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Pet Supplies
In this day and age, everyone has an app, everyone has a solution. For what we need, is there somebody else out there? Absolutely. Is there one that would support me the same way? No there’s not.
Damon Carlson
CIO
U.S. Toy Company
Most businesses nowadays have multiple streams that orders come from. Whether it’s self-service orders placed by your buyers, orders captured by salespeople from the office or out in the field, sales on other platforms that your business still has to fulfill, or even customer service-aided purchases, having all your orders reside in one place is paramount.
That “single source of truth” for your data is more than just having everything live in one place – it makes it easier to see what orders have been placed regardless of channel, lets your sales and support teams review order histories along with your buyers, and makes fulfillment easier by having everything managed in one spot.
Nowadays there are plenty of stakeholders responsible for managing Ecommerce. These can include:
And that doesn’t even account for your buyers, who will use ordering capabilities you provide as well!
Many platforms don’t work through all these use cases completely, leaving critical gaps in the ability to get things done. Zoey has worked with customers leveraging these roles for nearly a decade, ensuring that regardless of who is working in the platform, there are tools to make their jobs easier, freeing up time to get other things done.
When selling in bulk, orders need to be constructed differently than when buying one or two items at a time. When selling products in categories where there can be diversity of product within a category (say, different sized items for different sized pets), you may need to display an array of products for a group that a client will buy quantities of each size.
The right solution will take into account the need to order from multiple SKUs simultaneously by offering solutions that allow multiple items being placed into a single cart at once. Features include a quick order screen, as well as table layout views that show all the SKUs on one screen, with the ability to select quantities and place all into the cart.
Order management can be challenging when you have orders coming from different sources. Website orders, salesperson orders, and even third-party marketplace orders funneling into their own locations could mean chaotic order management, and the risk of scenarios like overselling.
The best solution will have both an order portal for self-service order placement or your buyers, and an app for salespeople to input their orders. Both sets of orders flow to the same location for better order management and unified inventory.
For third party orders, integrations and API options can move orders into the same system for processing, or out into a different business system, as preferred by your business. In either scenario, you can unify all your order processing in one location, making it easier for your fulfillment team.
When it comes to B2B Ecommerce, the best option for your business will shave time off each order, freeing up your team to do more. The worst will get in your way and create more work than it solves.
Major progress in recent years has been made on developing processes that strengthen a B2B and wholesale business’ ability to sell online, leverage technology to support their sales team, and streamline order processing and fulfillment.
That said, there is no monolithic workflow for managing these processes, and businesses tend to have their own flavor on how to accomplish things. So one question to ask is how a solution can adapt to the workflow and processes your business specifically requires. The best, and more fully featured, will have flexibility that can adjust to your specific needs. The worst will require you to follow their rigid processes, which unless they happen to match yours, will not ultimately prove that helpful.
Shopify was built as a B2C-focused platform. Their basic offerings have access to add-ons that can offer some B2B functionality, but linking data from those add-ons to other systems can be incredibly difficult and frustrating. More recently, Shopify has added wholesale capabilities to Shopify+, but with an astronomical price tag and fees based on volume. Zoey was built with B2B functionality top of mind, offers a more complete solution (including a salesperson-centric mobile app not available on Shopify), and is priced to be accessible to more businesses. Learn more about Zoey. vs. Shopify
Book a demo with our customer success team to help you find the best Ecommerce solution for your unique business. See how Zoey can help grow and expand your sales.
