We’d like to introduce our partner Peoplevox who’ve cooked up a storm with this informative guest blog post! Peoplevox are our WMS specialists who play a massive part in the eCommerce Blueprint. They really know their stuff when it comes to eCommerce logistics, so we’re excited to see what they have to say – take it away Peoplevox!
1 – Make full use of those open APIs
Whether it’s a small e-commerce only brand starting out with a cheap start-up “all in one” system or a massive enterprise corporation with legacy ERP-based operations, too many businesses selling online are over-reliant on one piece of software, something we would call a single point of failure. To run effectively in the modern market, you need to be agile, and use quality tools for different parts of the business, integrated together. That might be the e-commerce platform itself, accounting, marketplace selling or, crucially, warehouse management. The only way to connect platforms built and maintained on the cloud by different providers is to use their Open APIs as data transfer points.
So, a pre-requisite of your WMS is that it needs an open API of its own and needs to be SaaS-based. Unless you don’t want your customers to be updated whenever their order is confirmed or on its way?
2 – SaaS makes scale much more possible
Similar to the first point, whether you’re a small brand starting up direct to consumer or a larger retailer building out an e-commerce arm having traditionally been a more high street business, e-commerce scale-up success stories take a bit of time and have humble beginnings. Most likely, you won’t have many dedicated staff or too many orders coming in each day, to begin with. However, in the typical style of the internet, things can escalate quickly. A SaaS-based WMS will only help you in this case, as they are built around scalable infrastructure. You only pay for the users you need at any one time, and there are no limits to the volumes you can scale up to. It’s built to grow with you, without being “too much” to begin with, and without holding you back.
3 – Constantly innovating
Brands looking to get the edge on their competition are constantly working on that next great initiative. Be that a new trend, a better loyalty rewards program, or more relevant influencers. The tech you chose to underpin your operation should have the same mindset. When you drop that killer new product, and all your customers are ordering it, you need a warehouse system that has the capability to pick 1000s of the same single item order at once. SaaS platforms have one code base, which means features like this can be added and rolled out to all clients fast.
4 – Easy to use
Whenever you make a significant change in a business, you want it to be smooth, well-received, and an easy ‘adoption’ process as you transition to the new ways of working. With a simple user interface that most people are familiar with, new staff can be trained on a SaaS system in as little as 30 minutes to pick, pack, and despatch. Not only does this mean that you can bring in new users at peak and have them ready to work immediately, but it also means that you save time and money on sending workers out on external training courses or paying people who aren’t productive.
5 – Never feel trapped by your software
If you buy a traditional warehouse system, the vendors will charge an up-front lump sum. Then there will be added costs along the way for upgrades and customisations. At first glance, the outlay may look to be less cost-heavy. But a lot of the expenses included with a SaaS solution are being hidden by traditional vendors. These hidden costs include (non-exhaustively) upgrades, server licenses, and database management.
With a traditional WMS, expect to fork out more for each of these on top of the initial costs. With a SaaS WMS, a client’s custom must be earned every month. This is because they pay on a subscription basis. This kind of method fosters a loyal customer base instead of one that feels trapped because they have already paid in full.
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