Running an online store is fantastic, especially when it’s running well and bringing in a consistent flow of new customers through your advertising efforts or just from Google organic traffic. But what if only a small portion of these visitors end up purchasing your goods?
In business, everything ultimately comes down to your bottom line. What you are taking against your cost of operation and goods results in your profit or loss. We can learn what’s working and what isn’t by using this basic type of math.
The profit margins are typically lower in e-commerce than they are in traditional brick-and-mortar retail, which is a $2 trillion business, according to Inddist. Margin is frequently extremely thin because it must account for the costs of fulfillment, shipping, inventory control, refunds, back office operations, labor, and marketing.
In any business, it takes a lot of effort and commitment to improve your bottom line. People frequently rely on tools to automate boring, repetitive work while optimizing accuracy and efficiency in the process. Online retailers’ bottom lines are being strengthened in numerous ways by newer eCommerce CRM strategies or solutions.
Reasons to add CRM strategy to your SaaS lineup
Here are five reasons to consider adding CRM strategy to your SaaS (Software as a Service) lineup.
- Cross-Channel Integration
Having an omnichannel presence is frequently a requirement for operating an online marketplace. For example, a company that runs its store on a shopping cart provider’s platform and uses its URL is probably also selling on eBay, Amazon, and other platforms, such as Newegg for technology or even Esty for handcrafted, artisanal goods. Unfortunately, none of these channels communicate with one another or exchange data.
The good news is that newer e-commerce CRM solutions tether this data with cross-channel integration (you connect each sales channel to your CRM software and pull the data via API integration from the shopping cart or marketplace). This allows you to generate detailed charts that are fed with real-time data.
A solid CRM may assist you in keeping track of your clients, managing your interactions with them, and gathering useful information that can strengthen your company. A few well-known CRM programs are Salesforce, Oracle Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and zendesk.
According to the market, Salesforce is the preferred CRM method for eCommerce. Strong marketing capabilities and a user-friendly customer relationship management (CRM) interface are some of its strengths. However, setting up and maintaining Salesforce can be expensive.
With an API, you may link your eCommerce platform with any third-party system or customer database that supports the protocol.
Access to this data, as well as the instant customer profiles these systems generate, gives you the ability to understand your customers better, improve service and create revenue-generating campaigns that benefit your bottom line.
How To Create An API Using Zapier
Zapier creates custom integrations between your applications, allowing you to share data and tasks between them.
Creating a free Zapier account is the first step in getting started.
Then choose “Create New” under the “API” tab. The sort of program you want to use—web or app—will be shown to you. We’ll build a web API for the sake of this tutorial. Before automating any jobs, decide what kind of tasks to automate. Choose the service or app you want to utilize, and then look in that app for the relevant “zaps” (short for “zapping”).
Next, you must submit the minimum necessary of information about your API, including its name (which will appear on Zapier’s platform), description (which will assist users to understand what it does), endpoint(s) (from which users can use your API), and authorization credentials (which allow users to access your resources securely). You can also state whether your API is private or public.
You will be prompted to select a template from which to develop your API after providing the necessary data. There are many templates offered, including ones for Python and NodeJS. If you’re not comfortable with coding languages like Python or NodeJS, we advise selecting one of these templates.
How to identify Sales Trends
You’ll have all the tools you need to succeed if you have access to cross-channel sales data and customer-specific data. For instance, you can discover via an analysis of your cross-channel seasonal sales data that particular products become popular around July, just when most people begin to ramp up their holiday shopping. Using this information, you may develop sales campaigns that you launch during “hot” seasons of the year to boost your revenue.
Customer management: Manage all of your customers’ data, including contact details, orders, and more, with eCommerce CRM. Serve better customers to maintain customer relationships with them.
Sales tracking: To improve your sales procedures and boost profitability, track eCommerce sales, how much you’ve made from each transaction, and consumer data from various channels, including shopping history and payment information.
Another example includes using customer-specific data to create newsletters or advertising campaigns that will generate immense revenue—for instance, selecting by market users during “hot” periods but creating an organic email marketing list that excludes serial returners – which would result in more sales, fewer returns, better reviews and an improved store ranking on marketplaces, not to mention cheerful social chatter and other innate benefits.
How to Reduce Impact of Returns
Returns are another thing that can seriously hurt your bottom line. According to recent UPS studies, 80% of customers won’t make purchases from retailers who don’t have a no-questions-asked returns policy. However, previous research has also revealed that around 33% of all online purchases are returned by customers. The following are the main causes: product received damaged; product look differs from that shown online; incorrect goods supplied; and clothes do not fit.
Integrations for returns management can also be found in more newer CRM strategies for eCommerce. These not only simplify returns and cut labor charges, assisting in boosting your bottom line while also providing you with the cause for returns. Using this information, you may modify your return policy and inventory in a small-scale manner to cut down on returns, increase customer loyalty, and boost sales while doing so.
Ways to lower Shipping Costs
One of the most important aspects of any online retailer’s bottom line is without a doubt the cost of shipping. You may drastically cut your shipping expenses by being wise about the discount shipping alternatives you provide to consumers, especially now that USPS is offering newer rate tiers and there are discount providers like Stamps.com and Endicia to select from.
You can receive this information through an e-commerce CRM strategy, which will also inform you of the most common shipping preferences for each client. Consumers are willing to wait for ground shipping, according to surveys, as long as the price is reasonable.
You would also be able to take cost-saving measures in advance by using the CRM cross-channel data to predict your shipping expenses and packaging supplies expenditures ahead of your busy season.
How to improve Customer Loyalty, Retention
CRM focuses mostly on improving customer connections. The ability to access a customer’s information, including the shipping status, order history, and returns information, gives your team the resources they need to settle disputes and provide great service, which boosts retention and loyalty.
CRM for e-commerce is a smart approach to online retailing. It gives you the power of data. Using this power, you’ll be able to improve your bottom line like never before.
