Multichannel Ecommerce – Benefits, Challenges and Opportunities

Shopping online is one of the most popular activities on the Web. A person can shop anytime or anywhere–even in pajamas! Webpages are built to promote specific goods and services that can be purchased online and delivered to a personal/professional setting. Over the past ten (10) years, eCommerce has grown in leaps and bounds, particularly with the rise of companies that allow electronic transactions, such as eBay and Amazon. 

Nowadays, it is common for companies to have a significant online presence, mainly “brick and mortar” stores, where multichannel eCommerce gives customers the ability to: 

• Search through an extensive database of products and services and build their orders over several days
• Compare pricing for the same product over dozens of channels and choose the best one. 

An eCommerce multichannel is where different groups of people sell goods/services in different ways at different times. The goal is to satisfy as many people as possible while continually scaling to increasing traffic. There can be several challenges with this approach: 

To avoid such hurdles, businesses often choose a single platform to publish and manage their product and service lines, such as Shopify, ChannelAdvisor, and Seller Active. This platform provides a central place to trade products, reach out to more communities all over the world, and receive revenue in common currency. Often these platforms are used to sell and manage products/services, but additional applications can be added to process shipping and backorders. Apps like Shipstation and Ecomdash allow vendors to fulfill their orders by direct shipping and order processing options, or using shipping gateways like UPS and FedEx. 

Based on the product and service verticals, these sellers can be divided into two categories: 

B2C merchants have direct reach to customers and thus have to strictly maintain their product portfolio, as customer buying patterns are based on product reviews and past experiences with the seller. B2B merchants, on the other hand, have to provide merchants’ orders on time and thus have to maintain their delivery portfolio diligently. ECommerce platforms for both types of sellers are the same, but utilization is different. Most of the B2C and B2B merchants use an integrated web of applications to manage their day-to-day operations. A typical example would be:

The applications vary from merchant to merchant — B2C often go for the cheaper option while B2B go for ERP’s, which have all of the above capabilities. These applications provide an efficient way to complete operations on multichannel eCommerce platforms, as the integrated platform automates data sharing and reduces manual intervention to maintain product stock.

DBSync, a pioneer iPaas for a multichannel eCommerce, provides actionable information towards customer and product repletion statuses. Most IPaaS’ fail when it comes to a full cycle integration, and thus B2B merchants tend to go with fully optimized and integrated ERP. However, not all ERP’s support of all channels, so merchants end up with a simplified, integrated solution. 

DBSync is a leading player in this vertical, as its’ pre-built connectors for applications like ChannelAdvisor, Shopify and Shipstation, can be used to build connections to other similar domain apps using the Swagger framework. 

CSEs (Comparison Shopping Engines)

The battle for most retailers today is to create brand awareness for their product/service. Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs) like Google Shopping, Nextag and Connexity allow customers to compare product lines over multiple eCommerce channels. NOTE: A fee is required to have a product appear in top search results. 

Most retailers struggle to set their multichannel strategies and thus fail to reach their target audience. Some companies like ChannelAdvisor and GoDataFeed have options to simplify this process. They provide Feed Campaign Management and optimize product listing ads for digital marketers, providing them with a centralized platform to enhance their product content, overcome unprofitable products automatically and provide actionable insights to grow their product line bidding.

Conclusion:

The fast-growing eCommerce industry is trending towards growing the customer base rather than the number of channels. Hence, retailers/sellers have to focus their Multichannel Marketing Strategy to ensure repeat customers. 

The ability to “tag” products based on user preferences (via Web and mobile browsing) and make them available on social media has been a game-changer, as customers no longer have to leave social media channels to purchase a product/service. Retailers can also invest in CSEs to ensure their product/service reaches its targeted community. This can increase search listings and allow movement towards Omni channel marketing.

DBSync, as a unified integration platform, can play a crucial role in making B2B sellers’ businesses grow beyond their expectations by optimizing order processing and fulfillment and exposing them to the global eCommerce web.

5 reasons why customers should have Data Integration

1. Take advantage of specialized applications

If I can say in my words, every piece of software that works with data represents analyses and transforms information in a specialized way. By integrating data into a format accepted by that application, you’re giving yourself the power to open and use your data in that software.

For Example, In DBSync we are using different types of connectors like Salesforce, Microsoft CRM Dynamics, NetSuite (ERP), QuickBooks and many more.

With the help of these connectors, we are Integrating the data from different sources to different destination platforms.

2. Reduce technical complexity and improve business agility

In present time Data Integration architecture enables organizations to eliminate point to point Integration, Reduce Complexity and improve overall optimization while providing self-service access for distributed teams.

3. Make Data More Available

Centralizing your data makes it easy for anyone at your company (or outside of your company, depending on your goals) to retrieve, inspect, and analyze it.

Easily accessible data means easily transformed data. People will be more likely to integrate the data into their projects, share the results, and keep the data up to date.

4. Managing CRM Applications

Customer data integration is essential for the success of CRM. You need to have accurate customer details (the single version of the truth). This is important so that all the customer service employees (from those who call the customer to those who process the application) have a clear view of the customer and see the same data. Organizations are mainly utilizing customer data integration for customer retention by having a 360-degree view of them. Their next step would be using customer data integration to get new customers.

5. Data Integrity

According to me many things will happen with your data from the day it is created in your system and throughout its lifecycle. It can be transferred to other systems, altered and updated multiple times. Human interactions, data transfers, viruses or compromised hardware are all events that can compromise your data’s integrity. This is where maintaining data integrity can become a tricky task.

In my job providing data integration solutions to organizations, data quality, and data integrity are always something we discuss in details. I believe that data integrity should be top of your mind at every stage of the data lifecycle, and already from the design and implementation phase of your systems. Data integrity also ensures recoverability and searchability, traceability and connectivity. Protecting the validity and accuracy of data also increases the stability and performance of your systems.

Reasons why to go for DBSync

DBSync is a proven integration platform which facilitates integration between various legacy systems, services, processes, business partners and data to provide new business value and improve new business performance. DBSync manages all communication, data translation, and process interaction among various connected applications. If I talk about the pricing, we have an excellent plan for our clients, and they can also choose the best package what they like based on their needs and requirements. Please check all the prices with all subscription plans at DBSync.

Best in class support and service plans

We are providing videos to the customers to help them in Implementation, to training documentation that explains, to a community platform, to one-on-one support from partners who can speed up your integration.

DBSync ensures you have everything required to implement and run your integration project deployment successfully.

Providing standard support through email or online are included as a part of the yearly subscription. Check out more.

Easily Customizable Integration by using iPaaS

The DBSync iPaas is the fastest way to integrate between two applications with its existing pre-defined solutions. It allows companies to connect “Cloud to Cloud” or “Cloud to On-Premise” applications quickly to solve any integration problem. You can also use it to streamline various known business processes like an order to cash, procure to pay, service to cash, payment integration or integrate your cloud applications with your database.

DBSync provides Development studio that would jump start your cloud adoption with pre-built templates and easily customizable integrations, API’s and extend the platform so that any non-technical users can quickly build processes that connect with an unlimited number of Endpoints. Check out more.

Support Standard and Custom Connectors for Integration

Connectors or adapter which are sometimes referred to from an integration standpoint as a set of components within the iPaas are that opens a connection to an external system that is used to authenticate, push and pull data from external systems.
Connectors in DBSync may be categorized into two types

• Standard Connectors

The standard connector presents a published, constant Interface (API) to users and other components on the upstream side of the connector. Please check the below link to see how many standard connectors we are supporting.

• Custom Connectors

DBSync provides SDK for building custom connectors. Most of the times we are getting requirements from the customers to create the custom connectors for them to transfer/ Integrate a Data from One application to another application like Salesforce to QuickBooks and many more. Check out more.

Tutorials

The tutorial is a method of transferring knowledge and may be used as a part of a learning process. DBSync tutorials are used for knowledge transfer.
Most of the time customers are using different tools for Data Integrations, but they don’t know how to use these tools for data integration. So, here DBSync is providing a Tutorial section for the users so users can come and see how they will be going to Integrate their data with the help of DBSync from Source to Destination applications like Salesforce to QuickBooks and many more. Tutorials provide all the information to the user about the queries builder and hierarchy mapping for the data flow. Check out more.

Template Library

Solution Library is a collection of pre-built integration solutions. These solutions can be easily added to your integration instance.

It helps the customers to get all the data about how to Integrate from source to target applications. With the help of Template Library customers will get to know about the information of Data Flow, Field Mapping, Process Map, Prerequisites for Integration and how the user will get to start with DBSync includes all the sequential points. Check out more.

Handling EDI using Cloud Workflow

Electronic Data Interchange or EDI has existed since the early 70s. Today, many IT giants, such as IBM, are still using it.  One of the many reasons is its practicality, as this data format offers a way to transfer commercial documents in an easy and fast manner.

In this article, you will learn about the benefits of EDI, and how to create a collective digital model using EDI files and DBSync’s Cloud Workflow.

Benefits of EDI

EDI has been in the market for a long time. One of the reasons is its benefits.

“EDI continues to prove its major business value by lowering costs, improving speed, accuracy and business efficiency. The greatest EDI benefits often come at the strategic business level.”

EDI Basics

EDI’s most important benefits can be summarized as:

Table 1: Benefits of EDI

These benefits can be capitalized in many business cases. One of the most important of them is Supply Chain Integration.

Use Case: Supply Chain Integration

Today businesses operate in a multi-enterprise environment. An important aspect of this ecosystem is the value added through the integration of partners and customer communities.

Collaborative digital models can deliver great things, such as supplying manufacturing lead times, product availability data, demand forecasts from end customers, and more.

This data availability could, for example, allow you to consider precise inventory levels across the supply chain, based on demand data, prices and market calculations.

Thus, a B2B digital chain could benefit from EDI, and made possible with DBSync Cloud Workflow: EDI being used to describe the documents, and Cloud Workflow to execute the document transfer via FTP servers.

Once the EDI file has been transferred, a third application, usually called an EDI convertor,  is necessary in order to interpret the code contained in the EDI file, and transform it into a proper document.

Figure 2: Supply Chain Integration

How Cloud Workflow Manages the Document Transfer

There are two different operations with an EDI document. First, an EDI file can be transferred between different points, via, for example,  FTP servers. Second, the EDI document needs to be parsed and transformed into the actual document.

Cloud Workflow can easily transfer text documents stored in an FTP server to another data source, including another FTP server. The files are handled via a separator, in a similar manner to CSV files.

This feature allows Cloud Workflow to transfer EDI files. Although EDI files are defined by many different standards, such as ANSI, EDIFAC and TRADACOM, the common characteristic is that they can be transferred via a separator.

However, it must be noted that Cloud Workflow doesn’t parses the EDI document. It only transfers the text file containing the EDI code.

Figure 3: EDI transferred via Cloud Workflow

In order to understand how Cloud Workflow transfers EDI documents between FTP servers, let’s take a look at the next figure, which shows the basics of an ANSI EDI document definition.

An EDI document starts with a “Start of transaction” indicator, and ends with an “End of transaction” definition. In the middle, the contents of the document are defined.

In EDI terms, a single document is called a “transaction set” or “message”. A document can be something like an invoice, a purchase order or another commercial document. A transaction set is comprised of data elements, segments and envelopes.

Data elements are the individual items of the document, and are contained in segments, separated by a data element separator. In the example shown in the figure the separator is a star or *.

Finally, a document is stored in an envelope, which can contain one or more documents. Envelopes are then transferred between sites.

By using this EDI file structure, Cloud Workflow can transfer EDI documents located in FTP servers in a similar way it transfers CSV files.

Figure 4: Structure of an EDI document

Wrapping Up

We have seen that DBSync’s Cloud Workflow can easily transfer EDI documents stored in FTP servers. The next step is to convert the EDI code into a proper file.

This feature opens immense possibilities. One very important option is its use in Supply Chain Integration, where a chain of FTP servers could serve as a link between different points in the supply chain.

The opportunities opened by this collective digital model are many: from production based on customer data, to inventory planning, reduction of lead times, and more.

Would you like to learn more about Cloud Workflow and its powerful features? Visit our website at https://www.mydbsync.com/, where you can try our app for free.

9 Netsuite Benefits For fast-growing companies

What is NetSuite – The Leading Cloud Solution

NetSuite is widely regarded as the first cloud computing software company, founded in 1999. And nowadays is the leading cloud solution on the market, offering consolidated ERP, CRM and e-commerce features.

As a cloud-based software, it enables companies to manage important business processes in a unified system. It is highly efficient thanks to its modular approach and cost-effective because it doesn’t involve hardware, upfront license fees or maintenance fees and it’s easy to set up.

These are only a few of the benefits of NetSuite for growing companies, and in this article we’ll dig deeper and expound the most important for accelerated growth.

Benefits of the Cloud

But before tackling NetSuite, it makes sense to understand why its underlying technology is so great for businesses.

Everyday, more companies are turning to the cloud when looking for a solution to track their financials, manage inventory, improve their customer relationship management (CRM) system and even implement e-commerce stores.

The cloud technology gains adepts every moment and is a technological trend that grows stronger among small and mid-size companies due to its lower cost and among larger enterprises because of its high power and efficiency.

NetSuite in a Nutshell

According to NetSuite, users can run their company from the point the customer touches the organization right through the journey of ordering, managing, delivering, invoicing and accounting the products. The whole business process is managed within a single system.

An ERP System for Growing Companies

NetSuite works under a subscription model which many small companies find appealing because they can pay per use only. Thanks to this, users can reduce initial investments and reduce the effort on maintaining the software.

Businesses can implement the standard software suite which includes the core functionality for both ERP and CMR. However, companies that require other specific, more advanced modules, can license them on demand.

In general, companies can obtain a bundle of modules specific for their industry, or cherry-pick only the ones they need the most.

9 NetSuite Benefits

1. Richness of features

NetSuite fits well across different industries as well as company sizes. It provides rich functionalities for Manufacturing, Software, Wholesale Distribution, Professional Services, Nonprofits and Retail/Ecommerce companies out of the box. All included in a single ERP product.

2. Pricing approach

Also worth mentioning is the modular approach of NetSuite. Essentially, it enables users to select and license only the modules they need. This empowers the user and reduces the costs.

3. Ease of NetSuite Integration

One of the major benefits of NetSuite is that it provides robust APIs that make possible the integration with other important software application. It can be done directly or through an integration platform (iPaaS). For example, one of the most popular integrations is Salesforce and NetSuite integration because many users want to continue using Salesforce CRM system but also implement NetSuite ERP in their businesses.

4. Improved visibility

Real-time visibility is crucial when it comes to making informed decisions. Data can be accessed instantly and users don’t have to waste time extracting and tying data from various sources. This allows for more accurate and timely reports, which translate into quicker decisions. Additionally, NetSuite pools data across the whole organization, as opposed to silos of data, which leads to more powerful insights.

5. Speed-up growth

Having an integrated software in place makes it possible to expand to multiple locations and establish new sales channels much faster. These are the benefits of unified order and accounting management processes and data.

6. Centralized information about your company

NetSuite offers a software system that cover your whole business. One single, integrated system translates into information flowing seamlessly throughout all departments. This way, employees avoid having to manually input data when sending reports to a different department. Manual input often leads to errors and inaccuracies in the information as well as time spend in low value tasks.

7. Extending processes to the supply chain

Being able to collaborate closely with customers, suppliers and partners is a benefit of an extended organization. It is possible to offer self service portals that make B2B and B2C collaboration better. NetSuite includes timely notifications about partner-specific events that help speed up process cycles and keeps you positioned as a partner of choice.

8. Scalability

Fast-growing companies at some point may decide to go global and NetSuite can be easily scaled to that extent thanks to multiple currencies, multiple languages, multiple subsidiaries and related functions. If a company grows horizontally it can add more users to the subscription rather than undergoing and infrastructure change. And if it expands vertically into new operations, additional modules can be added to the ERP system. In general, business can be assured that the system won’t place any limitations to their growth.

9. Customization and extension

NetSuite is regarded as the most customizable SaaS solution in the world. The high degree of customization is possible with NetSuite’s SuiteFlex, in which the user can set up all the modular implementations with some clicks rather than coding. Also, with help of the industry specific modules you’ll be able to tailor the business processes to meet the particular requirements of your company.

 NetSuite Integration

Netsuite can be integrated with other applications by using an iPaaS solution like DBSync. This platform provides a NetSuite connector that is highly customizable, and has the ability to connect your NetSuite account with many other applications such as Salesforce, SkuVault, and MSCRM. It also lets you connect your NetSuite account to several databases, such as Oracle, MySQL and MSSQL. These apps can be on-premises or available as SaaS.

The NetSuite connector exposes all standard and custom objects available within the NetSuite instance of the connected user through the use of a trigger and one or more rules. The trigger defines the reading components, which are then related to the receiving apps via a rules that contain mappings. These mappings are highly customizable and easily defined by way of a drag and drop mechanism.

Each NetSuite connector instance represents a single NetSuite account, including login credentials. If a user wishes to connect to multiple instances of either a sandbox or production data, he can create a separate connection for each of them, and configure each URL and login credentials accordingly.

Added to this, another nice feature of the DBSync platform is its online updater, which enables customers to automatically acquire all the product’s different features available in new releases.

How to use DBSync’s template library to get greater results

Have you ever struggled with an integration project? Well, you are not alone. Most of us do, particularly if you are like me an “integration citizen”.

The great news is that DBSync provides you with a powerful library of templates or PDLs, which contain examples for a variety of useful cases. You can import them into your workspace and run the projects as they are or, alternatively modify them according to your needs.

Accessing these wonderful templates is easy and straightforward. Just do the following steps:

Step 1: Access the template library

The template library can be accessed from the DBSync’s system main page via two different ways: the main menu and the Template Library button. Click on any of them, and you will be prompted to a screen with a list of the available templates

Figure 1: Template library access

Step 2: Select the template that you need

Now that you are in the list of available PDLs, you can search via keywords for a specific template or scroll down the list until you find what you need. Each PDL has a name and a description. You can expand the description by clicking on View More.

Once you have found the correct PDL, click on its name. You will be prompted to the corresponding template’s webpage.

Figure 2: Select the template

Step 3: Import the template

Each template’s webpage includes a more detailed description of the template and an Import to Workspacebutton. Read the contents, and if you are satisfied that it is what you need, click on the import button. The project defined in the selected PDL will be added to your workspace.

Figure 3: Import the template

Step 4: Check the project in your workspace

The project is now in your workspace and you can use it according to your needs. Check the content, such as connectors, workflows, etc. Modify whatever you need and run it. Your project has been completed!

Figure 4: Check the project in your workspace

Final words

In this article we have seen that DBSync provides you with a set of pre-built projects or PDLs. These projects can be easily imported into your workspace by following the above steps. Once the project is in your workspace, you can modify its content according to your specific needs.

Want to know more about integration? Visit our page at https://www.mydbsync.com/, where you can register for educational webinars or try our products for free.

Why data replication should not be done using ESB-based integration tools

This is one of the common questions we get when prospects come looking for data replication tools. It’s more a question of Integration design patterns than of product implements.

Let’s get started with what an ESB is – Enterprise Service Bus. This is an integration design pattern where messages are passed so that one or more Message Listeners can listen and consume the message – store and forward. These messages—like, say, emails—have a header (from and to), a payload (the message), and perhaps attachments. Based on the ESB, there might be some limitation on payload and attachments sizes. 

The Flow is like This: 

App produces message -> ESB receives message (in a queue) -> Based on Routing rules, ESB routes message -> Listener Consumes Message -> Likely maps/translates data -> Saves / forwards to another app/queue -> confirm message is received -> ESB tags and stores message as processed.

Notice the ones in “bold”. These are places where data flow can “choke” or “build up” if there is a high flow of large data sets.

Now look at Data Replication: you have a source of data, be it a database (common) or a Cloud Application (like Salesforce). In data replication, you would require a complete backup of both schema and data changes. The application is expected to identify schema changes and update to target (without the need for remapping), so interpreting schema changes and having the ability to adjust target schema changes becomes important. The ability to process a large number of rows is necessary. 

One of the common ways that most databases replicate is using their transactional logs (when you look under the hood of master–slave replication). When you have disparate applications like Salesforce and Oracle, then you have to rely on query-> extract -> interpret change -> check for target source duplicate -> load on another system.

Ok, so let’s now look at why ESB-based apps might not be the right choice:

• ·         ESB requires store and forward, which might not be necessary for data replication. While you can debate that it will work (yes you can make it work), it will be slow and overly complicated.
• ·         ESB in general is considered to have the higher overhead of operation management and requires higher uptime as it’s mostly used for distributed app integration. Replication usually is run on batch (or scheduled time) or, in the case of master–slave, a lot more real time than what ESBs are designed for.
• ·         Managing schema changes often requires ESBs to remap some of the message flows. Some of our clients really dislike this, in that not only do they have to track source and target schemas, but also often trigger a “Change Management” request up the IT chain, which can take weeks or months to get over. Data Replication tools usually automatically adjust target schemas.

When you look at the Integration Tools market, the industry has segmented itself, with one group going the ESB or Message queue route (which is slowly evolving into API-based integration) and that of data replication.

So let us see some of the common integration apps and how do they fit in:

MuleSoft- A leader in ESB-based integration and does quite well in Service-oriented architecture and does well in integrating apps like SAP and others. They are also introducing API management.

Kafka- Open-source Messaging platform, very popular in high-volume messaging, especially with IoT and big data. It requires smaller messages size.

GoldenGate (by Oracle) – a leader in data replication between different databases. Does not yet have Cloud application data replication.

DBSync – Cloud Data Replication uses direct replication technique while iPaaS Cloud Workflow is more a store and forward.

There are many more; perhaps a good place to look is Gartner’s Data Integration and Gartner’s Integration-as-a-Service magic Quadrants to see which are leading the pack.