When you use technology in your procurement process, it saves you a lot of time, which could improve e-commerce stores' performance

The procurement process is not simple and straightforward. It’s complicated. The manual procurement process is very labour-intensive, time-consuming, and involves a lot of paperwork. On the other hand, when you use technology in your procurement process, it saves you a lot of time. It makes the whole process much simpler and hassle-free. These are just a few of many advantages of leveraging technology in the procurement process Before talking about the key advantages of using technology in your procurement process, let’s quickly look at the most common issues in the procurement process.

Major issues with a procurement process

Companies face problems in their procurement processes because of an ineffective process. It also leads to the occurrence of human errors in the process. The following are some of the most significant procurement issues that can affect…

Partnering with a supplier can save time and boost profits.

Ask any eCommerce retailer what is the number one concern they have and inventory will likely enter the equation. Fulfilling orders yourself is time-consuming and not always the cheapest option in the long run. Hiring employees to do it cuts into your profit margin. So what’s the solution? Dropshipping. If you haven’t heard about this rising trend in eCommerce order fulfillment, let this article be your guide to understanding dropshipping, how it makes you a better business owner, and what to expect in the coming months.

What Is Dropshipping?

Image: Oberlo Rather than you buying inventory, stocking it, then packaging and shipping it out every time an order comes in, dropshipping allows you to sell products that are housed by your manufacturer or a wholesaler. They store it until you sell it. And you don’t…

eCommerce organisations prioritise reliability above all else when it comes to delivery

Research by retail week and Metapack has revealed what eCommerce organisations value most in a delivery provider. The answer is clear: reliability. A whopping three-quarters of the businesses asked in the research agreed this - meeting customers' delivery expectations - was the most important thing when it came to delivery. This is hardly surprising. Customers are not forgiving when it comes to late deliveries, or worse still, when they never arrive at all. As an eCommerce site, you'll know it's far easy to get a previous customer to come back for repeat business than it is to get a brand new customer. So when if you annoy a customer by missing a delivery thanks to an unreliable provider, you've probably lost that customer for good, and with them all that valuable repeat business. So if you're an eCommerce site, make sure your delivery provider…

Are you ready for 'Amazon Prime Air'?

Yes, it's April 1st, but this story is not made up, it's an exclusive report from the 30th March 2015 with the byline Guardian gains access to unnamed British Columbia site where tech giant’s roboticists and engineers, stymied by American regulation, are now developing their unmanned domestic delivery service. I could barely believe this story when it was originally announced at the end of 2013 on  Amazon's Prime Air page and the BBC that Amazon was testing package delivery by drone. The aim of the retailer is offer customers the choice to have packages dropped on their doorstep by flying robots within 30 minutes of ordering goods online. It seemed like science fiction turned into a nice piece publicity stunt. The report this week shows that this is "for real" and Amazon has…

A new report from eBay mapping the flow of international sales

Value to retailers: [rating=4]

Recommended link: eBay cross-border Ecommerce sales report

eBay commissioned Nielsen to conduct a research study on the importance of cross-border / International Ecommerce sales in six key markets around the world – the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, China and Brazil. The output is this interesting infographic which shows the main flows of traffic (click to enlarge).

The report makes the analogy of cross-border Ecommerce with the Spice routes of the past between Asia and Europe. The report certainly provides support for investing in approaches to localise Ecommerce merchandising to market needs. Just within these six markets:

Cross-border online shopping will be worth $105 billion this year with 94 million consumers regularly buying from overseas websites.By 2018, this will increase nearly 200%…

Q. Who would you say the market leaders are from an e-commerce perspective?  i.e what companies are you aware of that provide a complete outsourced online shop(s) through to order handling and fulfillment on a multi-country basis? A. I think there are a limited number of Ecommerce solution providers that can deliver this. There are more that work on in individual countries or markets, but fewer which can offer the international fulfillment. For me, these are best known suppliers which I believe have the scale to help you I would recommend taking a look at : 1. GSI Commerce international Ecommerce solutions 2. Amazon Fulfillment Web Service (Amazon FWS) 3. Venda Ecommerce Fulfillment To review others I suggest you download the Gartner Ecommerce Leaders Magic Quadrant:

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