From receiving the order to shipping it, there’s a lot of action going on in the core process. It takes systematic management to ensure your printing cycle is streamlined and working efficiently. This seems like a challenging task, but it is actually easy if you use the right tools and strategies for it.

Here, inventory management software is the right tool to streamline your printing process without any efforts. It can lend you a helping hand in solving numerous challenges you might be facing regularly. In this blog, I have mentioned some of the major challenges that can affect your sales and revenue drastically and how Print ERP’s Inventory Management Software can solve them for you.

Here’s what we’ll cover in this blog:

• Challenge #1: Mismanagement of Inventory and Stock
• Challenge #2: Refining the Inventory
• Challenge #3: Unable to Fulfill Promised Demands
• Challenge #4: Unable to Manage Warehouse Data
• Strategies to Nail Inventory Management in Your Printing Business

4 Inventory Challenges of Printing Industry

Challenge #1: Mismanagement of Inventory and Stock

Managing stock is the trickiest responsibility. If the manager does not have an accurate account of the inventory, then there can be late deliveries, loss of loyal customers, as well as loss of money. There can be times when you take an order but have no raw material to work with which will lead to late delivery.

If the deliveries are late, it may cause the customer some loss and it would form a wrong impression of your company. Suppose the manager has counted the stocks wrong and informed you that the stock needs to be purchased, but actually the stock is already enough so it doesn’t need to be purchased. This leads to a loss of money because buying unnecessary stock can get damaged.

Solution:

To avoid mismanagement of your stock, you need to shift to a software in order to remove human errors. An automated system like Print ERP provides seamless inventory management. It is an end-to-end Print business manager software. It partners with you to optimize your business operations with automated workflow and other dynamic features like Vendor Association and Raising Purchase Orders, you can streamline inventory. Let us know in detail about how these features can help:

Vendor Management: This feature lets you save the vendor details for each product. You can save the database of your vendors in your software. This way you don’t have to waste time looking for details about vendors while raising a purchase order.

Raising Purchase Orders: With this feature, you can directly raise a purchase order when required. As you already have the vendor details saved for placing your orders, this feature will directly place the order of the required quantity of that particular material. It will save time and provide convenience.

In the search for an inventory manager with such features, we have found you the perfect match!

Challenge #2: Refining the Inventory

You must have often faced this challenge that once the ordered inventory arrives and you check the stock, you find that there are some defective materials. So that way, your actual count should only be the number of useful materials. To sort out the defective ones from the operable ones takes time and effort both if done manually. Plus, there are chances of human errors. Do not fret; there’s always a solution.

Solution:

To ensure that your count is up-to-date with only the useful stock, you can use the Inventory management system. With features like Rule Based Inventory Management, you can automate the stock counting process. You will have two options to choose from; either you can allow its original quantity as the inventory stock count or you can automate the checking process and allow only the usable ones as the inventory stock count. To even further increas your overall productivity you would also need artificial technology that is often used in smart offices.

Let us understand this with an example:

Let’s say you ordered 500 plain white t-shirts. Now you can automate the received items directly to be your stock number. After this, the software will show 500 plain white t-shirts as your final stock count.

The second option is to automate the sorting process where the software automatically sorts the defective items and displays only the operable items. So, if there are 100 defective t-shirts, then the software will display only 400 t-shirts to deliver.

Challenge #3: Unable to Fulfill Promised Demands

Having loyal customers is not just a matter of luck. It takes effort like on-time deliveries, proper packaging, discounts, and always being ready to cater to their demands. The one thing that needs to be constant here is their trust in your company. For that, you need to make your company the one that never breaks promises, and it’s not an easy task.

Providing on-time delivery can get hampered by many factors like change in weather, unavailability of the delivery partner, and unavailability of ordered items. You can have all of them in control, let’s see how:

Solution:

First, let’s talk about the things that are in your control. When the customer places their order, you promise them the date and time to fulfill their orders, and to complete that order on the promised dates is your duty. You can use Print ERP Software that alerts you whenever your stock goes below the minimum required quantity. This alert will help you to place the purchase order and will also save you from giving impossible promises. This way, you can have transparency with your customers by adding the stock numbers on the eStore, like ‘only 12 items left in stock.

Challenge #4: Unable to Manage Warehouse Data

Managing warehouse data is a complex process, especially when you have multiple warehouses. Managing inventory of all the warehouses and all the locations in the warehouses is a task that needs to be done error-free. You should not compromise on this backend process because it will reflect on the overall service quality of your company.

You might be in a situation where you are unaware of the stock of some warehouses, and you order more stock for the warehouse where it is needed. But, you already have the same material stocked in mass quantity in one of your other warehouses where it is not required.

So, rather than purchasing new productions, you can just transfer the materials from one warehouse where it is not much in use to the warehouse where it is needed. But this can only happen when you know the status of all the warehouses and their internal locations.

Solution:

With a software solution like Print ERP Software, you can manage one warehouse with multiple locations and multiple warehouses with multiple locations easily. Its Internal Stock Transfer feature lets you have visibility of stock in all the locations to make the stock shifting easy for you.

With this feature, you can have a look at all the stock in all the locations of all your warehouses, and saves you unnecessary expenses. You can simply transfer the unrequired stock from one warehouse to the other warehouse where it is in demand. The transportation cost will be much less than buying materials.

Strategies to Nail Inventory Management in Your Printing Business

Invest in a Printing Inventory Management Software

If your company is in dire need of inventory management software to make the management smooth and efficient, then investing in such a software will save you time and effort.

There will be many little things you can slip up by or lose track of, like inks or other materials. To be on track and fulfill customer demands on time, this software will be your forever partner.

Plan Smartly

Planning is an inseparable part of any goal. You need to plan the inventory in order to manage it efficiently. You will need to plan when and where the stocks will be needed. You need to track the availability and requirements of materials in different warehouses. Many issues can come out of nowhere for which you might be unprepared for, like:

• Sudden sales spike
• Scarcity of space in your warehouse
• Wrong predictions
• Manufacturer running out of the product you need urgently

But with proper planning, all these problems can be solved. You need to figure out your risks and always have a plan B. For example, if your ink supplier is out of the required ink’s stock, then you must contact another manufacturer that can provide you with your required shade of ink in required quantity with the required quality.

In case of a sudden sales spike, you need to have your warehouses stocked to fulfill the customer’s demands, or you should have other options to provide them with. If your prediction goes wrong, then you should have a plan of where you will use the remaining stock and save it from getting wasted.

Regular Real-time Updates

Regular inventory check-ups are crucial. You can surely rely on the inventory management software for its warehouse management capacities. Still, you, as the owner of the company, need to check the warehouse status to plan well.

You must double check if you have set the notification for the software to alert you when the stock goes below the minimum required quantity. Here, choose a software that provides you with real-time updates and has a mobile friendly interface to be updated whenever and wherever you want.

ABC analysis

ABC analysis is the simplest way to know the important reports and stock usages. It will give you a clear view of which products are selling more and which need to be improved. This analysis needs to be calculated on a percentage basis:

Clearly, your A stock represents the most profitable products because they sell the most. So, you can make sure you have these products in your warehouse to not miss on any sudden sales spike.

B stock represents the moderate selling products, but you need to have this stocked in some quantity as it can rise in demand anytime.

And C stock is slow-moving, or we can say dead stock. You can sell this stock at a discount to free up your inventory space and save yourself from major losses like dumping all that stock for nothing if damaged.

Forecast

Forecasting is the toughest thing to do because no one can know what the future holds, so calculated prediction is the best way to be ready for future challenges. I have listed a few things that can help you in projecting a close future:

• Keep a constant watch on the trends in the market
• Analyze when your products are selling the most
• Have some guaranteed sales from a few contracts and subscriptions
• Plan promotions by using trendy strategies relevant to your printing niche

Wrapping Up

With these solutions and strategies, you can productively manage your printing industry. Ensure that the software you choose has the following features:

• Vendor Association
• Raising Purchase Orders
• Warehouse Management
• Internal Stock transfer
• Rule Based Inventory Management

These features will help you to make the process of inventory management hassle-free. It will give you daily necessary reports and insights that are important for you to plan further things. Also, you need to make sure that the ERP solution you opt for is compatible with your eStore and multiple devices.

End Your Search of an Ideal Inventory Manager with PrintXpand

Challenges in the printing industry are not limited to inventory and warehouse. There are multiple challenges that block the way for sales. Brush Your Idea’s Print ERP can help you to overcome all the challenges for you to make way for more revenue.

Investing in this dynamic tool is like having a personal manager for multiple tasks and departments of your printing store. From backend management to frontend visibility, this tool can help you in all the desired ways to make your printing store efficient and management smooth.

Brush Your Idea provides you with this magic software having all the necessary features. Take a demo now!

All product and company names are trademarks, registered® or copyright© trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.

The post 6 Inventory Management Challenges in the Print Industry and How to Fix Them appeared first on PrintXpand.

There is a long journey from receiving a print order to final delivery. A lot of things go in the background of a print warehouse, starting from defining the print jobs, assigning the print machines, ensuring there are no glitches in the final print, efficient printing for on-time deliveries, etc. Even with a team in place, there are a lot of challenges when it comes to the final result. You don’t want to deliver products with the wrong prints.

Let’s say there are a big lot of products that you have to print and send. A lot of things could go wrong if you manually try to do the work. What if the wrong printing machine has been assigned to a job ticket, the final print is not accurate, or it is taking much more time than you anticipated?

In any case, the final delivery will suffer and that will hamper the customer experience.

With Print ERP in place, the majority of the manual tasks become automated. End-to-end management of your print store saves your time and cuts off the errors completely.

If this sounds helpful, then a good read awaits here!

Print ERP Software: Your Personal Print Store Manager

When we talk about end-to-end solutions in the printing industry, it covers every operation and management process. It will maintain and manage the data securely. This system has many helpful features that can bring wonders to your printing business. Let’s have a look at them:

Say Hello to a Well-Managed Inventory

Inventory Manager

Inventory management is the most crucial and tricky part of any business. Raw materials like varieties of inks, paper with different dimensions, and other printing necessities are hard to manage efficiently. Plus, having to constantly check on the order inventory is a task.

Managing all the inventory operations manually requires a big workforce and regular training, and you will also have to pay the labor charges. And there is no guarantee that all the inventory data would be accurate. Thus, investing in an inventory manager will help you to align orders, have accurate inventory data, receive automatic stock alerts, etc.

Print ERP for printing and packaging industry by PrintXpand can be your one-stop solution for all your inventory management needs.

The solution allows you to manage stock, suppliers, and warehouses from one dashboard. Plus, it can automate tasks like creating purchase orders and setting reorder thresholds (saving you time and reducing errors).

With multi-channel management, you can keep accurate inventory counts across all sales channels, so you won’t oversell or lose sales. Customer management helps you keep your database up to date, and you can email customers with updates (which is a great way to keep them engaged and informed).

Barcode management lets you create products and track them easily with barcodes. All of these features make inventory management easy, so you can focus on growing your business and keeping customers happy.

Want to simplify your inventory management and streamline your business processes?

Location-Based Stock Management

From warehouses to customers, inventory managers help you to streamline every inventory process with a centralized system. Automation is the prominent power of inventory managers. It will reduce the majority of your efforts, eliminate tracking errors, and enhance productivity. It ensures that you never miss out on stocking your inventory supplies.

Stock Updates

An alert in the form of notification will be sent to you whenever the stock quantity goes down from the set digit. This will save from declining the order last minute. It provides a single virtual dashboard including all of your stores and products.

Easy Warehouse Stock Management

I know how difficult it is to manage different warehouses with an individual system.

But with a warehouse manager, it’s easy.

You can systemize inventory across all your warehouses and sales channels. Any changes you make to your stock in one warehouse will be reflected instantly in all your sales channels.

This ensures you always have accurate inventory counts and never lose potential sales. Plus, you’ll get real-time alerts, giving you time to restock items.

Don’t let inventory management stress you out. Get PrintXpand by PrintXpand and take control of your inventory.

Streamline Orders

What does it take to fulfill an order in the best way possible? Once the order is received, it should be:

• Categorized relevantly
• Assigned to the appropriate machine or employee
• Checked twice to see there’s nothing missing
• Packed securely and beautifully
• Sealed with the shipping address and love
• Provide live tracking ID to the customers via notifications

This process may seem complex but is pretty simple to carry out successfully if you eliminate errors by implementing automation. Web to Print ERP solution helps you to automate and manage the orders efficiently. It streamlines all the backend channels including warehouse product updates. It generates the job order automatically, categorizes the order itself, and forms a work process routing by assigning the order to the relevant employees and printers.

Handing the orders to ‘perfect for it’ employees and machines is important otherwise the order will miss the charm of skills or can be damaged if handed in inappropriate hands. This can lead to a high loss of materials, time, and customer’s trust. Here, you need to fill in the right information about the printer’s capacity and employee’s skills in the system before implementing. This way your orders will be in the best hands to fulfill them for raising the satisfaction bar of your customers.

Manage Users and Enables Role-Based Access

Maintaining security and providing access to users is still a tough task when needed together. But there is software like Print MIS that enables you to restrict certain accesses that are not necessary for certain users.

For instance, the admin can have access to the whole system and all the user profiles, order sheets, etc. because they need that data to analyze the company’s success and take necessary steps. However an employee on the junior level does not need access to the whole system, thus they are given the access of their system and other ‘their’ work-related departments.

This can secure against outside or irrelevant users to have a sneak peek into your company’s confidential data like user data, partner’s data, etc.

With ERP for printing and packaging industry you can get such security and power to assign relevant accesses. Plus it has some engaging features like advanced dashboard to attract your audience to create their login ID. It also provides the logged users with beautiful UI/UX to see your products and services as per their categorization, track orders, see their past orders, pay online, etc.

ERP also gives you an admin panel to control the whole system from a single interface. Role-based access as we discussed earlier is possible with different vendors, suppliers, employees, printer panels.

Manages the Print Job

Automate your print jobs with ERP. Here’s why. Managing them can be time-consuming, inaccurate, and may lead to huge print loss. To deduct all this, automate your print job for smooth job workflows.

You can also use dynamic QR codes for setting and operating any operations of print jobs. It enables custom job stages for streamlining the operations seamlessly and is efficiently trackable. Plus, you can enable cross-team collaboration for more efficiency and perfect outcome without having to change the QR code and using the same one for multiple operations, which can be a feasible solution.

Streamline the Job Tickets

Creating job tickets manually is a tedious task that consumes your maximum time which you could have invested in other important business growing work. ERP has a solution to this problem. It lets you scan the QR codes to automate the job ticket process. Through MIS print software you can enable this feature in your ERP. This will help you to avoid errors to lead a dynamic ticket generation system. It has easy export options too.

Provides Job Calendar

Job calendar provides a detailed view of which jobs are to be done on which dates and to whom those tasks are assigned. This calendar gives you an overview of dates, time, days, tasks, employees, and deadlines on one screen.

When you or any of the team members will add their tasks, the calendar will display those tasks in a calendar. So, as an admin you don’t have to switch screens to see each team member’s or order’s work status.

Generate Reports Automatically

Generating accurate reports is crucial for having in-depth insights of your business. These insights will help you to make profitable decisions in later times. But, preparing reports and setting them relevantly to get insights manually can become monotonous and time-consuming. Plus, there is no guarantee of those reports being accurate, because of human errors! For increasing time management, it is desirable to involve software that helps convert audio to text in such a way desire of customers faster became a real product.

For increasing time management, it is desirable to involve software that helps convert audio to text in such a way desire of customers faster became a real product.

Automating the report generation via ERP is the solution here. You can get all the insights including resources, orders, deliveries, calendars, etc.

Automate Artwork Proofing

Artwork proofing is necessary for quality checks and enhancing customer satisfaction. But the approval cycle can take days or a week if you stick with the traditional printing method. Instead, you should go for a soft proofing method. This gives you an accurate representation of your print file even before it’s printed. You can then send it to your customers for approval or modifications. So, you can make changes prior to the printing starts. This will reduce the wastage of raw materials and time.

With Web to Print ERP, you can set approval flow and approval automation. This will save more time and the soft proofing will be carried away smoothly and accurately by the machine itself.

Skip Wasting Time on Manual Price Calculation

Right price calculation is a tricky task to carry out manually. Oftentimes while calculating the price as per customization leads to errors and eventually loss of customer’s trust. Plus, the whole process of calculating prices is time consuming. With an automatic price calculator, you can save your time and harbor it for more fruitful business results.

It calculates the price as per customization chosen by customers. The prices can be shown on the screen to the customers while customizing their orders for generating transparency and trust.

Brief of the Details: Why Use ERP Solution for Your Printing Store

ERP solutions are trending tremendously among printing businesses because of its features and benefits. You can cut down on half of the labor costs with the implementation of ERP. It is a powerful installation to boost the productivity of your printing business.

Grab the Helping Hand of ERP for End-to-End Solution

With Web to Print ERP, you can manage your print operations seamlessly. With MIS (Management Information System) you can streamline all the print operations through a single interface to boost the productivity of all over operations. You can also track end-to-end print operations and have insights from the automatic report generation. It also provides you with visual charts to give a clear view.

From new vendors, suppliers, printers, employees, machines, raw materials, there’s data about everything and everyone for the admin to review and fix the problem for preventing loss. With our end-to-end solution, you can customize workflows as per your business requirements. It enables you to create order tickets and job tickets to enhance communication.

We also provided a feature to simplify online transactions and the quote management process. With our ERP, you can easily accept the quote requests and email those requests to your customers using quotation templates. You can also customize the quotes as per your business requirements.

We offer price rate-driven quote management to enable error free quote generation. Plus, you can also automate quote generation for basic situations. This will help you save time and customers will get the quotes on time.

With features like barcode scanning and interactive calendar view, this system eases the businesses for you in all possible manners. In the end, you will have an efficient, error-free, and smooth print management system.

All product and company names are trademarks, registered® or copyright© trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.

The post Print ERP Solution: Declutter Management Errors and Enable Print Efficiency appeared first on PrintXpand.

Does this situation sound familiar to you?

You have to create and print a huge order for say 1000 custom brochures. So, you customize each piece individually.

You edit the text whether it’s the event name or location address. You change the image or maybe the background pattern – all one at a time.

This entire process takes a lot of time. And often leads to delayed deliveries and unhappy customers.

Luckily, you can quicken the task using variable data printing, and name and number import of cutting-edge tools like a Product Design Tool.

These features help make mass personalization as easy as a breeze!

For businesses specifically in the apparel and commercial industry, we have prepared this handy guide on overcoming every challenge you face when taking bulk custom orders.

Here’s an overview of what the post discusses:

• Assign Variable Data Printing Fields (Specifically for Commercial Products)
• Lock Feature for Controlled Modifications
• Name and Number Feature (Specifically for Apparel)
• Other Amazing Features of the Product Design Tool

Assign Variable Data Printing Fields (Specifically for Commercial Products)

Variable data printing (VDP) is a digital printing technique that enables the mass customization of elements like text, images, or graphics.

VDP is the most suitable feature for the card and paper industry. For instance, your corporate client can print multiple ID cards including different information at one go. With variable data printing, changing variable data becomes easy.

PrintXpand’ Product Design Tool offers an in-built feature of the VDP data field. Once you enable it from the backend of the tool, your customers can enter relevant data, and customize multiple products at once.

Here’s a glimpse of a step-by-step way you can enable VDP:

• When creating design templates using the tool, assign VDP fields.
• End-users can access the feature by clicking on the ‘Data’ feature.
  
• They can either upload variable data through CSV or manage data through a data popup.
  
• Users can also preview all ID cards to get a clear idea about how they’ll appear in real-life.
  

Click the below link to know more about how your business can benefit from using a Product Design Tool.

Lock Feature for Controlled Modifications

To begin with, the lock feature enables an admin to lock certain objects like an image or text to restrict end-users from making any changes.

For instance, if there’s an ID card, you can lock may be the logo or the placement of an image. That will restrict users from making any further changes.

When creating design templates, the admin can apply different types of locks mainly edit, property, and position locks.

• Edit lock restricts the customer to edit and delete the element.
• Position lock restricts the customers to change the position of the element.
• Property lock restricts your customers to change the properties of an element like color and opacity.

(Lock objects for controlled customization)

Name and Number Feature (Specifically for Apparel)

This is the most ideal feature for products like t-shirts, hoodies, caps, and such. With the name and number import feature, your customers can directly upload the bunch of names & numbers in less time.

Once you enable the feature from the backend of the tool, users will get to see the name and number tab on the frontend.

• Users can either manually add the data, or directly upload a CSV or Excel file.
  

(Add name and number data manually or upload a CSV or Excel file)

• They can also customize the font by applying different font styles, changing font color, alignment, etc.
• Using the tool, customers can have a look at multiple products using the preview feature.

Other Amazing Features of the Product Design Tool

Irrespective of the kind of customizable products you sell, our tool is compatible with an array of print products. Here’s a glimpse of the rest of the features of our tool.

The tool offers various in-built design libraries including text and image editing capabilities, clipart and artwork, and background manager.

Users can leverage design accuracy features like grid and ruler lines, bleed cut and safety lines, resolution warning messages, and live preview,

You can set custom pricing for each product based on the order quantity, printing method, color counter, and such.

The sleek interface of the tool ensures that users face no hurdles when customizing their products. Additionally, the tool is fully responsive that helps you deliver a seamless experience on all devices. With the layout manager, you can change layouts that are tailored to the industry you serve.

Curious to See How It Works? Take a Personalized Demo!

Explore all the features and functionalities of the tool firsthand by taking a personalized product tour. Share your business requirements with us, and we will get back to you!

 
All product and company names are trademarks, registered® or copyright© trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.

The post How to Ace Delivering Bulk Orders in Less Time for Print products: A Mini Guide appeared first on PrintXpand.

ERP systems are an essential part for all types of businesses. 53% of businesses believe ERP is one of the most priority sectors for investments. And why not! From entering data into a single database to analyzing, and reporting backend operations, ERP integrates all the business processes seamlessly.

Within the eCommerce domain, ERP not only automates data workflow, but can also create greater visibility for customers.

While it is obvious that an ERP software for eCommerce helps solve major pain points for your business, choosing the ‘right’ ERP integration is not a cakewalk.

Business goals vary from one business to another. Hence, it is important that the software you choose aligns well with your business operations.

You might be a business owner who operates on both eCommerce website and marketplace. In that case, having a solution that is compatible with both the platforms is important. Or you might have some custom requirements that you would like to fulfill when integrating an ERP software.

Therefore, selecting the right ERP is the first step you need to consider before integrating. To help you with this, we have prepared this post. It aims to highlight the benefits of ERP software for eCommerce and guide you on how to choose ERP.

Here are the topics that this post will cover

• Benefits of the Right ERP for eCommerce
• How to Choose the Right ERP System – Questions You Need to Ask
• Important ERP Features

2 Major Benefits of RIght ERP Software for Your eCommerce

Here are the major benefits of integrating your eCommerce storefront with an ERP system.

1. Centralized Information

It is challenging to keep every piece of information organized, mainly if your company conducts sales in multiple locations or on different platforms.

One of the biggest advantages of ERP for eCommerce is the centralization of information. It is all about storing information like shipping or payment information, customer details, web orders, etc. in just one place or one single database.

That way, you can reduce data redundancy. Since there will be no human involvement, the chances of errors reduce. In addition, website orders are automatically sent to ERP systems in real-time, which speeds up the shopping process and prevents mistakes.

2. Improved Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction. These are two words that can either shoot up or cripple your business. Making customer satisfaction a priority is a way to a competitive edge.

ERP solutions to help eCommerce companies build direct interaction with the customers and know how much they appreciate their services. Here are two main ways having ERP for eCommerce can help improve customer satisfaction.

A. Better Inventory and Order Management

Sometimes, an unexpected out-of-stock item can lead to delays or unscheduled downtime. An eCommerce ERP system can help you manage inventory by keeping stock in check with automated notifications. It even enables you to forecast customer demand.

Additionally, consider incorporating top route optimization software to further streamline your logistics. Some ERP programs automate tracking shipments and sending notifications to the customer on product delivery, creating a better overall customer experience.

B. Customer Relationship Management

Many ERP systems include CRM functionality. These capabilities are crucial when it comes to customer retention and satisfaction. You can leverage a centralized repository of customer information. This information, in turn, helps you in providing faster, tailored, and more accurate customer service based on demographics and order history.

As companies look for ways to reduce costs and improve operational efficiency, ERP solutions are becoming increasingly valuable. ERP, by connecting business processes, cuts overall operational costs and sets your business towards growth. Besides, it can help you analyze data to make informed decisions.

Choosing the right ERP is the first step to a successful project. Web to Print ERP software by PrintXpand aims to cater every need of the printing industry. The print ERP software has everything like price estimating, order confirmation, quotation, etc. to maintain an error-free production cycle.

Our ERP software solution is an asset for fast-paced businesses like yours. It helps create a balance between ever increasing customer demands and growing volumes of orders and products. Get in touch with us and we will help you choose the most suitable ERP for your business.

How to Select ERP System – Questions You Need to Ask

Investing in technology solutions is a tough decision given the high initial cost. But when you look ahead, such investments help in the long run. To ensure that you are choosing the right ERP for eCommerce business, these are some questions that will help you make an informed decision.

1. What eCommerce platform the solution integrates with?

Do you run your eCommerce business from a single eCommerce platform like Shopify/Magento, etc.? or you have multiple platforms like an eCommerce marketplace plus an eCommerce platform?

Some of the ERP software for eCommerce may be specialized only for a specific platform. Therefore, it is good to check if your chosen software is compatible with all the systems you are operating on. Here, you also need to decide if you want to integrate the ERP with all the channels or the channel with the highest volume.

2. How flexible is the ERP software?

By flexibility, I mean the ability to use the software from any device and any place. Not just speedy data, you need mobility as well. You and your employees would want constant access to the ERP from any location (if you have a brick-and-mortar store too) or any device you use.

Having a mobile functionality will allow you to get important data in real-time via mobile phones and tablets running iOS or Android. Moreover, mobile functionality enables employees to check and take care of all the orders even when they are away from the desktop. Thus, this flexibility to ‘use it anywhere’ always enables you to stay informed and take quick decisions in case of an emergency.

3. How secure is the transfer of business information?

Security is not a topic that you should take lightly. As each day brings new news about security threats, data security becomes a top priority for eCommerce companies. This finding from the Arcserve 2020 Data Attack Surface Report is interesting.

It suggests that cybersecurity can be a significant competitive advantage. The report states that 59% of buyers are likely to avoid companies that suffered from a cyberattack in the past year. This suggests that having good cybersecurity protects your business from threats and directly impacts customer satisfaction.

ERP systems are the hub of your company’s most sensitive information like business processes, inventory, orders, payment information, customer information, etc. Hence, choosing ERP for eCommerce business with the right security features becomes crucial.

4. Does the ERP software for eCommerce include CRM functionality?

In the eCommerce industry, retaining customers depends on how well a business can interact with them. Customer Relationship Management tools play a major role in increasing lead generation and customer retention.

These tools enable you to track prospects and leads through a comprehensive sales cycle. That will help you better serve your customers by providing tailored solutions. Moreover, client information centralization will enable your sales and marketing team to easily maintain a strong relationship with potential clients.

ERP software often has its CRM functionality included. By choosing an ERP system with CRM capabilities, you eliminate the need to have two different systems and train employees on two separate systems. With CRM functionality in the ERP, you get to deliver more value-added services, giving you an advantage over your competitors.

5. What kind of data integration does the ERP software offer?

eCommerce businesses thrive on data. They ought to know the customer’s purchase history, how they came to the website, payment/shipping information, and more. Hence, when choosing an ERP, it’s good to look for a complete integration process. Consider the integration keeping in mind the future too. You would want to integrate several data touchpoints like – orders, payments, customer/shipping information, changes in inventory stock level, etc.

Important ERP Features

An ERP for eCommerce comes with a long list of features that help you run your business smoothly. At PrintXpand, our aim is to help you streamline your business process with our ERP solution. Our solution is a combination of various modules that enables you to optimize your operations at every level. Choosing ERP software for eCommerce that has the following features will help fulfill all business needs.

1. Inventory Manager

Understanding how to manage inventory is crucial for any online business. Problems like unwanted cancel orders or flawed inventory can pose challenges. Effective inventory management saves time, costs, and prevents waste.

PrintXpand’s ERP software helps in managing inventory across all your warehouses and sales channels. Any changes that you make in the stock will reflect instantly in all your sales channels. That way, you can easily keep your inventory up to date and prevent out-of-stock conditions. Our solution includes essential features like

• Warehouse Management
• Multi-Channel Management
• Barcode Management

2. Quotation Manager

Adding automatic quoting capabilities is a good way to maximize your sales team’s productivity by enabling your customers to explore your offerings fully. Additionally, with this feature, you become more accessible to your customers, which is crucial in building strong connections.

With our ERP Software, you can accept quote requests, process and mail them to your clients in real-time. With an easy-to-use send accurate estimates to win more conversions! Have a look at some features

• Simplified Quote Generation
• Customer Information Database
• Custom Quote Templates
• Standard Price Rules

3. Order Manager

Order management is at the heart of eCommerce companies. With a centralized order management system, you will be able to optimize the entire process. You can manage every product from the time you stock to its delivery.

PrintXpand ERP software solution can help you in managing all the online orders from the back-end. Moreover, you can quickly resolve order errors, re-order, and overall streamline your order process. These are some features that order management includes

• Customer Management
• Manufacturing Order Management
• Work Process Routing

4. Advanced Dashboard

As Gartner explains, ERP dashboards gather and visualize critical metrics from across the organization. It offers insight into the performance, outlook, and interconnectivity of business processes. In business, unforeseen circumstances always arrive. That’s when ERP dashboards will help get a clear picture of business processes and make informed decisions.

With our ERP software solutions, with an advanced dashboard view, you get a glimpse of everything that’s happening in the back-end. Plus, with visual charts, and reports, you can also customize your dashboard as per your needs! Some features of the dashboard

• Intuitive Counters
• Graph Summary
• Activity Notifications
• Alerts/Reminder Notifications

5. Theme Settings

You would want to customize your ERP software as per your business model. And hence, we provide complete freedom with theme settings. You can change the overall theme and color combination just the way you want.

For any eCommerce business looking to grow, Enterprise Resource Planning serves as a helping hand. Take your eCommerce business on the journey of growth with a feature-rich ERP software solution. Request a personalized demo, and we will get back to you!

Over to You

With the right ERP software implementation, your eCommerce business becomes more manageable. Every data remains organized, and each step of the process is automated. Selecting an ERP for eCommerce based on the features listed above offers several benefits, including access to valuable data, process visibility, etc.

If you are planning to integrate ERP into your eCommerce system, our team at PrintXpand can help you with our feature-rich ERP solutions.

Launched by eCommerce industry experts, PrintXpand is a complete web-to-print hub powering up businesses with solutions like ERP software, web-to-print store, product design tools, and more.

In our 16+ years of experience, we have helped businesses by providing a framework of services that are fast, easy-to-manage, and not heavy on the pocket.

Not just that, we also help businesses like yours drive traffic on their online store by providing a range of digital marketing services. Tell us about your project, and we help you power up your business operations with our ERP solutions.

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