Designing Operations Before Websites is Crucial to E-Commerce Success
Original Fulfillment Strategy
After our initial whiteboard session, it was clear that many of the issues stemmed from the following:
- Current platforms didn't communicate with each other, requiring manually moving data between platforms.
- Platforms were primarily "local," saved to a specific employee's computer and didn't allow employees to swap orders.
- Platforms didn't have "repeatability," which required creating the same documents over and over.
Revised Fulfillment Strategy
Although mapping the existing fulfillment strategy provided a means to explain fulfillment to new staff members, the real opportunity was in fixing the issues by introducing new platforms. After careful research and testing, we recommended a more optimized fulfillment strategy. The new fulfillment strategy focused on the following:
- Replacing email communications with a support ticketing system to allow team members to manage cases in the cloud.
- Using a proper shopping cart with built-in order status tracking to replace spreadsheets.
- Using a shipping management tool that integrates with the shopping cart.
- Using a cloud-based estimate/invoicing tool with online payment capabilities.
In the end, the newly optimized fulfillment strategy allowed the CEO to move two employees to marketing. With this increased marketing output, the company was able to invest in a complete website redesign that resulted in an even higher level of conversion that the new fulfillment strategy handled with ease.
Ross Beyeler is the founder and managing partner of Growth Spark, a provider of strategy, design and technology services.