Retail businesses need to hit the reset button and adapt the new normal i.e. eCommerce. With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more people are making shopping transition from brick and mortar stores to online stores to get the items they need. The transition is quick and will exist for long.
Undoubtedly, it’s both a blessing and a curse for e-commerce businesses. Blessing as – the more the demand, the more the opportunity to increase revenues, and curse as – the higher demand brings a lot of challenges for them to handle. As a result, more and more e-commerce businesses are facing issues regarding inventory and supply chain visibility.
If that’s the case with your e-commerce business as well, you should read on further to get well acquainted with your operational challenges and their solution.
Operational challenges faced by e-commerce businesses amid COVID-19
– Supply chain disruptions:
So, many e-commerce businesses with China as their biggest source of materials are now facing a big challenge of stock scarcity due to inter-country transport restrictions. They have to cease selling products as they are running out of stock.
To cope up with the situation and bring their business to normal, they need to look for alternate suppliers to assure continuity of their operations and reduce dependency on JUST one source for material supplies.
– Unexpected stock fluctuation and consumer demand:
With the spread of COVID-19 across the world and maximum countries under lockdown, consumers are panic buying everywhere by hopping from one e-commerce store to another to stock food items, and other necessary products in response to stay-at-home. Because of the undefined time of lockdown, consumers are afraid of supply shortages.
As a result, they add multiple items to their cart at multiple web stores, even place orders but then cancel them owing to their financial conditions right now. This brings uncertainty in stock demand which is challenging for e-commerce businesses to handle.
– Employee and customer safety
Amid COVID-19, business professionals are encouraged to work from home. But, with many e-commerce businesses, there are workers who are exposing themselves to the virus threat. They are inventory or delivery workers, who cannot work online. At the end of the day, every e-commerce business needs to run a physical logistics centre and deliver goods physically. So, ensuring safety measures to protect their employees and customers is another challenge for them.
– Visibility into the warehouses and Returns
Covid-19 has made governments to divide their lands into Red, Orange, and Green Zones having different levels of restrictions on business, delivery, movement, etc. in each. Moreover, with economies and businesses going down, there’s a steep rise in returns. Having visibility into goods stuck in warehouses or delivery centres in these zones and into returns is getting difficult for the e-commerce owners.
Weathering the storm with BatchMaster Magento Integration
The only way possible for e-commerce businesses to weather the storm of COVID-19 challenges is – integrate their online web store, like Magento, with a supply chain management solution like BatchMaster Enterprise.
The integration provides bi-directional movement of data between Magento and BatchMaster Enterprise which in turn synchronizes all the key data automatically be it product information, customer information, inventory levels, shipment updates, status tracking, payment, and shipping details.
The integration between BatchMaster Enterprise and Magento helps e-commerce businesses with the following benefits to face the current operational challenges that arose due to COVID-19 much easily.
– Stay prepared with alternative suppliers
BatchMaster Magento integration offers the flexibility to maintain a list of vendors and rank them based on different parameters like lead time, costing, quality, etc. This allows e-commerce businesses to procure raw materials from only the recognized suppliers who have the ‘Supplier Verification’. That is, it ensures that only the high quality and safe materials enter the supply chain.
– Get stock status immediately
With automatic data updates of inventory after every transaction, BatchMaster Magento integration offers real-time information on stock status including stock condition, their warehouse location (in case of multiple warehouses), etc.
Offering instant and accurate information on inventory, the integration helps e-commerce businesses to make timely replenishment and avoid every chance of losing customers due to lack of stock. It even lets you handle your returns with ease, updating the inventory instantly, as it enters your warehouse.
– Assure consumers and workers safety
Although the lockdown has been lifted at a number of places around the world and e-commerce business is witnessing a boom, one thing they cannot do without is- the safeties of their workers, delivery personnel, and of course the customers.
BatchMaster ensures following SOPs, HMIS & WHMIS while also letting the generation of safety instructions and labels. New laws are also proposed for e-commerce and soon will be out. BatchMaster having customization capabilities allows can be scaled to accommodate new laws and regulations quite easily, helping you stay abreast and compliant with them before your competitors.
Takeaway
When things look black, there is always a silver lining. Definitely, COVID-19 is impacting hard on retail businesses. But, it has also brought the opportunity to expand your business online, beyond geographical boundaries to a very large customer base. So, what are you waiting for? Grab the opportunity and grow your business on an e-commerce platform with BatchMaster Magento Integration. It has got your back covered in facing the e-commerce businesses’ challenges amid COVID-19. For more details contact sales@batchmaster.com.