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Fulfillment and customer service should be a priority for every e-commerce transaction – however all ecommerce solutions are not created equal. Fulfillment becomes even more complicated for big ticket retail, or those retailers whose products do not easily fit into a UPS box.

E-commerce can't succeed in a category like big-ticket retail without a specialized technology provider. One with an e-commerce platform that’s able to process your product from order to delivery — and make it as easy as calling UPS. 

How is an online order fulfilled?

Ecommerce solutions should make the process a closed loop that begins and ends with your existing systems. A platform should be able to extract your SKUs from your system, and return orders to your system in a format identical to an order written in your stores. Whether you have a home grown system or a major commercial package, the end result should be that e-commerce orders that are no different to fulfill than store orders.

Additionally, it’s important to ensure that your website only features products you can fulfill, and provides accurate local delivery dates. Dropped or discontinued products should be removed from your site automatically. Customers should be shown the same delivery dates they would get in a store, based on local stock, purchase orders or inter-store transfers.

The result is e-commerce volume that, from a service and fulfillment standpoint, is the same as store orders. Your team will know how to fulfill an e-commerce order from day one — just like a store order.

While the talk is often about what new technologies can enhance your ecommerce store, the nuts and bolts of any shopping experience lies with merchandising. Just like in your physical stores, selling the right item at the right price is key.

But when you're a multichannel operation, doing that successfully online can be a challenge. Customers want the multichannel commerce experience to be seamless and consistent – and Blueport Commerce can help you meet their expectations, without a lot of extra work.

For the past decade, Blueport Commerce has helped big-ticket retailers like you integrate their online store into their merchandising vision with the following strategies.

Using your existing data: Blueport Commerce's Product Sync updates your online catalog from your existing systems. Once it's in there, our Online Merchandising component allows you to augment that data  for presentation in your ecommerce store, such as adding rich imagery and additional product information. And our Catalog Services division will help you develop the elements you need to display your catalog in its most engaging form, including providing image support, refining product information and copywriting. And all this information is kept current because we sync nightly, importing new individual items as well as packages, thus retaining critical relationships between items. 

Making it easy to merchandise the ecommerce store: Through our Online Merchandising system, additional relationships can be introduced such as cross-sells or upsells, or configure new money-saving packages. Feature your bestsellers, new items or use your ecommerce store to sell items that you don't have the floor space to display in stores. Best of all, by analyzing your retail sales online, we can tell you precisely which products and merchandising approaches people like best.

Pricing Management Tools: To start, our Price Sync updates pricing on your site nightly based on your systems, making baseline pricing the same online as it is in your stores. But then our Online Merchandising system allows you precise pricing control, including the ability to modify pricing locally. We can even scan your inventory for odds and ends and add them to an online clearance center automatically.

Merchandisers, we're here to help you manage your ecommerce store – learn more by contacting us.