Running a successful eCommerce business is hard enough without worrying about moving data from your eCommerce platform to your CRM and then onto your inventory management tool before notifying your carrier that a parcel is ready to collect.
That’s a headache no one should have to deal with. And, thanks to eCommerce integrations, no one has to.
In this article, we’ll explore the power of eCommerce integrations, discuss why they’re so important for your business, and show how you can create integrations that deliver an exceptional customer experience.
What Is an eCommerce Integration?
An eCommerce integration is simply a connection between your store and another software or technology.
There is no shortage of different platforms that contribute to a successful eCommerce business. Some of the most common include:
- An eCommerce platform like Shopify
- A payment gateway like Stripe
- An inventory management tool
- A final mile delivery platform
- Accounting and bookkeeping platforms
eCommerce integrations are how you make them all work together. This will often happen via an API (application programming interface) that lets the two platforms talk to each other and share data.
So, when a customer places an order on your store, your e-commerce platform will connect with your payment gateway via an API to confirm the payment and then with your inventory management tool via another API to let your warehouse staff know they need to pack another order.
Integrations are either manual, custom-built or native. While native integrations are built by one of the software tools in question, manual or custom-built integrations are designed by store owners or third-party developers. These tend to be much more precarious and can break due to a software update.
That’s why you should favour native integrations where possible. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for most retailers who still rely on custom-build (42%) and manual (46%) integrations.
What’s the benefit of eCommerce integrations?
There are plenty of reasons to integrate your existing eCommerce tools and ensure any new software purchase integrates with your current setup.
Automated workflows
Without eCommerce integrations, your team would be forced to copy data from one system to another manually. Just think how tedious and time-consuming it would be for your staff to copy order details from your eCommerce platform into your inventory management tool hundreds of times per day.
Not only would this be a huge time suck, but mistakes would be inevitable. eCommerce integrations eliminate both these problems by automatically transferring data sets as soon as they are created. This has the added benefit of speeding up your workflows, too.
It’s no wonder that 54% of supply chain leaders are focused on automating non-value-added tasks with technology to improve worker productivity.
Increased visibility
Online retail stores are complex organisations. Without a way to connect all your disparate parts and systems, getting 360° visibility over your entire operation is all but impossible. Only through eCommerce integrations can you map the customer journey and identify bottlenecks in your processes that need fixing.
Better data integrity
You need to have faith in the accuracy of your data if you’re going to use analytics or any other business intelligence tool to improve processes. Having that faith becomes a lot easier when you have eCommerce integrations that guarantee easy access to accurate data.
Better customer experience
Ultimately, eCommerce integrations help you deliver a superior customer experience. As we’ll see below, improved data flow means you can deliver orders faster, personalise customer experiences and provide much better communication.
How to use eCommerce integrations to improve your business
Okay, we’ve discussed the broad benefits that eCommerce integrations bring to your online business, but how can you actually use them to improve day-to-day operations and deliver an exceptional experience to customers?
Well, the best eCommerce integrations will let you build a seamless front-end experience for customers and a frictionless back-end experience for your team. Let us explain…
Get orders to customers faster
As we’ve already hinted, eCommerce integrations eliminate time-consuming manual data entry by letting your eCommerce platform automatically send order updates to your inventory management tool.
Because there’s (almost) no delay between an order being placed and your warehouse team getting notified, orders get picked much faster. This also means you can push cut-off times to later in the day, safe in the knowledge your warehouse staff will still have plenty of time to pack and ship orders.
The end result? Customers get their orders much faster.
Automate customer communication
There’s a good reason your customer support team doesn’t spend all their day individually emailing customers with order updates—eCommerce integrations allow these messages to be sent automatically.
That might not be that impressive, but it’s important to understand how additional eCommerce integrations with logistics partners and final-mile carriers can improve communication even further. When you integrate with platforms operated by these companies, you can delight customers with delivery alerts in their own language — on top of the generic order received, order packaged emails that every eCommerce store sends.
This isn’t just good for your customers, either. The more recipients are notified about delivery dates, the more likely they are to be at home to receive your order and the fewer missed deliveries you’ll suffer.
Personalise your marketing efforts
If you want to delight customers, you can use eCommerce integrations to personalise as many of your marketing efforts as possible. Connecting your eCommerce store with your CRM and marketing automation tool makes it easy to go beyond mentioning the customer’s name in an email subject line and offer personalised recommendations on your site and in your promotional messages.
A word on AI integration
In 2024, retail leaders are just as concerned about integrating their stores with AI as they are with integrating disparate systems — and for good reason. AI has the potential to provide significant business value, whether that’s creating product descriptions from scratch, solving customer support issues, or generating insights automatically using your back-end data.
While it’s tempting to jump into the AI revolution, store owners and marketers should take their time when integrating AI into their organisation and processes.
Our advice? Focus on integrating your software stack first, then look at how you can cautiously incorporate AI into your offering.
Get one-click delivery integration with Pro Carrier
If you’re looking to integrate your back-end delivery processes, Pro Carrier is the perfect partner. Our eCommerce delivery platform offers one-click integration with all of the most popular eCommerce tools using our own API. That includes eCommerce platforms like Shopify and Magento as well as order management systems like Salesforce Commerce and Webgility.
Find out more by speaking to an expert today or give us a call.
