Save time & money with automated processes
As an online retailer, it’s not just about showcasing your products and thinking about marketing campaigns. There are countless back-office tasks that need to be done in the background. Even if these tasks are monotonous, possibly boring and time-consuming, they should not be neglected. At the latest when the tax office knocks on the door and asks for invoices, balance sheets and general documentation, things can get dicey.
What are the challenges?
The biggest challenges of an online retailer, apart from the implementation and development of online retail, are primarily process-related. All processes and activities involved in an online shop or selling on a marketplace that do not directly relate to marketing must not be forgotten:
- Legal certainty and texts
- Portfolio and article maintenance
- Inventory and warehouse management
- Order processing, invoicing, customer communication
- Shipping, logistics, tracking
- Accounting / preparation for tax consultants
These tasks quickly fade into the background, as they have nothing to do with the product and the shop on the surface. Sentences like: ‘Oh, we’ll do that later’ or ‘Is it important to write invoices now or at all?’ should not even be uttered.
These tasks are (unfortunately) no less important as a result, because proper processing is worth its weight in gold when it comes to stocktaking, tax returns and organising trade.
Many companies focus their improvement measures on their products. Of course, it is absolutely right to continuously improve these, but customer satisfaction is largely created by an uncomplicated and holistically positive ordering experience. Even with very good products, sub-optimal order processing can become an unnecessary barrier for customers and reduce sales. In addition, the correctness of the processes, such as the correct VAT, number ranges and much more, must also be taken into account.
When should all this be done?
Now the question arises: when should all this be done? In addition to the day-to-day business, the set-up and all the processes that are constantly being added, time management must not be lost sight of.
Time management is self-management! That’s easier said than done, but it’s at the heart of everything! When you get right down to it, it’s less about managing time and more about how you face the tasks that arise and how they are organised. As soon as tasks or new projects with new platforms start, many questions and obstacles arise. As soon as there is a good structure and a holistic overview, tasks of all kinds can be carried out with ease.
So how can these processes be easily optimised without spending hours locked up in the office?
Wherever companies want to increase their productivity, it is ultimately about process optimisation and automation. You will certainly have already thought about whether some steps in the ordering and fulfilment process can be simplified – the answer is usually ‘yes’. The only thing that often stops you is that you are not yet familiar with the relevant tools and their possible applications. What are the areas in which the processing of orders in online retail can be easily digitalised?
The important thing is to keep an overview and automate as much as possible.
This is precisely where order processing tools such as Billbee come in. With our software (web application as Software-as-a-Service), we want to help small and young retailers in particular to address precisely these problems, the efficient solution of which was often reserved for large companies. The primary objective here is to relieve the retailer of tasks, save time and minimise duplicate tasks as far as possible, avoid them altogether or enable them to be processed from a single platform. This includes invoicing, customer communication, dispatch and also further processing in additional systems such as accounting. If a large proportion of these tasks can then be automated, stock levels synchronised and the parallel placement of new products in several channels simplified, a large proportion of the previously mentioned tasks and additional work are already a thing of the past.
With Billbee, we offer our customers a solution with the functionality and performance of enterprise alternatives. And thanks to the genuine ‘pay as you grow’ model (no basic fee, only 7 cents per transaction) at a price that suits any size of company.
Curious? With the 30-day, free and non-binding trial period, you can put Billbee through its paces – and only then decide!
Author: As Marketing Lead at Billbee, Renée Kreijkes is responsible for the planning and realisation of events and marketing. But she also always has an open ear for the small and big problems of the users and helps them through the system.
