Surviving The Pandemic’s Blow To Your Business With Quickbooks POS Ecommerce Integration
The coronavirus pandemic has ravaged the economies worldwide. Revenues have plunged down and businesses are looking for a revival. Among all of this, small businesses are the ones that are most heavily affected by the COVID-19 crisis. Due to the lockdown, the physical stores have been temporarily closed. Any small and medium-sized retailers who do not have a web store are facing significant losses in revenue. So, the pandemic has given them an opportunity to explore the eCommerce world and stay in the competition. Quickbooks POS (Point of Sale) system can help these specialty retailers make a strong entry into the web world.
In this article, we will
highlight the process of setting up an online store and start selling the
in-store inventory by linking it with the Quickbooks POS.
Setting up an online store
In today’s digital world, starting an online store is not a herculean task. With the availability of several eCommerce platforms such as Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, etc. any merchant can embark on the online journey and make revenue. Although it looks simple, the intricacies of every platform can make or break a business. For instance, not every platform has the same interface, ease of operation, or plugins to beef up the store. Every platform differs so the main catch here is to identify the right online marketplace as per your products and targeted customers.
Certain things that you
can take into consideration are:
- Products that you will be
selling, if they are handmade or manufactured manually for a limited segment of the market or has got a more commercial appeal for a larger
group of customers
- Consider the people you will be
selling your product to and look where you can find them. For example on
eBay, Amazon, or Facebook and Instagram
- Figure out a set period of time
that you should devote towards branding and maintaining your store in a
way it doesn’t hinder with your other tasks
- Identify the use of resources available at your disposal. If Facebook/Instagram can be the place to interact with your targeted customers or it will be easy to find them on Amazon or another such platform
After covering all the above pointers, you can now move forward to the next step which is about focusing on the products you will be selling.
Selling your products online means you need to have a crystal clear picture of it, with a proper name and description to encourage your customers. So, it is important to capture your products in the best light. The higher the quality of the pictures, the higher are the chances of them catching the customer’s attention. Since the competition is intense in the online world, it is important to stand out from the crowd by focusing on this aspect of your online business.
Importance of online marketplaces
If fine-tuning the online store is taking your time, you can take an alternate route. Amazon, eBay, Etsy, are a few available options where you list your products and start selling. The good news is that on these platforms you won’t have to bother about minute details as they have a preset standard for every seller. So once you have the products, their HQ images, and pricing ready, you can start sailing your ship in the eCommerce sea.
It will allow you to know about the technicalities of online business in detail and can serve as a role model for your own store. You can remove all those loopholes from your own store step by step.
Why Quickbooks POS eCommerce Integration?
Managing data can be a daunting task that requires a lot of investment in both time and resources. Doing all these work manually can restrict the growth of your business and also open the possibilities of error. So, having software for handling these trivial tasks in a matter of a few minutes can save you a lot of time and operating costs. Quickbooks POS easily integrates with Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Amazon, eBay, and all other online marketplaces and shopping carts.
Below are the advantages of connecting your in-store inventory with Quickbooks and sell online:
- Easy management of inventory,
customer, and order data
- No room for error in the data
entry
- Easy to avoid overselling
- Significant reduction in
operating costs
- Streamlined business operations
- Easy to provide curbside pickup and buy online pickup in-store (BOPIS) facilities
The above-mentioned benefits clearly suggest why retailers, especially small and medium-sized ones, should go for a POS system such as Quickbooks POS.
Benefits of cloud platform
An even simpler way to manage the sync between the Quickbooks POS and eCommerce store is to connect with a cloud-based platform. It can act as a bridge between the two and enable bi-directional synchronization of the data so that you do not have to worry about data management.
The cloud-based middleware is a significant development in the field of POS eCommerce integration.
Wrapping Up
In the time of crisis, it is essential for specialty retailers to step into the online world and keep their business up and running. POS systems such as Quickbooks POS integrate with Shopify, Magento, Amazon, and other eCommerce platforms and shopping carts to ease the burden.
If you are a
small/medium retailer, do give it a try.
