How performance data inspires your best eCommerce business decisions

Being in eCommerce means keeping informed. You need to know your inventory levels, your customer base, where they’re located, what their buying habits are and what products are the most popular as consumer moods shift and seasons change.

With millions of customers and thousands of trusted sellers, OnBuy understands those eCommerce businesses excited by the ever-increasing scale of the online shopping industry, but also keen to make sure they know the information they need to enjoy ongoing success.

Throughout our incredible 24,000% growth over the past 4 years, one thing has become apparent – the world of today is data-driven as never before. Nowadays, data enshrouds us all in so many ways, meaning it can feel incredibly overwhelming to manually keep tabs on the ebb and flow of your eCommerce enterprise, both within and beyond your OnBuy presence.

A daunting data deluge

It’s easy to see data as intimidating, even though it exists entirely to be put to our benefit. Yet the truth is that even the biggest organisations out there are flying blind, so to speak, when it comes to using the data they receive. Sure, it’s great to have, but what is anyone supposed to do with it?

This is especially true if much of your eCommerce business success has been on following market trends, going with your gut for the right payoffs when things felt a bit of a gamble, or joining the right marketplaces, like OnBuy, to diversify your multichannel approach and reap the rewards of their success.

Yet asking any eCommerce business, likely already with precious little free time as it is, to pore over data manually to try and distinguish the best forward strategy is a tall order. It’s not your fault this is the case, either – even big businesses have struggled to make data work for them to make profits, sales and presence grow.

How Business Intelligence turns your data into action

Getting good feedback on your products’ performance is critical. OnBuy’s seller dashboard gives our sellers information on their daily sales, system update notifications and information on orders they’ve received, as well as the option to get set up with our automatic marketing tool, Boost – only paying the Boost commission on items that sell, for a risk-free advantage.

Of course, knowing which products to Boost, and in which territories once OnBuy globalises all the more, is half the battle. Here, Business Intelligence (BI) systems work to break down your data into actionable information.

While spreadsheets and reports you sift through manually are one form of BI, automated BI systems are often the far more shrewd choice - whether you’re selling with OnBuy, or embracing the world’s fastest-growing marketplace as one of many channels you sell through, up to and including your own eCommerce website.

An automated BI system helps by breaking data down into a clear dashboard, and from there, you can see how to best manage your supply chain – and your revenues. A centralised BI solution can show you your stock levels, profit margins and details on your suppliers, such as their lead times for fresh deliveries or information on when it’s best to reorder with them.

All this, honed in on one place – putting all your selling channels at your fingertips. A good BI connects you to your data on the other end of the value chain too, with key customer information that can motivate you to make good business decisions – details like what products they’re buying, in what volumes, from where in the world, your customers’ demographics, and even which products have listings that aren’t best optimised for the channel you’re selling through, letting you make changes.

Bringing what would otherwise be a huge pool of data, perhaps even listed in different places on various platforms and websites, under your perception in one place is the best way to get control of your eCommerce business – as well as outpace your competitors.

Order out of chaos – making your data work for you

There’s no reason why your eCommerce data ought to be doing anything other than awaiting your command, helping you refine your approach when selling with OnBuy or through your own efforts elsewhere too.

You can get the upper hand with your data using Volo Origin – a platform that combines your product SKUs, inventory and marketplace channels into one central point of your focus. From here, Origin intelligently pulls in data in real-time to help you see what’s been sold where under your entire eCommerce network, as well as helping you to coordinate inventory and monitor how your products are performing worldwide, both on and off OnBuy.

You’re no longer just managing your data with Origin, but also controlling it. For instance, Volo Origin will also let you update your inventory levels and see those updates fan out to your listings on OnBuy and each other marketplace that you sell through straight away.

Is one of your products doing well on one marketplace but not another? Is pricing to blame for that? Is mistrust in one marketplace steering consumers to shop elsewhere? If so, can you increase your presence to ensure you capture that customer interest?

Having all that data to hand via the likes of Volo Origin can work wonders for your eCommerce confidence, and likewise inspire you to make decisions that promise both immediate and longer-term wins for your business in an increasingly competitive and unpredictable global market.

The actual fulfilment of those orders stands to become that much more streamlined via Volo Origin too, with the system able to live-feed you over 100 orders per minute. That same data is sent to your trusted fulfilment partners, warehouses and dispatch specialists to get your goods on the road or taking flight to your customer base, freeing you up for other things.

The Vision to succeed

Complementing Volo Origin in maximising the potential of your data is Volo Vision, which digests and presents all of the data, number crunching, inventory processes and fulfilment needs of your eCommerce business in an easy-to-read format. While there are deep reports to delve into if you need it, Vision’s speciality is creating a headline-like feed of data and issues affecting your eCommerce success, letting you take action that much faster.

It’s that speed that’s crucial, too. The world has seldom ever felt more difficult to predict than it is currently, and finding a way to develop a multichannel eCommerce business while you manually juggle listing, customers, picking, packing and, of course, data… well, that can feel pretty challenging without a decent central focal point.

Luckily, getting one that works for you needn’t be hard, thanks to the twin strengths of Volo Origin and Volo Vision – delivering all the data insights you need to plan your next moves quickly, smartly and with confidence.

Timing is the key too, as ever – with OnBuy remaining the world’s fastest-growing marketplace, poised to launch in 40 countries before the end of 2020, and over 140 countries worldwide by 2023, having the data to ride the wave with us is going to be key!