Good Morning Everyone,

This morning, as I browse back through our Blog and some posts from 2010, 2011 – I noticed a great article series written by our Mike Catalfamo on eCommerce Integration and the best practice process for integrating Sales Orders, Customer info, Inventory Quantities, and Shipping details (tracking #’s etc) to your accounting package.  Here are the 4 parts of this series again:

1. An Introduction to eCommerce and Accounting Package Integration
2. Creating eCommerce Sales Orders
3. Managing eCommerce Inventory
4. Updating Sales Orders and Thoughts on Shipping Info (Tracking #’s etc)

Enjoy the read – Mike and I would both love to hear your feedback on the proposed best practice approaches.

Best,
Dave Malda.

eCommerce AspDotNetStorefront integration, Magento integration, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, SAP Business One, Volusion integration

With a looming debt crisis in the United States and Europe, it’s no question that there are turbulent times ahead for businesses.  So what can an e-commerce store do to mitigate a decrease in demand for their products or services?  Here are a few tips:

Back-office automation

Increased automation with your back-office systems can save your company a substantial amount of money.  There are several affordable plugins and integration products that can be used with your existing e-commerce platform including accounting integration, email marketing, and payment processing.  For instance, eBridge’s cloud-based accounting integration platform is an extremely affordable way to integrate your e-commerce store, EDI trading partners, and CRM system with your accounting system.

Don’t cut back on your marketing efforts, improve them

When times get tough, many companies make the mistake of becoming overly defensive by cutting costs.  It’s important to remember that your marketing and advertising efforts produce sales.  Online retailers can spend much more on their advertising efforts than brick-and-mortar stores as their operational costs are much lower.  Instead of cutting back on marketing, it’s wise to reevaluate your current strategies.   For example, when was the last time you reviewed your online advertising campaigns?  Are there new advertising channels that are available to you?  Do you have a mobile marketing strategy in place?

Review your product line

Changes in consumer behavior are usually the first signs of recessionary cycles.  During economic downturns, consumers draw more attention to non-cyclical goods or staples.  Reviewing your product line for new additions is a great way to increase demand.  For instance, you may want to offer complementary products for your stores ‘core’ products.

Increase customer loyalty

Be sure to increase communication with your existing customer base as they are the ones that are most likely to buy from you.  Offer incentives like rewards, promotions, and contests to make sure they are returning to your store.  Also, improve your customer service efforts to ensure that your customers are completely satisfied with their purchases.

Expand your reach

The internet and free-trade has opened up the gates to world markets.  Emerging markets like Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC’s) are well positioned to maintain strong growth in e-commerce over the long-term.   Be sure to look into these markets if you haven’t already!

eBRIDGE Blog, eCommerce

eBridgeConnections can, has and will do some pretty creative implementations, so please ask if you cannot find your eCommerce cart in the eBridge Blueprint builder, or are otherwise unsure about what services eBridge can provide.  The information below is to help you understand some options we have available if you do not see your desired eCommerce cart/web store.

Option #1: eBridge Builds a Connector
For carts that eBridge has NOT built a connector for (using the web store’s API – Application Programming Interface), eBridge can build a connector, provided:

• A Web Store API actually exists
• The API is robust enough to facilitate the functionality required by the end-user. This could mean how frequently we are allowed to exchange data with the web store, or it could mean the contents of the data for any given touchpoint.

Be aware that not all API’s are created equally.  The data contents of each touchpoint (orders, inventory, prod/price, shipment) varies between carts and needs to be examined on a case-by-case basis.  Ultimately, eBridge is at the mercy of the web store, as would any other integration solution provider you may be examining.

Option #2: eBridge Provides API access to ePortal Integration Platform
eBridge has an API for ePortal (online integration platform) which allows people to exchange data using the ePortal-specific formats and methods.  The final integration with the web store (or any other external system for that matter) is the sole responsibility of the end user.  In other words, eBridge has nothing to do with the data once it leaves ePortal.

Option #3: File integration
Most carts have some type of file export/import functionality using either a delimited (CSV for example) or XML file format.

• Inbound from Web Store to ERP: If the end user exports orders from the web store and puts them somewhere, eBridge can pick them up (FTP or a folder on your network, for example), eBridge can integrate them into the accounting/ERP system.
• Outbound from ERP to Web Store: Opposite of inbound.  eBridge can export from the accounting/ERP system and create a delimited or XML file in web store-specific format.  It would be up to the end user to import that file into the web store which is usually a manual process.

eBridge can also repackage data from any structured format to any other structured format (delimited files and XML most commonly), as well as with custom databases. What are your data transformation and integration needs?

Integration, Technology Corner, Webstore Integration, eBRIDGE Blog, eCommerce

Magento is one of the world’s leading eCommerce platforms and consequently happens to be the most popular and frequently requested integrations we come across here at eBridge Connections.

We are continually updating our Magento connection functionality and I would like to share some of the highlights and enhancements that are supported by the API connection.

• Multi-store, tier pricing is now fully supported and can be configured right from your accounting/ERP database. Tier pricing is a promotional tool that lets you price items differently for higher quantities. You can think of this as volume discounting.
• Order retrieval filter for order creation date has been added. This is in addition to order number range (start/end).
• Configurable, multiple concurrent connections for product and inventory creation and updates has been added. Instead of processing items one at a time, this feature allows multiple connections to run in parallel, resulting in performance that is 15x faster on average!
• Usually new customers will be created directly on Magento but some people have existing customers in their accounting/ERP system that they would like set up with accounts on Magento. Customer creation on Magento through the API is supported!

Of course we also continue to support the following touch-points:

• Orders out of Magento
• Product & pricing creation/updates into Magento
• Inventory quantity updates into Magneto
• Shipment with tracking information updates into Magento

Build your Magento to accounting integration today!

Webstore Integration, eCommerce

I had the pleasure of attending an educational seminar last night [December 14th,2010] hosted by Silicon Halton [www.siliconhalton.com] at Sheridan College.    The focus of the meeting was on Doing Business In The US.    The main speaker was Mary C. St. Mary, Trade Commissioner at Canadian Consulate General of Buffalo.  She spent time telling us about the resources available to Canadian companies who wanted to do business in the US.  There was also a panel of individuals from companies who are members of Silicon Halton who conduct business currently across borders who shared their insights and experiences with the group.
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eCommerce eCommerce, ecommerce taxes, tax

If you ever thought that online shopping hasn’t made the mainstream, think again.  On Cyber Monday, Nov. 29, 2010, there was reportedly more than 1 billion dollars ($1.028 billion to be exact) spent in online sales in the U.S. for the first time ever as reported by comscore.com .  What makes this story this even more compelling is November saw the loss of 28,000 retail jobs in November.
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eCommerce Cyber Monday, eCommerce, Mike C, record

Real-time processing implies that processing of data happens upon the completion of an event (request for data for example) and is immediately handed off to the next system that processes immediately and so on. Here, I’m mainly referring to the flow of information through the supply chain and the speed at which that information travels, which helps orchestrate the flow of materials and resources. Access to information in real-time provides business intelligence that allows decisions to be made about any changes that may be needed for the orchestration.

An example always helps so let’s look at something I come across at least a few times a month:

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Integration, Integration as a Service, eCommerce eCommerce, factors, feedback, Integration, Mike C

EDI Integration, eCommerce Connections, eCommerce, ecommerce integration, edi

Part 3: Inventory Management

By: Mike Catalfamo

Over the past few weeks, we have been looking at some of the pitfalls you might encounter during an integration project and I have provided some ideas about how to approach them. If you haven’t read the earlier posts yet, you can start with the first post here.

My goal for this post is to highlight some things to consider about inventory as it pertains to integration. Selling ice cream is not the same as selling clothing which is not the same as selling books or services so I will try to keep this high-level. If you have any more specific questions or feedback, I would love to hear from you.

Updated: Since posting, I received some feedback that I didn’t provide some clear tips about how to handle unit/pricing conversions. Comments and feedback are encouraged!

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EDI Integration, Technology Corner, Webstore Integration, eCommerce eCommerce, ecommerce integration, Knowledge, Mike C, Series

Part 2: Creating Orders Automatically

By: Mike Catalfamo

The goal of the order posting process into the accounting system is to automatically create a document such as a Sales Order that would reflect the same order details in the eCommerce cart that also satisfies the accounting and business systems requirements.  Refer back to the steps in the previous post, Overview of Order Fulfillment Cycle as we consider the following:

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EDI Integration, Technology Corner, Webstore Integration, eCommerce eCommerce, ecommerce integration, Knowledge, Mike C, Series