The importance of data integrations during your peak trading periods

Good data integrations are important whatever stage of business you’re at, or what time of year it is.

It’s what makes sure all of your different apps, systems, and software solutions work well and synergise with each other.

But whilst integrations are an essential part of an ecommerce company all year round, they’re especially important during peak trading periods.

Summer sales, Black Friday, the last-minute Christmas rush - your store’s orders are never going to stay the same throughout the entire year, and you need to be prepared for spikes in purchases.

Here’s some of the reasons why powerful integrations are so important during peak trading periods.

They help you process bulk orders

Imagine a tube of toothpaste. The smaller the hole, the more difficult it is to squeeze anything out. This is fine when you’ve got a small, travel-sized tube - but what if you bought a huge tube of toothpaste, and the hole stayed the same as the smaller one? It’s going to take you ages to push through all of that paste.

It’s not a perfect analogy; believe it or not, data integration is a lot more complicated than brushing your teeth. But try applying that to how you think about integrations. When they’re poorly thought out and developed, you’re giving yourself a small hole to push orders through. And while it might suit you well during normal slow sales periods, when you get a rush of customers, you’re processing multiple times the amount of orders using the same integration architecture.

A reliable integration provider has a scalable platform which allows you to adapt to your current circumstances. So regardless of how busy your store gets, your sales will go off without a hitch.

They empower your tech stack

Ecommerce companies have some incredible tools at their disposal, and it’s important to make sure you’re choosing the right ones for your particular operation.

It could be services such as buy now pay later (BNPL) at checkout, or more company-wide solutions such as ERPs or CRMs.

But, whilst those systems are great, they’re not running at optimal efficiency if you just integrate them without much thought into how they’re integrated. And when you’re in peak sales periods, it’s easy for those systems to get overwhelmed and lose their effectiveness.

For example, you might have a WMS linked to your ecommerce platform. But if those two systems aren’t integrated properly, inaccurate orders might be sent through to your WMS and negatively impact your operation.

Or perhaps you have a BNPL app which isn’t functioning properly, because it’s not seamlessly integrated with your platform.

During peak sales periods, problems with your tech stack will show themselves more than ever. And those problems will lead to lost revenue.

The best way to combat this is to enlist a reliable integration provider, which can analyse your disparate systems and figure out the best way possible to connect them all.

They help you keep track of your inventory

What fulfilment method do you use? Do you have a WMS partner and use that to do your warehousing yourself, but outsource delivery? Do you use a 3PL and outsource the whole fulfilment process? Or do you have some other method for making sure your customers’ orders arrive on time?

Whatever your system, you’ll agree that making sure orders go from point to destination is a top priority.

From a customer’s perspective, the process of an order being placed, confirmed, and delivered seems like a simple and seamless process - but there’s a lot which goes on behind the scenes to make that happen. In a physical store, regardless of how busy things are, the sequence of events is quite straightforward: a customer takes an item from the shelf, they go to the checkout, they pay, and they leave with their order immediately.

Online, however, the success of an order relies entirely on the competency of your data connections. During peak sales periods, you could be looking at hundreds or even thousands of orders being placed within one second of each other. That’s enough to overwhelm your fulfilment operation if it’s not developed well enough. A physical store has the privilege of no deliveries required - but online, placing the order is just the beginning.

With a properly integrated fulfilment system, your ecommerce platform and warehouse communicate seamlessly with each other. That means, as soon as an order is confirmed, stock levels are updated appropriately and workers within the warehouse can process it without a hitch.

Knowing your inventory levels is essential for ecommerce, and powerful integrations help you do just that.

Enter Patchworks

With our self-serve, no-code/low-code integration platform, connecting your disparate systems and processing orders has never been easier or more efficient.

Just look at the testimonials from some of our other clients during their peak sales periods: on Black Friday/Cyber Monday, Lounge Underwear saw a breathtaking 232% increase in sales which all went through without a hitch, thanks to Patchworks’ powerful integration platform.

For more information on how our iPaaS can help you, or to book a free consultation and demo, contact us today.