In part one of our roadmap to ecommerce success, we discussed specific ways auto parts retailers can boost visibility and brand confidence through effective product listings, virtual SKUs and a dynamic web store experience. Increasing sales is important, but the backend components of an ecommerce business are equally important because they can make or break the customer experience.

In order to scale your business and achieve long-term ecommerce success, you will need to ensure you have the right infrastructure in place. To keep customers happy while effectively selling higher volume, you’ll need to have excellent order fulfillment, inventory control and customer support.

Automating these backend functions could result in 50% more orders processed, as experienced by one of Jazva’s customers in the aftermarket auto performance parts industry. A solution like Jazva also reduced their mis-ship rate from 5-7% to less than 1%.

Why Order Fulfillment Is Super Important for Online Sellers

When an order comes in, that’s only half the battle. The product still needs to be picked, packed and shipped quickly and efficiently, without any errors that may cause delays or mis-shipped packages. Your fulfilment operations should be capable of handling spikes in order volume, especially during peak seasons.

Poor shipping practices not only hurt your sales and your brand, but may also affect your eligibility to sell on online marketplaces. Today’s shoppers expect quality products delivered quickly and conveniently. As a marketplace seller, the last thing you want is a negative review.

On the other hand, a stellar order fulfillment is crucial in maintaining a Top Rated Seller status on eBay. It can also get you a Featured Merchant status on Amazon, which is important in securing the Buy Box spot.

Achieving seamless order fulfillment involves improving all aspects of the pick, pack and ship process. This means properly training your warehouse staff to handle high order volumes, as well as optimizing your warehouse and ship stations for fast, accurate fulfillment, down to the bin level.

How can a retailer achieve this?

Optimizing Your Warehouse & Picking Process

If you want your team to pick products faster, you’ll need to use an intelligent warehouse management system that can prioritize storage locations. Jazva, for instance, lets you customize your location priorities and enables you to quickly set up and label your aisles, shelves and bins based on efficiency.

Properly labeling your warehouse is essential. The more logical and concise, the easier and faster it will be for your staff to pick product. You’ll also need to ensure there is plenty of space between units so that all stock is easily accessible.

Managing High Volume Orders Effectively with Intelligent Automation

Handling high order volumes requires as much intelligent automation as possible. Order fulfillment could get complicated if you have multiple warehouses or if you sell on multiple channels. You need a software that can consolidate orders from all your sales channels.

A solution like Jazva allows you to process orders in batches, which can be customized based on channel, warehouse or carrier. You can then print pick lists and packing slips based on location priority, then use a barcode scanner or Jazva’s iOS app to process the order, minimizing errors and boosting fulfillment speed.

Jazva also functions as a shipping automation solution that helps you save on every single order. Integrated with the major shipping carriers, Jazva calculates the lowest rates in real time by automatically selecting the best carrier, mail class and box for each of your parcels.

Mastering Inventory Levels & Procurement

Knowing when and what to reorder is one of the most challenging tasks of any multi-channel high volume seller. If you don’t have transparency over your stock, you may end up overselling or understocking. Blindly purchasing inventory could also lead to overstocking, which could tie up your cashflow and warehouse space.

Investing in a robust inventory and vendor management system will give you real-time visibility of your stock levels. A powerful solution like Jazva could even reorder for you automatically based on projected sales, performance history and seasonality. Sales projections and automated reordering can keep your inventory at optimal levels, even during the busy holidays.

Going the Distance with Stellar Customer Support & Return Policies

Whether offline or online, shoppers have high expectations when it comes to customer support. In order to avoid negative reviews, retailers should resolve complaints quickly and send in replacements or refunds as needed.

Return policies are equally important drivers of conversion. A study by BigCommerce found that a difficult return process will deter 34% of consumers, while 68% of consumers look for flexible or free returns when shopping online.

Given how returns matter to the customer experience, retailers will need to process returns, exchanges and refunds quickly and efficiently through automated return merchandise authorizations (RMA). The process should be seamless for both the customer and seller.

Putting Everything Together with Jazva

Running an auto parts ecommerce business involves tracking a myriad of components. Handling these disparate pieces separately is inefficient and ineffective, and could lead to irreparable issues and data inconsistencies, which will certainly hurt the customer experience.

Conversely, using an integrated ecommerce platform like Jazva not only eliminates the need to juggle multiple systems, but it also optimizes, synchronizes and streamlines all these front- and back-end components.

Unless you're going custom, the majority of ecommerce platforms either approach only one or few parts of the ecommerce process, or if they do unified commerce, they have stripped down functionalities. Jazva unifies every step of multi-channel ecommerce, giving high-volume sellers a streamlined operation and a 360° view of their business.

Ready to make the switch?