholesale market. You save a great deal on the same product if you buy from a wholesale store. What you must remember is that you get exactly the same quality but for a lesser price. 

Just like the case of an online store, you get exactly the same quality but at a discounted rate.

Guidelines to buy online –

• Look for your product
• See which online stores are selling it
• Scan through the suggested products – there may be some interesting stuff there
• Finalize
• Look for the vendors selling it
• Screen out the official vendors from this list
• Check their reviews
• Compare prices and ORDER

That’s all that has to be done. Watch your product get delivered to your doorstep.

The post How I Bought My New Mobile Online…! appeared first on unicommerce.com.

Ever since Amazon entered the country in June last year, ecommerce in India has shifted dramatically towards the online marketplace model. Because India did not allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in online retail, the global giant restricted itself to being a sales channel for Indian retailers, without stocking and selling its own merchandise.

Amazon made a virtue out of that necessity, causing the marketplace model to catch on in a big way. Indian ecommerce biggies like Flipkart, Snapdeal, and Jabong have joined the race to sign on retailers across India to their platforms.

Sellers are now spoilt for choice: 60 online marketplaces in India vie for their attention, ranging from specialized ones, like the recently-launched engineering goods portal Tolexo to the large diversified ones, like Flipkart. This presents great opportunities for small retailers to hawk their wares across multiple channels. But it has also made things much more complicated for them.

Sellers now struggle to keep track of invoicing, inventories, deliveries, payments, catalogs and so on for one channel – now, imagine doing that for five or more places where your merchandise is listed.

Technology is the obvious answer to deal with this complex web of ecommerce. But a retailer lacks the resources, time and focus to develop sophisticated software in-house and upgrade it constantly.

Jazzmyride, a portal for auto accessories, faced this problem two years after they started up. They wanted to scale up without sullying their user experience. That’s when they turned to a SaaS (software as a service) product called Uniware.

Less is more

The software gives retailers a single panel to track orders on multiple channels. Inventories are synced across all of them. SKUs (stock keeping units) are allocated automatically to each channel depending on how fast a product is moving there, to avoid both idle inventories and stock-outs. It also integrates with more than 25 shipping services for timely deliveries.

Jazzmyride is among 1,000 merchants who have signed up so far with the Delhi-based Unicommerce, which came up with the SaaS solution for them late last year. One of the four partners in the firm, Manish Gupta, who was in Bangalore a few days back to open a southern hub of Unicommerce, told Tech in Asia that most of the retailers on their platform come from Delhi. With the number of online retailers across India expected to exceed  100,000 within two years, Unicommerce is spreading its net: its target is 15 percent of the Indian market, before going global.

Manish Gupta believes their product, hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Singapore, will help small retailers in all multi-channel markets. In the US and Europe, ChannelAdvisor and BrightPearl provide similar services. But Unicommerce’s experience in an emerging market like India with its diversity and large population may give them some unique insights.

Fixing payments

Right now, the focus is on adding new features to the product. Payment reconciliation will be an important pain-reliever, because following up on delayed or missed payments is time-consuming. This feature is currently undergoing beta testing.

Automatically updating catalogs across multiple channels, each one with its own idiosyncratic on-boarding process, would remove another headache for sellers.Gupta summed up: “We are in this space to smoothen the relationship between marketplaces and vendors.”

Already, Unicommerce processes over a million orders a month, which represents 10-12 percent of ecommerce in India, excluding travel. It has integrated more than 45 marketplaces on its panel, and vendors can simply choose as many of them as they want to be on.

Large-scale SaaS success stories from India are rare, but Unicommerce does have competition. Goa-based Browntape, which recently secured seed funding, also offers a multi-channel order fulfillment and inventory syncing solution.

Unicommerce too received funding last year from Nexus Venture Partners for its expansion, and hopes to maintain its lead. The company was founded in 2012 by three batchmates from IIT Delhi, who shared the same wing of their hostel. Ankit Pruthi, Karun Singla, and Vibhu Garg went their separate ways after college, before coming together again to start up Unicommerce.

They wanted to apply their technical expertise to solving problems in a buzzing domain, and ecommerce was taking off in India. They found a mentor, Ankush Mehra, with 20 years’ experience in retail, to help them come to grips with the nitty-gritty of order and inventory management.

Uniware changes its shape

When they came up with Uniware in 2012, it was a warehouse management system. Their customers were large ecommerce companies like Snapdeal and Groupon. Last year, when the marketplace model got going, they shifted their focus to solving the problems of small retailers in a multi-channel market, and Uniware took on a new avatar.

The marketplace model gave many sellers the chance to opt for drop-shipping: their margins improved when, instead of holding inventory, they took large orders on the site and arranged for shipments to customers directly from a wholesaler or marketplace.

Unicommerce co-founder Ankit Pruthi explained to Tech in Asia:

“When we observed the percentage of drop-shipments increasing in the industry, we went to visit several drop-ship sellers. That experience was really enlightening and we learnt a lot of their pain points and how they could be solved through technology. We did exactly that and came up with a technology product for sellers.”

It was around then that Pruthi roped in Manish Gupta as a fourth partner. Gupta had cut his teeth on launching and growing IndiaMart, a business-to-business (B2B) marketplace connecting buyers and sellers from the early days of the commercial internet in India. Unicommerce needed his expertise when it adapted to online marketplaces last year.

Overcoming technophobia

It took some persuading for marketplaces to work with Unicommerce. Gupta said:

“Every marketplace likes to keep their vendor information close to the chest. So that made it difficult at the outset. But eventually it was driven by the market. Just yesterday a marketplace approached us, saying they wanted to collaborate with us because so many of their vendors were using the Unicommerce panel.”

The bigger challenge, according to Pruthi, is getting small businesses to overcome their technophobia in adopting SaaS. “We’re resolving this by training them to use the product,” he said.

Going forward, Gupta sees consolidation happening in the Indian ecommerce space on the lines of Flipkart’s acquisition of Myntra recently. But even if there are only three or four large marketplaces left standing in the end, small retailers will need even smarter automated systems to keep up with newer models of ecommerce in a fast-changing landscape. And these sellers would increasingly turn to SaaS providers like Unicommerce to help them keep up with technology.

The post Unicommerce is On a Mission to Help Sellers Navigate India’s Ecommerce Labyrinth appeared first on unicommerce.com.

Unicommerce- the Delhi based Tech Product Company co-sponsored the eTailing India Conclave held in Chennai on 7^th August, 2014. The event mainly focused on the needs of the Retailers and Ecommerce Companies who want to expand their online businesses across the country.

This time, the event targeted retailers, ecommerce companies, technologists and other suppliers & vendors playing a supporting role to the retail and online businesses across India.

Key highlights of this event were:

• Sessions on starting an ecommerce venture or integrating it with existing business
• Workshop on How to Sell & Ship internationally
• Network with top CXO’s of the industry

When it comes to sponsoring such events, it’s not the first time. In fact, prior to the Chennai event, Unicommerce was the associate sponsor for Etailing India’s Bangalore Event held on 6^th July, 2014. And as sources revealed, Unicommerce will continue its association with Etailing India for its upcoming Event, to be held in Delhi on October this year.

Coming back to the Chennai Event, Unicommerce played not just a co-sponsor to this ceremony but also actively participated in it. Manish Gupta- the Head of Unicommerce Sales and Marketing had participated in the panel discussion, where he stressed on the need of automation in e-commerce businesses and order fulfillment process. In a special mention to Technology and its importance for smooth processing of order fulfillment online, he further said- “Technology Company can re-write some rules, expectations, customer experience in online business.”

The post Unicommerce Co-sponsored Etailing India Chennai Event appeared first on unicommerce.com.

Recently, in an interview with a popular Business Magazine “Retailer”; Ankit Pruthi- the Cofounder and CEO of Unicommerce has revealed the Seller Side of the Indian E-commerce.

Unicommerce is a Tech Product Company, processing more than a million orders every month. The biggies of Indian e-commerce industry like Jabong, Snapdeal, Myntra, Lenskart, Urban Ladder, and Caratlane are some of its clients.

While revealing the seller side of the story, in his conversation with Retailer, Mr. Pruthi has also talked about some other essential aspects of ecommerce business like order fulfillment process, the role of ecommerce platforms and the future of online businesses in India.

In a particular mention to the Future of Indian Ecommerce Industry, he further added, “We currently have around 30,000 odd online sellers. That’s a tiny fraction of India’s real potential. The potential will be unlocked in coming years, and this number will easily grow seven to eight times in next five years. Complexity, competition and scale are going to get bigger and bigger. So any online seller, who is serious about his e-commerce business, must automate as much as possible.”

According to him, “Running multiple physical stores is too easy as compared to selling at multiple places online.”

To get the complete story, keep reading…

Why online sellers should not focus on fulfillment?

Unlike physical retail chains, selling online works on scale. In fact, Indian e-tailers have already accepted the fact that it is better to outsource the job of promotion/marketing to big players. That’s why they enlist themselves as sellers on marketplaces like Snapdeal, Flipkart, Amazon, etc. They have also outsourced the delivery of goods to end courier companies. But when it comes to order fulfilment, they underestimate its complexity and try to do it themselves. Soon, they get so overwhelmed by it that they are not able to focus on their core activity – which is focusing on growing their business. Hence, they should not focus on fulfilment.

Tell us a bit about the ‘seller side’ of Indian e-commerce story?

There has been a lot of research on the pain points, demographics, demands, and such other aspects of online buyers in Indian e-commerce. But the seller side has been a bit neglected. In fact, the current situation of e-commerce is overwhelmingly in favour of end customer. In such a situation, online sellers need all the more support to survive and succeed.

Delivery time is the only pain area people think online sellers might be having. That’s not true. There is much more to order fulfilment than just delivery. Delivery is the most visible portion of it. A lot happens at the backend like managing activities such as procurement and inventory and looking after vendor base and warehouses,and of course, the syncing of orders and inventories from many places you are selling at. From day one,Unicommerce has focused on the seller side of Indian e-commerce. Our best team solves their problems leveraging the power of technology. And, it has paid us rich dividends.

What is the role of an e-commerce platform?

There are too many players, people, entities and processes involved in the entire chain of order fulfilment. It is very easy to lose focus and side track your priorities when there are so many variables to take care for every single order. Unless and until you can manage all of them from a single platform, you won’t be able to control the entire customer experience. E-commerce platform connects all the dots and keeps you in sync with the big picture, and lets you focus on things that matter. Time (to deliver), price (offered to end customer), variety (catalogue size) and cost (of fulfilling orders) — these four things decide the growth and profitability of the online business. And a right e-commerce order fulfilment platform makes a definite, clearly measurable impact on all four of those things.

How do you see the Indian e-commerce shaping up?

We currently have around 30,000 odd online sellers. That’s a tiny fraction of India’s real potential. The potential will be unlocked in coming years, and this number will easily grow seven to eight times in next five years. Complexity, competition and scale are going to get bigger and bigger. So any online seller who is serious about his e-commerce business, must automate as much as possible.

The post Ankit Pruthi on the Seller Side of the Indian Ecommerce Story appeared first on unicommerce.com.

If your eCommerce business is soaring, a strong realization must have occurred to you that, everything cannot be under your control at the same time. Various supply chain operations need a kind of supervision which demand ample time and expertise as well. But you just can’t keep on hiring employees in-house for every task. Obviously, that won’t be feasible for your business which has just started to make profits. Also, manually handling time-bound tasks allows for more chances of mistakes. The consumer’s demands today are high and mighty and to cater to being a brand you can not afford to have errors while delivering products.

An eRetailer has a lot of tasks to do – starting with supply chain management, inventory, shipping and returns, product catalog, customer service strategy, and marketing – all these key components that make up an online business.
So how can business owners focus on completing several equally important tasks at hand? The solution is simple: By outsourcing and using technology.

Think about it.

You Sell on Online Marketplaces and Pay Commission.

Marketplaces like Amazon, Alibaba, Flipkart, etc take care of attracting the large crowd, they make all the noise and advertise on all the online and offline channels. They provide the infrastructure and take care of all the technical aspect of ensuring a functional website which can sustain large number of visitors. So, you do understand that – it’s better for you to let them do the marketing and handle technical aspects and share the profits with them instead of wasting your resources on it.

You Rely on the Logistics Companies for Delivery

Because that’s not your core business. Exactly. You use their service and you pay for it. They have the domain expertise, they have the experience and they will do the job better, cheaper than you could possibly do.

You Depend on the Vendor for Packaging Material

You could have arranged all those cardboard boxes or plastic bags. But you don’t. You just buy these from Dyna Corp or such companies. Because that makes sense. You are not into the packaging business. You are a seller of apparel or jewelry or whichever things you deal in.

There comes a point in your company’s lifecycle when you must decide between using technology or continuing to do manage all operations manually. Read on to know why you should use technology to optimize your Order Fulfillment Process.

Order Fulfillment is Vital for your Ecommerce Business 

It’s time for you to understand the complexity, the scale, and the importance of order fulfillment. Then you will be able to appreciate the fact that Order fulfillment is a full-time job on its own. If you are hell bent on doing it, then your core business will suffer.

Let’s take a deep dive and understand the finer nuances of order fulfillment.

They include the following – 

Order syncing: Receiving customer orders from the various marketplaces/platforms that you sell on.

Inventory: Before you even start receiving orders from Marketplaces, you need to ensure there is enough inventory in place and that it reflects correctly on all marketplaces.

Warehousing: Storing of products and retrieval of items according to the orders.

Vendors and Purchases: If the required product is not in stock, raise a PO from the right vendor.

Packing and Labeling: Get the orders packed and labeled.

Invoicing & Billing: Preparing the invoice / bill to the customer of their product.

Shipment and Tracking: The delivery of the goods to the customer and tracking till the delivery is done successfully.

Returns: Managing the return logistics in case the goods are not accepted by customers. Or, the product is damaged and not accepted by the multiple channels. 

Imagine doing all the above steps-    

For Every order, 

From Every marketplace that you sell on, 

Every single day!!!!

Order fulfillment is So important for your business, that you should NOT do it at all! 

You shouldn’t try to do it all by yourself (manually) as it turns out to be hectic while dealing with bulk orders or during seasonal sales. Let’s see what happens when you do it. Have a look at Why you should take it seriously and not treat it like just another task.

• Allot Inventory Manually to multiple marketplaces  –

That means – You will have to block some inventory on each marketplace. So if you blocked 50 SKUs at one where demand turned out to be low and you blocked 50 SKUs on the different marketplace where demand was too high. In each case, because of Inventory blocking, you lose out on sales and simultaneously the cost of carrying unsold inventory rises.

• Manually Syncing the orders –

There would be a time lag between order placed and you manually processing it. As you will not be able to sync in real-time unless you are awake 24/7. You will take a periodic dump. For no reason, you have added one more day to the delivery date. The customer will not appreciate this at all.

• Manual handling of the warehouse –

If the stock in the warehouse is not updated in real-time, you don’t have confidence while accepting orders. It might happen that after taking the orders, you realize it’s out-of-stock. This increases the lead time as extra time is needed to deliver items or even you may have to cancel the order after receiving it. This leads to lower customer satisfaction. 

• No holistic view of entire order journey

It’s easily possible to lose track of some orders due to human error while manually managing the inventory. No real-time connection with multiple vendors – you will miss out on some sale opportunity or sometimes you won’t be able to fulfill orders after promising. Your business suffers.

• Printing Invoice, Labeling manually –

It’s human nature to make mistakes. But your customers are not forgiving if you misplace their orders because of wrong invoicing or labeling.

Every instance above means one more unhappy or unsatisfied customer. In the e-Commerce world filled with fickle minded customers who are spoilt for choice and where loyalty runs low and reputation is all that matters. So this could be potential business suicide.

So how can automated order fulfillment software help you

By now, I am sure you are convinced about the necessity of using technology for order fulfillment.

If you still can’t decide then you should probably go through the benefits listed below-  

Save costs: It can bring your processes on track from day one and cuts manpower costs considerably.

Focus on Growing your business: It helps you to focus your time and energy on your core business activities while an integrated system manages the logistics and challenged in the order fulfillment process.

Redirect saved costs to Customers to increase loyalty: With fickle customer loyalty and continuous competitive pressure on prices, you can redirect the saved money to offer attractive pricing.

Eliminate administrative/operational headaches: There are a lot of back-office headaches and hassles associated with each process and which can be done away with, increasing personnel & business productivity

Increase customer satisfaction: Delivering the right products at the right time in a way that is consistent with customer’s expectations, time and again is what will garner loyalty and referrals from customers. It is an excellent way to increase customer retention.

Time to Evaluate your Daily Habits

You need to be honest with yourself and ask yourself how much time in the day are you spending on the order fulfillment process – tracking orders, shipments, inventory management, etc. As a retailer, almost all your time should be spent on core business activities such as strategic planning, marketing, product selection, and customer relations. But do you even spend 30% on your core business while selling online? Probably Not.

The reason that you chose to sell on an e-commerce platform is to avoid the huge costs involved in setting up a physical brick & mortar set-up, marketing and advertising to customers, resource investment and operational expenses. However in building the in-house capabilities for order fulfillment if you are still incurring capital investment in developing the technology, recruiting and training IT specialists, then it certainly defeats the entire purpose of selling online.

The need of the hour is to focus on your core competencies and let technology products take care of the rest. Unicommerce is one such software that will look after your eCommerce business operations entirely. With the single dashboard and single login, you can manage all your order syncing smoothly and with the proper ERP integration with your software, to make your experience smooth and satisfactorily.  Look for your convenient plans right now! 

The post Dear Multi Channel eTailers – Order Fulfilment is None of Your Business appeared first on unicommerce.com.

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