How Gung works with Shopify for your B2C initiative
In the days of commerce past, consumer brands would fight over shop space in flagship stores. Today—there are many more factors to consider when trying to gain a buyer’s attention.
While consumer brands know that selling online is more profitable, they also deeply understand that the online experience is just as much a part of their brand as their products are, in most cases. A well-functioning web store, combined with compelling social media content, is now the cornerstone of success for for companies selling directly to consumers.
At Gung, we have always been focused on B2B order flows—meaning, the sale of goods between manufacturing or distribution companies and their retailers. As B2B specialists, we have a deep understanding of the business processes required to support these types of transactions—and an even deeper understanding as to how they are typically handled in your ERP system. However—industrial companies with B2B order flows are not limited only to B2B sales—and neither is Gung. There are many product companies out there whose strategic plans include selling directly to consumers. This article focuses on how Gung works with Shopify to support our customers with B2C initiatives. We have already helped more than 30 customers successfully roll out these products together.
Almost two years ago, we decided to investigate which platform we would recommend for those of our customers who were eager to start with B2C. The criteria we came up with were as simple as they were important:
It must be able to be integrated with the ERP systems we work with, so that orders come in continuously without manual handling.
The products must be able to be assembled with data and images in Gung's PIM, and then sent over to the shop with one click—and removed just as easily if necessary.
The administrator interface must be clear and easy to understand.
It must be able to be international (i.e., it must be able to sell in several currencies and languages).
The appearance should be flexible—but not so flexible that you have to build everything from scratch.
The price per month must be reasonable and the commitment period short.
After a short training, our customers should be independent in their ability to configure and run the solution.
The last criterion, in particular, deserves a closer look. Of course we love helping our customers—but we also did not want to become the bottleneck preventing your store from being open or up-to-date, particularly for issues with a system we didn’t build ourselves.
The platform that met all our criteria was Shopify—a product that has been built with the philosophy in mind that the merchant should have full control over the web store. We also found the interface to be fantastic—it was flexible and easy to integrate with Gung and its preferred ERP systems.
What is Shopify and how does it work?
Shopify is a comprehensive, cloud-based trading platform that allows you to create and customize a web shop for selling to consumers.
It is highly international. You can sell to any country in the world; the webshop, blog, checkout and e-mails can be displayed in any language; and you can sell in one or more currencies.
The solution is also highly flexible and configurable. It can be connected to any domain that you own or acquire. Additional features can be added to the base product using ready-made apps. Shopify also has a built-in payment solution—you can use it, or negotiate and work with your own payment providers.
How does Shopify connect with Gung?
A Shopify project starts with your implementation consultants setting up the visual front end of your web store in parallel with setting up product and order integration with Gung. We encourage our customers to work closely with us when configuring and building the appearance, navigation, and content pages of the web store.
Once this foundation is in place, we tackle the following:
The products to be transferred to the shop are dressed with data in the Gung PIM.
The products are sent over to Shopify together with the price and current stock balance from your ERP system.
When an order is then placed, an order confirmation is sent by email to the customer.
The order is brought into your ERP system via Gung, and mapped to the correct customer number and conditions.
The order is handled by the warehouse and, when it is printed and packed, the package is sent from the warehouse and the tracking number goes back to Shopify.
A delivery email is sent to the customer with tracking information.
Orders are sent to your ERP system as soon as they come in, and inventory balances are regularly updated from your ERP back to Shopify to ensure the data displayed in your web store is as current as possible. When there is a return, you can credit the order in your ERP system and pay it back in Shopify. In Shopify, customers can always see a timeline of what happened on an order.
Are there any downsides to using Shopify for my B2C initiative?
Our experience is that in cases where you have a specifically branded design that you want to follow, Shopify may not be the best option. We build on top of design templates, so as not to reinvent the wheel every time and waste budget unnecessarily. Otherwise, we find the solution to be quite robust, as it is able to handle very small and very large product catalogs, as well as a wide range of industries and business models.
