007: Omni-Channels Multiple-Sales-Channels Sell-in-Multiple-Places

CRM-etc. Podcast with Kathy Hahn | CRM | Ecommerce | Online Tools

Stan Roach of Agiliron says businesses are constantly looking for a new label or buzz word to help communicate. The word omni-channel can mean a lot of different things to lots of people, however in ecommerce terms and in his business, it means the concept of selling products in more than one place, multiple channels that you sell your product in. When you sell in channel “A”, the other different channels can be aware of the activity. Channel “B” can then understand that the sale from channel “A” has removed the product from inventory and may no longer be available for sale. Other channels can be aware if an item is sold and is out of stock.
Historically the brick and mortar store, the point of sale system, was meant for the retail store and it wasn’t meant to be a web cart or to do web commerce. It didn’t do the integration with eBay or Amazon. The original point of sale systems weren’t designed from the beginning to communicate with another channel. It’s almost as if multi-sales-channels or omni-channels, selling in multiple channels is an afterthought to these systems that were built. These prior systems are now legacy systems that we all start with and they were not built with the other channels in mind. It’s not until recently that the companies like Netsuite and his company, like Agiliron have come along and from the very beginning have said they were going to embrace selling in multiple places, and it’s part of the data schema that is in the way the functionality is integrated and organized so that it’s made for selling in multiple places. That’s sort of what’s new and we’re in one of those transition junctures where the old way of doing it doesn’t migrate very easily and comfortably into multiple channels and it means sometimes you have to abandon something in your business that got you to where you are, in order to move to new systems that are designed to help you sell in more places, and help you add new channels as they come along, including mobile channels.
The common elements that are shared among all the channels are pick-pack-ship, order management, customer support, CRM, customer records, and inventory. All of these elements are separated from the channels and are managed by one set of integrated applications, and then they are extruded to the location or the venue that you’re going to sell in. The concept of a sales channel is nothing more than a location in which commerce transactions can occur but it depends on the centralized functions of inventory, customer records, etc., and the Agiliron mantra for their customers is to help their customers sell more in more places but manage it in one. Sell more in more places, is consistent with the trends that are going on which is, in order to survive and grow your business, you need to sell in more places such as a website or Amazon or at a marketplace like Etsy, or eBay, but you may also need to sell on your own retail store, or through other retailers in a B to B (Business to Business) site. The whole concept of selling in multiple places is somewhat new and most of the traditional software was focused on selling one channel at a time such as the point of sale system for the store, the shopping cart for the web store and different interfaces for Amazon and eBay, and none of them talked to each other. The business owner now needs to have an integrated system that is designed to deal with multiple-sales-channels also known as the ability to sell in multiple places, or expressed in the newer buzz lingo, omni-channels.

If you’d like to learn more about Agiliron and how it can help you Systemize, Automate, and Be More Productive see the videos here Learn about Agiliron Be sure to leave your name and email so that you can receive free updates about Ecommerce, CRM, and online tools to help you grow your business. Click on the links below to hear other sessions of the Kathy Hahn interviews with Stan Roach of Agiliron.

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Additional sessions of the Kathy Hahn interviews with Stan Roach of Agiliron listed below:

http://www.crm-etc.com/002-stan-roach-of-agiliron-ecommerce-solution/

http://www.crm-etc.com/003-stan-roach-of-agiliron-about-crm/

http://www.crm-etc.com/004-stan-roach-of-agiliron-the-role-of-the-quickbooks-proadvisor-part-1/

http://www.crm-etc.com/005-the-role-of-the-quickbooks-proadvisor-part-2-and-shipstation-example/

http://www.crm-etc.com/006-next-gen-pos/

http://www.crm-etc.com/manage-market-places/