Allowing customers to shop online requires e-commerce platforms to model a company’s product catalog in a way that is desirable to end-customers. Online storefronts must be able to both inform the customer about products, services, and bundles, as well as accept orders and payment securely. From a systems’ perspective, online shops might house some product information locally in a company’s content management system (CMS), with other content being pulled from external systems serving as the source of record (i.e., pricing information).

Additionally, the online channel should be tightly woven with sales force automation, business intelligence and marketing automation to put a company’s goods and services in front of the right prospects, direct them to the correct landing page, and quickly and efficiently tell the site visitor why these products and services best fit their needs.

In the online selling world, everyone on the internet that sees a banner ad, a search result, a review, or a blog post about a company is a lead. Every visitor to the website is an opportunity. Having the right message, the right processes, and the right technology to make it easy and comfortable for a shopper to select your company’s offerings is the primary step to acquiring and retaining online customers.

When online shoppers add products to the cart, a very important step has been realized in the online shopping continuum. It is the visitor’s first real decision. It’s a small commitment to a potential purchase and ongoing customer relationship with the company.

Shoppers can add and remove products to and from the cart without consequence, as well as change quantities, discover additional add to cart for better price discounts and create their own bundles in many cases. Typically, as physical inventory is added to or removed from the cart, a good service delivery system will reserve and un-reserve that inventory in real-time, with a timer on how long that inventory can be held in the cart before automatically being removed and made available to the general internet public again. This is important to note for any just-in-time physical inventory companies that fulfill their own orders.

The cart page of a website is a key conversion point in the online buying process. Getting the shopper to press the buy button requires a precise recipe of trust, emotion, and common sense. The potential customer must believe in both the product or service they are purchasing and the company from whom they are buying, regardless of whether the transaction is B2C or B2B. They must also feel that the product or service solves a problem or meets a need and that the offer is fair.

When the above obstacles, and potentially many others, are overcome, the order is nearly assured. Unless something in the payment or delivery process causes friction, the website’s system should begin lighting up the service delivery, credit card processing, marketing automation, invoice finishing & delivery, order management, contract management, revenue recognition management, financial management systems, and billing and collections engine domains.

For products with negotiable prices or discounted bundle options, quoting logic is necessary. Quotes provide customers a way to evaluate different pricing options based on product configuration. Generating accurate, real-time quotes requires systems to account for product attributes, discounts, applicable promotions, and bundling business rules systematically, without customer service representatives intervention.

In an online negotiated-selling environment, often the customer selects the products and services of interest, fills out an online contact form, and is contacted by a company sales representative. Injecting the proposal into a CPQ system to automate approval and up-sell or cross-sell is a better means of closing service-seeking proposals with business rules to determine the best pricing based on a number of segmentation attributes. Generally speaking, shipping freight costs on physical inventory, should be provided as well as any taxes and fees. Best practices in online selling require transparency throughout the selling process to reduce returns and customer churn.

E-commerce and retail order management systems help merchants improve order processing, track inventory, partners and online selling marketplaces, and much more. Typical online orders are placed directly online but can also be consummated via a call center, a chat window, email, or even a fax machine.

An excellent order process gathers all the needed data to process the order, verifies that the data is correct and above reproach, and then communicates with the customer every step of the way via triggered events. Important events that should be communicated to the customer are when the order is placed, approved, and shipped or provisioned. After the estimated arrival date, it is best practice to touch base with the customer to make sure their expectations were all met or exceeded.

The entire order process and the systems that run those processes should continuously be monitored to improve the customer experience. Many customers prefer the digital buying experience because of its ease and convenience. The lowest expectation of today’s shopper is a simple purchasing experience and near instant receipt of the service or product.