As your ecommerce business expands, it becomes more complex, requiring added functionalities and management capabilities. These added requirements are more specific than what other ecommerce platforms offer by default. However, thanks to add-ons and integration capabilities of ecommerce platforms, you can enhance your webstore functionality. On this note, it leaves us with an important decision; while building and choosing a webstore, we should carefully opt for the platform that allows for scalability and offers flexibility through add-ons and integration solutions. This article discusses what add-ons and integration mean for your ecommerce store and how they can enhance it.
What are add-ons?
First, we must understand what these tools. Just like you can modify your vehicle for upgrades such as navigation, add-ons offer your site added features & functionalities. These add-ons can provide general functionalities or are specifically designed per your needs. Many ecommerce platforms have stores where you can browse multiple add-ons and install them on your site. They can be from the ecommerce platform itself or third parties. Some common types of add-ons are:
Payment gateway: They allow the processing of customers' payments through different payment processing channels.
Customer service & support: They enable your customers to communicate with you and clear their queries and concerns.
Reporting & Analytics: These allow you to monitor the performance of your ecommerce store and aid you in making informed decisions.
Order fulfillment: These allow you to offer features such as order & shipment tracking and choosing shipment rates & methods.
Marketing: These add-ons facilitate your marketing campaigns with tools such as email marketing to subscribers and social media marketing.
What are integrations?
While add-ons focus on providing added functionalities, integrations enhance your webstore by making your business operations efficient by streamlining and automating numerous tasks through data syncing and data transfer between your ecommerce platform and other business solutions, though they also provide added functionalities. Some ways in which ecommerce integration can enhance your ecommerce operations:
Data syncing: If you use multiple solutions and maintain your data on them for management reasons, then integration can save you time & resources by automatically syncing data between them; this means that you don’t need to simultaneously input the same data on both solutions manually. The time & resources that you save can be utilize for more demanding tasks.
Automation: Integration automates mundane operational tasks that would have are carried out manually otherwise; some example includes automatic downloading of sales order and inventory updates, changing the fulfillment & order status, and populating the general ledger accounts based on transactions.
Reduce error: Many errors occur due to manual data inputs. Plus, manually tracking and ensuring data is updated can cause delays or even cause missed updates. Integrations prevent such errors and ensure data is accurate and up to date.
Unified environment: Integration allows users to access and manage their ecommerce operation from other business management environments such as ERPS. This makes the operations seamless and improves productivity by reducing the need to switch between solutions for different tasks.
An example of an integration solution is x2x Business Central & Magento solution.
Conclusion
It’s impossible to have all the features & functionalities required by everyone in a single package, no matter how great the solution is. Thus, the need for add-ons and integration. Therefore, considering future business goals and objectives, choose an ecommerce platform that supports good add-ons and integrations.
x2xecommerce having many years of experience providing ecommerce experience to its clients, can integrate your ecommerce platforms with other existing business solutions, enhancing the productivity of your operations. If you have any queries or need a free demo, contact the x2x team.
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