On Wednesday, November 25, 2020, Logiless Inc. (hereinafter referred to as Logiless) and our company, Commerce Media, held a closed seminar at the request of a logistics company. This time, we have also written a report article on some of our presentations.
Overview of the seminar
[Overview of the day]
1) Commerce Media
2) Logiles
*Details of the above agenda have been withheld due to confidentiality reasons.
Logiless recognized the overlapping functions of cart systems, OMS, and WMS, and provided a clear summary of how much of a system should be implemented according to the phase, products, and sales promotion methods of the EC business. Our company, Commerce Media, spoke about the overall picture of the EC industry, the basic role of cart systems, and comparison points between cart systems. We will only introduce a part of it here.
*OMS (Order Management System)
*WMS (Warehouse Management System: Logistics Management System)
The role of the cart system
The main roles of a shopping cart system are "order management, product management, customer management, analysis function, and website production function." In the past, there were many systems that handled back-end functions such as payment, but nowadays they are often bundled with production functions. Details vary depending on the shopping cart system, but this time we will use Shopify as an example.
Order Management
As the name suggests, this is a function to manage customer orders. You can sort orders by number and manage status such as payment and delivery. If a customer has any requests to cancel an order, change the delivery address information, or change the ordered items, they can also be done on this screen.
※Order Management Page TOP
You can also manage all information related to your order, such as what you purchased, how much it cost, whether you specified delivery, what your payment method was, etc. This information is useful when you need to troubleshoot or reconfirm your order.
A popular method for issuing shipping instructions is to "download order information from the cart system in CSV format and share it with the logistics warehouse" or "share it via OMS and have the logistics warehouse download the CSV file." However, Logiless has the functionality of a WMS, so it can issue shipping instructions automatically.
Product Management
This function allows you to link and register the customer-visible parts of the product detail page, such as images, catch phrases, and product descriptions, as well as product codes (SKUs) and JAN codes. It can also be used to reflect sales status such as out-of-stock items and backordered items on your EC site.
※Product Management Page TOP
Customer Management
This function manages data for each customer, such as the number of orders, number of repeat customers, and subscription user information. It is also linked to order information, so you can view the order history and average purchase price for each customer.
※Customer Management Page TOP
Analysis features
Although the specifications vary considerably for each cart, you can see sales performance, revenue, average unit price, etc. You can also see sessions and CVR, but since Google Analytics is often used for marketing elements, you may not make much use of it.
Site creation features
This is a front-end construction function that is currently being implemented in many cart systems. Most cart systems have several sample sites called templates or themes, and you can create an EC site by editing those sites.
※Site construction screen Theme name Debut
By using a theme, you can build an e-commerce site without using languages such as HTML or CSS, but because the site structure is designed to be reused by many e-commerce operators, those who want to start a full-fledged e-commerce site business will often add customizations rather than using it as is.
These are the basic functions and roles of a cart system, but the details vary depending on the cart system, and promotional functions and supported payment methods also change.
Although we are a Shopify expert partner, we do not necessarily think that you should use Shopify. The important thing is to understand what functions you need for your EC operation. First, summarize your operational flow, and then consider the essential functions.
If it is difficult, you can ask a partner company like us, or you can ask the cart company directly. Choosing a cart system is a critical turning point, so I hope that this talk will help more EC operators find the cart system that suits them.
Q&A
Finally, the Q&A session was quite lively, so I'd like to introduce a few more of them.
Question 1
Are there any features that are definitely worth adding?
A: Abandoned cart emails are necessary to send to people who put a product in their cart and then abandon it. Statistically speaking, abandoned cart emails are said to have the best conversion rate (CVR), and while the conversion rate (CVR) for EC is said to be 1% on a company's own website, abandoned cart emails can achieve an average conversion rate of 7%.
Question 2
For those who want to keep the old ways of ordering, such as by phone, how can they make use of the shopping cart system?
A: I think that companies like that have a lot of loyal fans, so they should implement both telephone orders and electronic payments. With Shopify, you can create orders manually, so you can receive orders over the phone and register them.
Question 3
I apologize for this being a basic question, but if I have stores on my own website, Amazon, and Rakuten Ichiba and have a total of 90 items in stock, do I need to split the inventory across my own website (30), Amazon (30), Rakuten Ichiba (30), etc.?
A: In the past, that was the only way to do it, but now that we have OMS, we can centrally manage our inventory. If you register your inventory on your own website (90), Amazon (90), and Rakuten Ichiba (90), and you sell one item on Amazon, you can efficiently operate your inventory on your own website (89), Amazon (89), and Rakuten Ichiba (89), and so on.
Question 4
How can you make the products that are selling well on the mall available for sale on your own website?
A: There are ways to do web marketing such as advertising, SEO, and SNS management, but it is important to increase brand awareness. Obtain sales records and rankings on malls such as Rakuten Ichiba, and sell them to physical stores. In this way, you can increase the number of contact points between the brand and consumers, increase searches for the brand name, and increase traffic to your company's website.
Question 5
When would you not recommend Shopify for creating an e-commerce website?
A: For example, there are cases where Japan-specific features are required, such as a detailed points program or rankings for members. Overseas, people tend to be rational, so there is a demand for discounts that can be offered directly with coupons.
