E-commerce Back Office Integration

E-commerce Back Office Integration

This sustainable home goods retailer experienced rapid growth, expanding from a single Shopify store to multiple sales channels including Amazon, retail locations with POS systems, and wholesale B2B operations. Each channel operated as its own island, requiring manual reconciliation of orders, inventory, and customer data.

The Challenge

As the business grew to over $12M in annual revenue across four distinct sales channels, the disconnected systems caused significant operational challenges:

• Inventory was manually updated across systems, leading to stockouts and overselling
• Orders required re-entry into fulfillment and accounting systems
• Customer data was fragmented across platforms, preventing unified marketing
• Financial reporting required extensive manual reconciliation
• Staff spent more time on data entry than customer service and product development

Previous attempts at integration using off-the-shelf connectors had failed to address the complexity of their specific multi-channel operation.

Our Solution

We developed a comprehensive e-commerce operations platform that serves as a central hub connecting all sales channels, fulfillment processes, inventory management, and financial systems.

Key components of the solution include:

1. Unified Order Management - Centralized order processing from all channels with automated routing to appropriate fulfillment methods
2. Real-time Inventory Synchronization - Bidirectional inventory updates across all platforms
3. Customer Data Platform - Consolidated customer profiles with purchase history across all channels
4. Automated Financial Reconciliation - Streamlined reporting and accounting integration
5. Exception Handling Workflow - Intelligent system to flag and route exceptions for human review

The solution was implemented in phases to minimize disruption to ongoing operations, with careful data migration and validation at each stage.

Results and Impact

The integration delivered transformative results across all areas of operations:

• 82% reduction in order processing time, enabling same-day shipping for most orders
• 95% reduction in manual data entry, freeing staff for higher-value activities
• 45% fewer inventory discrepancies, virtually eliminating overselling
• $380,000 in annual operational cost savings through efficiency and error reduction

Beyond the measurable outcomes, the solution positioned the company for continued scalable growth. They have since added two additional sales channels without increasing back-office headcount.

Technical Implementation

The solution was built using an event-driven architecture with these key components:

• Central Integration Hub - Processes events from all systems and maintains the source of truth
• API Connectors - Custom interfaces for each platform (Shopify, Amazon, Square POS, etc.)
• Data Transformation Layer - Normalizes data between disparate systems
• Rules Engine - Handles complex business logic for order routing and inventory allocation
• Monitoring Dashboard - Provides real-time visibility into system performance and exceptions

The modular design allows for adding new sales channels or replacing existing platforms without disrupting the entire ecosystem.

Future Development

With core operations now streamlined, the retailer is exploring advanced capabilities:

• Demand Forecasting - Machine learning models to predict inventory needs by channel
• Customer Data Unification - Enhanced customer profiles for personalized marketing
• Marketplace Expansion - Integration framework for rapid addition of new sales channels

These enhancements will further leverage the foundation we've built to drive continued growth and customer satisfaction.