Ever since the pandemic, eCommerce has become a part of our everyday lives, be it for ordering groceries online or getting an OTT subscription. While initially people embraced eCommerce for mixed reasons (curiosity, preferences, etc), the lockdown drove everyone to push for it out of a place of necessity. This massive shift in consumer behavior has forced businesses to optimize their online presence, enhance customer experiences, and streamline their order-to-cash processes. This is where BigCommerce integration comes in handy. Now people do know BigCommerce to be an extremely powerful platform which provides businesses with tools to create, launch, and manage online stores. While there are many standalone functionalities of BigCommerce, its integration with various software and tools automates order-to-cash processes, saving businesses time, money, and resources makes all the difference. Typically, the Order to Cash process in a BigCommerce integration involves the following steps:
#1 Order placement: The customer places an order on the BigCommerce website.
#2 Order processing: The order is then processed by the BigCommerce system, which includes validating the order, calculating taxes, and shipping costs.
#3 Order fulfillment: The order is fulfilled by the merchant or a third-party logistics provider, who picks and packs the products, labels the package, and arranges for shipping.
#4 Shipping and delivery: The package is then shipped to the customer using the selected carrier and delivery method.
#5 Payment processing: The payment for the order is processed by the BigCommerce system, which collects payment information from the customer and transfers funds to the merchant.
#6 Order tracking: The customer can track the order using the tracking information provided by the carrier.
#7 Order completion: Once the order is delivered and the customer confirms receipt, the order is considered complete.
Now that we know about the initial steps involved, In this blog, we’ll explore in details how BigCommerce integration automates each one of these processes.
Order Management
Order management is the backbone of the entire order-to-cash process, and it happens across three broad stages of receiving, processing, and fulfilling customer orders. With BigCommerce integration, streamlining the order management process takes place by automatically importing orders from the eCommerce platform to the Order Management Systems (OMS). An OMS is a software that helps business owners to manage order received from different sales channels, while coordinating the fulfillment process across different customer touchpoints. And since BigCommerce easily integrates with many such OMS like Order Desk, BrightPearl, etc this eliminates the need for any manual data entry, reduces scope of human errors, and ensures that orders are processed quickly and accurately.
Furthermore, BigCommerce integration enables businesses to manage orders across multiple channels, including their online store, marketplaces, and social media platforms, from a single dashboard. This simplifies the order management process, enabling businesses to fulfill orders quickly, resulting in higher customer satisfaction. Also, business owners can also go the extra mile in terms of personalizing their experience with the help of professionals of a trusted, reliable BigCommerce development agency like CodeClouds. Their proven expertise in providing custom integrations, theme customization, app development capabilities can help in growing your business.
Inventory Management
Inventory management is an essential aspect of the order-to-cash process, and it involves: managing stock levels, tracking inventory movements, and ensuring that products are available for sale. BigCommerce integration automates inventory management by syncing stock levels between the eCommerce platform and inventory management software.
This ensures that businesses are aware of their stock levels in real-time, preventing stockouts and overselling. Additionally, BigCommerce integration enables businesses to set up automatic reorder points, ensuring that products are restocked before they run out of stock.
Payment Processing
Payment processing is a crucial aspect of the order-to-cash process, and it involves accepting payment from customers and ensuring that payments are processed accurately and securely. BigCommerce integration automates payment processing by integrating with various payment gateways, including PayPal, Stripe, and Square.
This enables businesses to accept payments from customers using their preferred payment methods, including credit cards, debit cards, and digital wallets. Additionally, BigCommerce integration ensures that payments are processed accurately and securely, reducing the risk of fraud and chargebacks.
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Shipping and Fulfillment
Shipping and fulfillment is the final stage of the order-to-cash process, and it involves picking, packing, and shipping customer orders. BigCommerce integration streamlines shipping and fulfillment by integrating with various shipping carriers, including FedEx, UPS, and USPS.
This enables businesses to compare shipping rates, print shipping labels, and track shipments from a single dashboard. Also, BigCommerce integration automates the fulfillment process by sending order information directly to the warehouse, reducing the time and effort required to fulfill customer orders and make things organized in every step of the way.
Analytics and Reporting
Analytics and reporting are essential for businesses to monitor their performance, identify trends, and make informed decisions. With the help of BigCommerce integration, businesses can now have an automated analytics and reporting by providing businesses with real-time insights into their sales, customer behavior, and website traffic.
This enables businesses to make data-driven decisions, optimize their online store, and improve customer experiences. Also, BigCommerce integration enables businesses to generate custom reports, providing them with the flexibility to analyze data based on their unique needs.
Conclusion
With more sales and conversions comes an added strain to business software since such order processing and back end administration processes are repetitive and cost consuming for any business owner. This is why BigCommerce integration plays such a pivotal role in streamlining your business by automating the order-to-cash process by streamlining order management, inventory management, payment processing, shipping and fulfillment, analytics and reporting. This not only saves businesses time, money, and resources, enabling them to focus on growing their online presence but also provides a rich and lasting customer experience.
By leveraging BigCommerce integration, businesses can streamline their operations, improve their efficiency, and boost their profitability. So, if you’re running an online store and looking to automate your order-to-cash process, consider integrating BigCommerce with other software and its ease of integration is sure to give your business a competitive edge over other brands.
