5 Tips for Your eCommerce Evaluation Checklist

When it comes to your eCommerce evaluation, it's the smallest differences that can often have the biggest impact. 

Like many, you may feel overwhelmed by the number of choices for new ERP systems. We will help you organize your options when comparing ERP solutions to choose the system that will work seamlessly with your e-commerce site. In today's blog, we'll give you an overview of the main categories to include on your eCommerce evaluation checklist.

5 Tips for Your eCommerce Evaluation

Find out more about how to become a well-oiled, eCommerce machine.

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Tip 1: Productivity

Growing companies are frequently in search of ways to increase efficiency for countless reasons. Increased productivity equates to shipping more orders per day, increasing order accuracy, and delivering more orders on time. Your customers are happier in the end because they receive exactly what they ordered and it arrived exactly when they expected it.

An often overlooked benefit of a more efficient system can be seen in increased employee satisfaction. An integrated ERP eliminates the manual processes that cost your team time, such as duplicate data entry. Automation provides batch processing and reduces many painful activities to a few button clicks in the future.

Tip 2: Functionality

It is not safe to assume that all ERP solutions offer full functionality, so be sure that the software or platform you're considering offers the basics, including all your current and anticipated needs. For example, while you may not use multi-entity accounting now, it will become critically important if your organization acquires another company in the future.

Functionality is essential in the reporting and dashboards modules, which are often overlooked during ERP selection. You'll want to look for capabilities that allow you to filter and combine data in all the ways that make sense for your company's operations.

Tip 3: Technology

Integration capabilities for eCommerce companies are essential to connect your websites, eCommerce backend, and your shipping software. This ability empowers time-saving automation that works in concert to exchange data regarding product pricing, inventory data, and customer order history into a single source everyone can trust.

Recent cloud technology innovations make it easier than ever for your teams to access your system via the internet. You won't need a VPN, and you can use any standard browser on your preferred device. This eliminates the need to maintain on-premise servers, update software, or worry about loss of power.

Check out this video to see the power of the Acumatica eCommerce Integration

Tip 4: Value

If you were to take a moment to add up all the costs incurred maintaining your current server and software and then add all the time lost to manual processes, you’d be closer to the total cost of ownership. The question to consider is: If you can’t scale your business with your existing system and it doesn’t support your current processes, what value is it?

You may also find additional value or savings in the licensing options, in other words, how you’ll be charged for your new ERP. Typically, you will choose between subscription and perpetual licensing depending on the solution you’re assessing. This choice could also impact calculating operating expenses versus a depreciable capital expense.

Tip 5: Risk

Risk is the final category, and it refers to how your ERP can enable you to avoid situations that open your company to unforeseen costs. For example, look for an ERP with built-in backup and disaster recovery to protect you from having to rebuild company files.

Advances in cloud technology help reduce financial risk in a couple of important ways. For example, it’s easier to plan for a predictable monthly fee than to project the IT or developer costs you’ll need to pay for updates and patching or to add a new table to your software.

Become an eCommerce Machine

If it’s time for a new ERP system, be sure that you have a proven partner that can integrate your eCommerce platform with the rest of the ERP functions and database. The team at Aqurus can help you. Reach out today to find out how their expertise can help you create efficiencies and cost savings. Call (403) 768-0322 or email today!