One of the most common business ideas these days is running an eCommerce company – an online store that exists only on the web. It can be a fantastic way to make a living if you know a market that still has a need for a new online store and if you know how to put everything together so that you can sell your products at a profit.

As you might imagine, this is where outsourcing can be of immense help. In fact, the vast majority of ecommerce stores are built on outsourcing various aspects of their organization and today, we will be talking about the most common parts of the ecommerce experience that business owners outsource.

Logistics

In the vast majority of cases, ecommerce companies will outsource their logistics. In fact, there are only a handful of ecommerce companies that do their logistics themselves and these are the world’s largest ecommerce companies such as Amazon, for example. For everyone else, it comes down to third-party logistics companies, also known as 3PL.

This way, you are outsourcing your warehousing, your transport and your deliveries. This both ensures that you get professionals taking care of your stock at all times and also that you will not be spending all of your money on your own warehouses, trucks and delivery people.

Simply put, not outsourcing your logistics makes no sense in the ecommerce arena.

Well, unless you are Amazon with your robotic warehouses and whatnot.

IT

Since an eCommerce company will exist almost entirely online, it goes without saying that IT and everything that goes with it will be the majority of the operation. Some eCommerce owners decide to outsource one part of it while others let their outsourced partners handle the most of it.

For example, there are people who decide on Shopify’s domain registration, hosting and the basic package and then they hire someone to upgrade their solutions so that their shop does not look like just another Shopify store (not that there is anything wrong with them).

Other people go to web design companies and they have their store developed from scratch. Sometimes, ecommerce websites grow so quickly that the owner has to hire someone to handle the maintenance.

There are innumerable variants to this, and when ecommerce owners decide to outsource their IT, they need to ensure they are hiring the right people. This is where Globality Consulting and companies like that come in.

Customer Service

For people who are not really familiar with how ecommerce stores work, it may seem that they can operate without any customer service people. The customers just click on what they wish to buy, this is recorded and the delivery is made, right? Couldn’t be any simpler?

In reality, however, there is as much need for customer service in ecommerce stores as there is in traditional, brick and mortar ones. People have questions about products and since they cannot hold them in their hand, they have even more questions. On top of this, many shoppers do their purchasing outside of regular work hours and it is not like you can hang a sign Sorry, we’re closed on your website.

This is why a very large number of ecommerce companies outsource at least one part of their customer service experience, the live one. It is quite difficult to organize three 8-hour shifts if you are not exactly teaming with a budget for such serious customer service.

Marketing

Ecommerce takes a lot of marketing to work. You start with nothing but a website. No one knows anything about it. No one knows it exists.

You have to change that.

For most ecommerce owners, marketing is not a strength and they often find it much simpler to outsource marketing to an outside agency that will know exactly how to get an ecommerce website visible and attracting customers.

Once again, when hiring outsourced marketers, it is important to know how to recognize those that will do your website justice and deliver the results.

Closing Word

All in all, eCommerce involves quite a bit of outsourcing and it is essential you find reputable partners you can rely on. Read a few more articles on the Globality Consulting blog and pick up a few tricks.