According to the Office for National Statistics, online retail salesincreased by 14% between 2016 and 2017, with an average weekly spend of£1.2 billion. E-commerce in the UK now accounts for 17% of all spendingby pound value.
Larger retailers dominate the platform, with low-pricing strategies thatcan make competing difficult for small and medium-sized businesses. Smaller vendors tend to concentrate on specialist products and providingexpertise and advice. Customer service is increasingly important,especially in an era of social media complaints and review site ratings.
One of the appeals of running an online shop is the far lower overheadsdue to not needing to rent a physical store space or hire salesassistants. But dealing with a high volume of sales and enquiries maywell involve hiring staff either working in a shared office or remotely. As your online business grows, you could face an increased workload thatsuffers from bottlenecks and disruptions.
Business process management is a discipline that gives you the tools toanalyse, improve and automate each stage of your working practices, withthe goal of increased productivity and profitability. How could thisapproach help in relation to running a successful online retailoperation?
Inventory
Approving, ordering from suppliers, and keeping track of the productsyou sell on your website is essential to maintaining the inventory youneed to satisfy customer demand. Business process management helps bymapping out every stage of this process, from ordering from suppliers tomaking sales.
Automating this process removes the need to update spreadsheets and sendemails manually. The risk of human error and inefficiency is greatlyreduced. By streamlining this process, you can keep your inventory at anoptimum level, fulfilling all orders without accumulating excess stock.
Customer service
Setting out a process for your customer enquiries and complaints cansignificantly speed up response times, and give a you clear frameworkfor resolving issues successfully. Deadlines are essential here, as mostconsumers will forgive you for making a mistake, but few will forgivenot making amends quickly and sincerely.
Refunds are an aspect of customer service that also affects inventoryand finances. Setting up a system to update your stock andsimultaneously send money back to a customer is a way of saving time andeffort, significantly reducing administrative overheads.
How Swiftcase helps
SwiftCase is a powerful cloud-based business process management platformwith an intuitive interface accessible across mobile devices as well asdesktop machines.
Configure workflows to automate customer service enquiries, and trackevents in real time to keep on top of inventory and orders.
If you’re interested in a free, no-obligation demonstration,get in touch today.
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