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Is Your E-commerce Operation Customer Ready?

Six steps to e-commerce success

Companies with e-commerce operations often focus too much on just their Web site and e-store. In certain worst case senarios, they focus too much on their inventory with the belief that "the quality of the product will speak for itself". Unfortunately, if the company is not able to attract customers and be ready to pick, pack & ship customers' orders accurately and quickly every time, the customers they attract through the Web can click over to a competitor in a heartbeat. "Effective e-commerce has to combine an attention-grabbing and informative Web presence with robust, disciplined back-end service to succeed," says Venky Vadlamani, Chief of Client Services, at AEPI with deep experience assisting e-commerce ventures.

Effective e-commerce operations must do Six things well:

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• Build effective Web sites and e-stores. If you don't attract customers, nothing else matters. But if that's all you do, the investment you make in your Web presence will pay off for your competitors, not for you.

Search Engine Optimization(SEO).  If you don't attract customers, nothing else matters. Enough has been written about SEO and its still not enough. Performing SEO for your website is like, placing an ad in the e-New Paper. However its the process of understanding your customers and their taste /needs that makes SEO more successful.

• Process orders quickly and accurately every time. Fast, accurate service is vital. For commoditized products, if you aren't shipping orders in 48 hours, you're dead. ERP and CRM systems and attendant warehousing and shipping processes are vital to e-commerce success and to your margins.

• Tip: Sometimes something as simple as offering your customer the choice of shipping method can go a long way. Your IT guy can request software code from UPS/FedEx, that will enhance the "check-out" process for your customer by offering the choices in nature of shipment.

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• Remember your supply chain. No company wants to sit on inventory it doesn't need, but if you don't have what your customers want in stock when they want it, the competition is a click away.

Communicate. Never let the customer wonder about their order. Send updates to let customers know that their order was received, when it was packed and shipped, and to let them track their order in transit (or if lost in transit!)

Personalize the customer experience. E-commerce provides unique opportunities to gather information about your customers' wants and needs. By building processes to gather, analyze and leverage that data, companies can generate repeat business and build revenues. Always remeber to thank the customer for providing such data where applicable.

"When it comes to e-commerce, your warehouse is as important as your website," says Venky. "The companies that remember that are the ones that succeed."