Technology has revolutionized retail in more ways than we realize. Foremost, it has transferred the balance of power from sellers to consumers. New technologies have provided people unprecedented access to information and provided more market transparency and more avenues for purchasing.

An entire generation has become completely accustomed to socializing, self-educating and purchasing goods and services online, from any device. Technology has transformed lifestyles, and in the process, it has disrupted business models.

So it comes as no surprise that ecommerce is experiencing stellar growth. Analysts and industry experts expect total US retail ecommerce sales to reach nearly $500 billion by 2018, up about 41% from 2015.

Ecommerce is extremely dynamic and as the ecommerce landscape has evolved, so has how goods are sold online. It is no longer sufficient to sell only through a website or Amazon or eBay. For starters, retailers need to sell on at least these three channels simultaneously. The future of commerce is multi-channel. And it will continue to change as customers explore new sales channels.

Why?

It goes back to the consumers. Consumers hold the upper hand and retailers need to go where the consumers are. Technology advancements have made it possible for consumers to purchase anywhere. We are in the era of contextual commerce, in which products are sold seamlessly across multiple channels, in the same context as the channel itself. This includes making a purchase anywhere from editorials in online magazines to a Tweet or an email, as well as from traditional online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Jet.com, and other online stores.

For online retailers, multi-channel selling makes good business sense for several reasons. Being in multiple channels will yield maximum profit because you are giving customers more opportunities to buy your products. Buying behaviors vary from channel to channel. A customer may be more motivated to buy in one channel than in another. Furthermore, multi-channel selling spreads out the risk of being too dependent on a single channel.

With so many benefits, why do so many sellers wait so long before venturing into multi-channel selling?

Fear, lack of time and not enough manpower are a few understandable reasons. Online sellers know that it takes a lot of work to list products, manage orders and inventory, and so on. There is concern that by adding more channels, it would be extraordinarily time-consuming and risky to manage all these areas across multiple channels.

Also, monitoring sales performance and accounting on one channel is already labor intensive, but adding more channels to the mix would really be arduous. Further adding to the complexity, different marketplaces and platforms tend to have different rules and policies, so selling on multiple channels requires that you track multiple sets of guidelines and integrate all of them into your business flow.

Fear not! Selling on multiple channels is not insurmountable and may be easier than you imagine it to be. The key to success is finding a software that will allow you to manage product listings, orders, inventory, shipping, re-pricing, and have reporting and analytics all in real-time.

Various software may promise to tackle one of these features, but wouldn’t it be smarter to replace a patchwork of systems with a simple, unified platform. Jazva’s cloud-based ecommerce management software offers all these capabilities in one platform. Using Jazva, you will need fewer man-hours to run your multi-channel ecommerce operations efficiently. This yields better ROI to support the same level of business. Best of all, Jazva has some of the most advanced algorithms that provide the intelligent automation you need to make strategic business decisions like pricing strategies, sales forecasting, and reordering. Business decisions can now be based on predictive data and not primarily based on intuition. Jazva gives you the control and confidence to navigate multi-channel commerce!