The Future of Product Sourcing Means Increased Sales for You

With worldwide eCommerce sales expected to grow to $3.5 trillion by 2019, there is no better time to be an eCommerce retailer!

Finding the right opportunities, navigating changing consumer trends, quickly expanding your product offerings, and finding the right suppliers are all paramount for tapping into this projected growth.

Here is how you can give your business a boost (unless old technology is holding you back) and how a cloud-based sourcing platform can help by giving you a very healthy advantage over your competitors.

How Working with Multiple Suppliers Gives You an Edge

Everyone in eCommerce is looking for an edge. Whether delivering their products cheaper, upping their user’s experience, or varying their promotional strategies, every aspect of the eCommerce world has been hyper-optimized. Everything, that is, except the process of integrating multiple, worldwide suppliers.

That is exactly why those who lead in eCommerce sales are the ones who demonstrate excellent agility in predicting future consumer tastes and sourcing new products, keeping them ahead of the game.

In truth, accelerating both your product discovery and quickly onboarding new vendors are sure ways to give you the edge.

How Outdated Technology is Killing Your Business

The behind-the-scenes process of onboarding new suppliers and integrating their technology with your own can take an excruciating 3-6 months.

From data language issues and integration to custom development and troubleshooting, by the time a new supplier is successfully onboarded you will have found yourself missing out on opportunities for delivering popular products to consumers. By the time you finally get up to speed on product descriptions, pricing, and shipping dimensions, your customers have already shopped elsewhere, leaving your business in the dust.

How Cloud-Based Data Automation Gives You an Advantage

Speeding up the process of integrating with multiple suppliers from around the world, who all speak their own data languages and have their own standards, can be done faster and easier than has ever been done before. Rather than the typical 3-6 onboarding process, this can now be done in about 15 days.

Cloud-based sourcing solutions that seamlessly connect sellers with suppliers enables the opportunity for product offering expansion without the headaches and time delays. This is done when the platform centralizes your sourcing needs and pipes it directly into your online store and other marketplaces with the following clean data:

Digital content such as images, descriptions, and titles
MSRP, MAP, and street pricing
Shipping logistics including weight and dimensions
Order tracking
Order status
Invoice services
Supplier purchase orders

This method of product sourcing offers a myriad of benefits for your business. The drastically shorter onboarding process frees up working capital, makes rapid availability of trendsetting products, gives unmatched fraud protection, and can be accessed from anywhere at anytime.

Simply put, harnessing the power of data automation is the future of product sourcing. For year-over-year increases in orders and profits, there is no better way.

Olivia Bakersfield is a freelance writer who’s committed to help build bridges between businesses and their customers. In her spare time, she enjoys learning more about Doba—an eCommerce platform that’s rapidly growing, reading business magazines, and exploring new bookstores in her area.