4 Ways Neto Can Shape Up Your Ecommerce Store… and 4 Clients Who Prove It

Here at Neto, we pride ourselves on keeping our clients informed about the latest ecommerce trends affecting your businesses, and one of the ways we do that is by regularly publishing blog posts backed by recent research. Today’s post is going to take a slightly different angle.

Today, we’ll look at four ways you can take advantage of Neto’s powerful back-office features to streamline your operations, and we’ll celebrate the successes of four Neto clients who are already making the most of it.

1. Pop-Up Stores

Many retailers are drawn to the flexibility of a cloud-based ecommerce platform, which lets you capitalise on sales opportunities in real time, wherever you are. If there’s a special event in your industry, like a conference or exhibition, your ecommerce platform gives you more than just a presence—you’ve got a whole retail store, right there on your laptop or tablet.

One of Neto’s clients doing exactly that is Hoselink, provider of quality hose reels, hose fittings and garden supplies. When the Royal Easter Show hits Sydney each year, they open up pop-up store and spend the next two weeks in a sea of 920,000 prospective customers. It’s a great opportunity for Ben Kierath and his team to meet and greet their loyal customers, introduce themselves to new customers, and sell their products.

With Neto, they simply set up a new outlet in their Control Panel, and add more iPad registers if things get too busy. While some stock is on hand at the show, other items are shipped from the warehouse. But Ben doesn’t need to worry about selling more than they’ve got, Neto ensures their stock levels are synced in real time between their online store and their pop-up store at the show. Hoselink also gives their customers the option to pay for their purchases in instalments, using ZipPay. And when the show’s over, they simply remove the registers and close the location until it’s time to head to the next show.

2. eBay Stores

Customers love online marketplaces because they can easily compare product offerings and prices from different retailers and order from many different stores with a single customer account. We recently asked online shoppers where they like to shop, and 39% of respondents told us they shop exclusively in marketplaces. That makes an eBay store an excellent add-on for businesses running their own ecommerce stores.

But loading your products into eBay and maintaining visibility of stock levels across the different channels can be challenging if the processes are separate. It’s also difficult to give customers a consistent experience across all platforms. This is where we discover that not all ecommerce platforms are created equal—they have varying degrees of integration with the marketplaces. But, according to Jonathon Allara, co-founder of Bicycles Online, Neto’s eBay integration is “by far the most powerful on the market”.

Neto has enabled Bicycles Online to automate their eBay listings and order management. It doesn’t matter whether customers are buying on eBay or their own ecommerce website—they’ll get the same level of service in both locations. All the stock is managed from a central location, so staff can view everything in one system, given them full control over their inventory management and fulfilment.

Of course, eBay isn’t the only marketplace. Amazon is opening in Australia this September, and Neto is already in the final stages of integration testing, so savvy our ecommerce clients will be able to sell there, too, and take advantage of Amazon’s fulfilment options.

3. Shipping

Customers list convenience as one of their top reasons for shopping online, but they hate being hit with unexpected shipping charges. For online retailers, there are other costs associated with shipping, such as the staff time that goes into picking, packing and labelling products for dispatch, and keeping customers informed of their order progress.

Unless, of course, you follow in the footsteps of Bambella Designs, a baby accessories retailer based in Brisbane. They’ve minimised costs by using Neto to streamline their order fulfilment, with

• real-time shipping quotes for online customers
• shipping labels printed directly from orders, for fewer errors
• automated transactional emails for order confirmation, dispatch, and tracking.

Neto integrates with 12 different carriers in Australia, helping Bambella Designs get the best shipping deal for them and their customers.

4. Third-Party Logistics (3PL)

Not every online retailer wants to handle their shipping themselves, and outsourcing this part of your supply chain can give you valuable time to focus on other aspects of your business.

That’s what computer memory and data storage upgrade exerts RamCity did, switching to a Neto-integrated 3PL provider in order to scale rapidly while cutting costs. Owner Rod Bland credits this decision with slashing their web management costs by half and reducing their staff hours spent on order processing by two-thirds. How? Neto automatically syncs RamCity’s inventory, orders and shipping tracking with the 3PL warehouse, ensuring that customers and staff always have access to the most accurate, up-to-date information.

These are just a few of the many ways online retailers are using Neto to streamline their back-office operations and delight more customers. But the best way to discover what Neto can do for your ecommerce business is to sign up for a free trial.