E-commerce enabler has been a new term that’s been thrown around loosely nowadays. What actually is e-commerce enabler, how do e-commerce enabler work, what is the benefit of using e-commerce enabler?
An e-commerce enabler is a business that provides an end to end e-commerce service to another business that is trying to sell its products on online shop/ platforms, such as Qoo10, Lazada, Shopee, Tokopedia, Bukalapak, Tmall, JD, or any other local platforms.
Let’s face it, opening your own online shop can be a hassle. Regular daily check-in, on-time customer service, prompt delivery and making sure your stock is available for flash sale, is not actually a walk in the park.
Sure if what you wanted was just extra income, you’ll manage, but if you’re looking for professional Official Online Store management, and serious expansion of your business, then you might want to look for professional help.
What kind of hassle is actually handled by e-commerce enabler?
Official Online Store management
Starting from setting up your official online store, managing day to day operations, planning promo and marketing campaign, a good e-commerce enabler will be able to take up the mantle and do the work for you and boost up, not just your sales, but also your brand image. e-commerce enabler also represents you to bargain with the platform for best online presence for your brand.
Product Listing & Price Control
Produce professional photography, copywriting enticing description while also maintaining pricing and promo to be able to be competitive and make a difference is another benefit of using a good e-commerce enabler. They also need to engage closely with the online shop/platform to get the best promo slot for you.
Order Processing & Fulfillment
Each platform has their own standard and requirement, including lead time for order response, and delivery. A good e-commerce enabler needs to be able to manage across all online shop/platform while ensuring best delivery methods possible to fulfill the order. They usually have a warehouse on their own to manage the retail pick and pack for your products.
Customer Service
Every customer is unique and needs to be treated as such, utilizing e-commerce enabler allows you to do so. A good e-commerce enabler possesses a professional customer service team, trained to treat the customer with the best attitude and service orientation.
Reporting
One important aspect in any business is reports. Either a sales report, SKU progress report, competition report or such is needed to lay a base for future efforts to grow and expand the business. A good e-commerce enabler provides you all the reports you need along with analysis and recommendation for improvements. After all, this is the era of the data based operation for almost any business that wants to excel in the tough competition.
Paid Ads
In this era of gadgets, Advertisement evolves to digital form as the reach and effectiveness are much better than the old newspaper and the cost is more effective compared to TV ads. Digital Ads also have better utilization, since we can specify our target based on demography, or even behavior. This will provide a more effective and efficient way to tap into your prospect market with the least time needed. (As long as you got the budget, since a short burst of digital campaign can be costly) Now can you imagine if you need to do this by yourself? You’ll be overwhelmed, not to mention if your web store / online store is progressing exponentially. Now you might think that it’s better to try and set up your own team, maybe you’re right or not, it all depends on your focus and what do you want to do with your resources. The first thing you need to consider is how proficient are you with e-commerce and how well can you train your team or recruit an experience one. If you’re a digital native generation with lots of exposure with e-commerce industry, and you got good leadership skill, then you might want to try and set up your own team. Another thing to ponder is how much setting up a team would cost you. I’m not only talking about financial cost, but also opportunity cost from the time lost due to team member turnover, as this industry is famous for the high turnover rate. To be able to perform the previously mentioned functions, you need to have at least 5 – 6 team members with expertise in their own area, which should you want to be done properly, going to cost you quite an amount. Account management, marketing management, pick and pack, lead time to acquire such capable team must also be a consideration, since this might also be a crucial factor in the acceleration of your online store / e-commerce success. Lastly, how big you want to go in the e-commerce business. If you only wish to establish local presence, or use your online store/web store as an addition to your regular business, then you might want to manage the e-commerce business yourself. But if you’re ambitious enough to grow your presence to national or regional or even global scale, then you might want to reach out for extra help. As the saying goes “If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.” #Ecommerce_Enablers
