Ecommerce integration refers to the connection of your ecommerce platform with your other core apps – whether that’s your ERP, CRM, warehouse system, marketplace, marketing app, POS system or a 3PL. By automating the flow of information between your systems, ecommerce integration means you only need to enter data once – eliminating the need for duplicate entry.

Without this integration, businesses have to rely on manually moving data between their various different systems. Aside from being inefficient, manual data entry is incredibly error-prone – which can lead to problems with overselling and missed orders. For fast-growing companies, it’s also unsustainable, taking up huge amounts of resources and limiting the potential for further growth.

By using a number of disconnected systems, companies also accrue data silos. Not only does this siloed data lead to massive fulfilment issues, but it also makes it difficult for businesses to get a holistic view of their operations, limiting their capacity for reporting and data-led decision making.

Up-to-date inventory levels

One of the key benefits of ecommerce integration is the ability to automate your company’s data. Rather than waiting until the end of the day to input things like orders and stock levels, your systems are automatically kept up to date through scheduled data syncs. So no matter how busy your store gets, your ecommerce store and back-end systems will always have accurate inventory levels – reducing the risk of overselling.

Improved order fulfilment

With automated data syncs, your online orders are sent straight from your ecommerce platform to your warehouse – no manual inputting necessary. Which means that, even during your store’s peak shopping periods, your warehouse team will have the information they need to pick, pack and dispatch orders faster than ever before. And with less risk of human error, there’ll be fewer mistakes in the fulfilment process.

Better visibility

By removing data silos and automating the flow of data across your business, ecommerce integration gives you complete visibility over your operations. With all data automatically fed back to your ERP, you can create better reports, predict trends, identify areas for improvement and make data-led decisions.

Save time and resources

One of the other main advantages of an integration platform is that it eliminates the need for manual data entry, which saves your business a huge amount of time and resources. Even better, you can reinvest those extra resources back into the areas of the business that need it most – such as marketing and sales.

An integration platform also works to free up your technical resources. With an integration partner on hand to investigate technical issues, your IT team can spend more time focusing on general maintenance and improvements.

Outdated legacy systems

Like an industrious squirrel preparing for winter, you’ve been gathering data for years and diligently storing it away. That data can pile up, get lost, become irrelevant, and just get in the way if not feeding into the right kind of eCommerce integration.

Historical data can be incredibly useful for future planning – those who don’t learn from the past and all that – but if it’s buried under piles of poorly managed, useless information, it might as well not be there. Trying to find the good data in an endless pile of bad data is just going to waste your time and money.

This is even more of an issue if you’ve been collecting information from lots of channels without a proper data management strategy. Without proper data management and legacy systems in place, the sheer amount of data being passively collected snowballs to become more and more unmanageable. You’re making it harder to even use all this lovely data you’ve been collecting for years.

Disparate data formats

Data floods into businesses from all angles; from CRM to email sign ups, lead generation tools to customer service, information about your business and customers comes in many formats.

It can seem even more daunting to make sense of if the data is being managed by different people and teams, each with their own way of inputting or managing data, leading to potential duplication or mismanagement. One person may be inputting data that was already added by someone else across the business months ago slightly differently, such as starting a mobile number with +44 instead of 0. Little issues like this can throw a whopping great spanner into the works later down the line!

Low-quality or outdated data

Not all data is created equal – some just takes up space and muddies the waters with misinformation, even more so with manual input. Everyone makes mistakes and sometimes you end up with inaccurate or duplicated information.

The problem gets worse the longer you leave it without organising or integrating databases effectively. Over time, different people and departments input records into different systems and issues can turn into big problems, especially in a post GDPR world.

You need to be able to trust that your data is accurate, up to date, consistent, and compliant across your entire business.

Not understanding the requirements

You might have your systems integrated and talking to each other smoothly, but with the wrong software managing different parts of your business, it won’t mean much in the long run. You wouldn’t call up someone to a football team because they’re good at basketball and your systems are no different.

For instance, if you want separate databases to be fully synchronised while inputting their own data, you’re going to need a two-way integration. Otherwise, historical data doesn’t sync and you’ll keep getting inconsistencies – nightmare!

There are several different ways to integrate your ecommerce platform with your other systems – including point-to-point connectors, building your own integration, and investing in an ecommerce iPaaS.

One of the cheapest, quickest options is to use point-to-point connectors, which refers to a connector that ‘points’ one app at another, allowing them to synchronise data. Each app pairing requires its own connector, with no central hub to manage the different integrations – which means that, if there’s an issue (such as a failed sync or an outage), it can be difficult to find out where the problem originated.

Although point-to-point connectors can be a quick fix for smaller businesses, they’re not a sustainable long-term solution. To get the most out of your ecommerce integration, you need a centralised platform to manage your integrations.

That’s where an iPaaS like Patchworks comes in.

An integration platform as a service (iPaaS) is a cloud-based platform that allows you to automate the flow of data across your company’s different systems. By providing a single platform to create and manage data flows, an iPaaS gives businesses an easy, cost-efficient way to streamline and scale their operations.

An iPaaS acts as the centralised hub for your data. Rather than running different point-to-point connectors, you can manage your integrations, trigger syncs, troubleshoot issues and view historical data – all from a single platform.

Getting started with an eCommerce iPaaS

It can seem daunting at first, looking at all your competing systems and wondering where to start getting them working as a team – but that absolutely doesn’t have to be the case. One of the main reasons you’d want your systems integrated in the first place is to make your life easier and the Patchworks platform does just that.

Integration can be done quickly and easily, with no need for retroactive coding or tearing up of existing structures, our Integration Platform does all that heavy lifting for you. The platform is bespoke and tailor made to your business, giving you the integrations, platforms and dashboards that suit exactly what you need to help your organisation scale. The more your integrated systems automate data flows and reduce manual input, the more time you have to grow your business strategically using data that you know is accurate, complete, and easy to understand.