Vertically Integrated Commerce: Battling the Disruption

Two years ago, venture capitalist Boris Wertz wrote about vertical integration as the next big thing in commerce. Today, his words are proving true. Commerce brands like Frank & Oak, Bonobos, and ShoeDazzle (the list goes on) are disrupting how we buy merchandise online. Each one can offer customer experiences and prices that most traditional retailers cannot. They do it by building their entire supply chains, on their own.

For more traditional retailers, this disruption is intimidating. You may even be losing business to one or more vertically integrated commerce brands. You may be wondering how you could possibly compete. Rest assured, this disruption doesn’t mean you need to turn your commerce business upside down.

The more traditional retail model still works. You can still be immensely successful selling through your own website, sourcing from suppliers, using marketplaces like eBay and Amazon, and shaking a new customer’s hand in your brick and mortar store. But, to be successful in the modern commerce world, you’ll need to adopt some new strategies.

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Using Multi-Channel Management to Overcome Drop Shipping Challenges

The drop ship fulfillment method can help a company’s bottom line because it eliminates the need to carry product inventory. Instead, when a buyer places an order for an item, the order is sent directly to the supplier (which can be a manufacturer or a wholesaler) and that supplier is responsible for shipping the item to the buyer. The supplier is completely invisible to the buyer. The company’s profit from the transaction is the difference between the wholesale and retail price. Drop ship is rapidly becoming common practice and company’s need to know how this option will work in their multi-channel environment.

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The Importance of Proper Drop Ship Management

At nChannel, we often speak about the importance of connecting your channel applications, from your eCommerce sites and point of sale (POS) solutions to your ERP and accounting systems. With a web-based solution, data is seamlessly transferred between these systems, not only saving you time, but offering you accuracy, visibility, and reliability too.

However, a multi-channel environment can also include “inventory locations” – locations, suppliers or entities that are strategic to fulfilling orders.  One such inventory location could be a drop shipper.

Why Should a Company Consider Drop Ship Strategies?

Drop shipping is a sales and inventory strategy in which a business does not actually keep items in stock. (more…)

Create and Manage Price List Feature

nChannel now offers subscribers the ability to create and manage an unlimited number of price lists unique to each channel you serve. Apply price lists to stores, web sites, or both!

Look what you can do with this cool new feature:

– Select items manually or apply a unique price list for items by manufacturer, supplier or brand
– Set start and end dates for your price lists which will revert back to the pricing you choose when your promotion is over
– Create and store unique formulas to quickly apply a percentage or dollar amount discount
– Determine which channels you’d like to apply to your price list
– Set the type of price you’d like to change – sale price, regular price, supplier price

“Manually managing pricing and promotions was one of the biggest challenges we needed to solve” -Paul Donnelly, Ohio Mulch

In Ohio Mulch’s case, they sell through 21 stores and 5 web sites. Each of their websites serves a regional market where products can differ, and weekly promotions are unique to that market. We’ve heard from many companies over the years lamenting this same challenge – and we’re excited to announce our new pricing feature designed to help companies manage pricing promotions.

Once a price list has been published it can be edited at anytime and if you make a mistake, fixes are simple and best of all – immediate! We’ve got lots more to share – Take a look at our calendar for upcoming webcast, visit our connector pages, or call us for a quick demo.