Home delivery is a trending business. Post covid internet sales increased by 30% where retail store sales declined at 17.9% as per OECD report. Everyone is switching or parallel running with their own online platforms to retain their customers and to acquire new potential buyers.
Having an online sale portal or apps cant simply serve your purpose, unless yours is a niche., when in to groceries and FMCG products, where there is a heavy competition already present, we have to introduce our unique selling point ( USP ) to sustain. It could be marketing techniques, Royalty programs, Rewards, New shopping features or anything more sensible can help us here.
Grocery delivery solution, must have features
Web console :
To manage Stores, Catalogues, Customers, Stock, Orders, Returns, Mobile app & Web Content management etc. This must be friendly enough for the super admin with role management to divide tasks among internal staffs.
Apart from console features, this must notify major events on the platform with the concerned individuals in email, sms and in whatsapp. a typical case is, when an order placed on this platform ,the order management team must get alerts in their preferred channel with no delays to process the same order.
Additional features include product bulk upload, bulk messaging to customers, ERP integration, POS integration etc. All third-party integrations must closely connected with relevant reports to cross check its integration and triggers.
Finally it should couple with a dashboard design which consolidates entire activities and reach of the platforms with drill down links to get an easy sight soon after login to any account, considering their privileges.
Web Ordering Interface:
There must be a functional responsive website , which renders equally good on all devices including desktops, tablets and mobile phones. Having such a website enables the sore owner to enable their customers to checkout with no installation requirements of their apps, and this way those categories can be closely attached with web checkouts.
Customer Apps:
Apps make checkout easier with always login feature, one click product access and much more. Having apps for Android and iOS is a must have feature to establish in sales
Cloud deployment:
The entire app must be deployed to well configured instances to deliver good user experience to its users in web & mobile apps
Recommended Add-ons
Apart from must have features, few add-on features will make the admins life easy to focus on business and to drive more sales, these recommended features includes
Single sign on :
Courtesy :Pexels
Let the customers create or login to their accounts with google , facebook login to ease the process of customer onboarding , an ECommerce CMS must have this feature builtin
Guest checkout:
Options to buy items without creating an account and login with those credentials
Coupon codes:
Is a must have feature to process offers, returns, and much more. The super admin must be capable of creating coupons for various events
Whatsapp Integration
As whatsapp is the most reachable messaging platform, there ll be a good chance for customers to get notified , when we send updates over whatsapp over email and sms.
here is a list of whatsapp business api providers
Online Payment Gateways:
Source : Pexels
Post covid paperless payments popularised over direct payments and there are plenty of trusted payment gateways available to implement up on, a good ecommerce platform must be compatible with these gateways to offer its customers a seamless payment experience to ease the process and to drive more sales Read more
ERP Integrations :
Supermarkets cant run without ERPs, If the ecommerce is equipped with direct ERP integration, catalogue management, customer management, order management will be notably reduced to save time and money and the chance of data mismatch between offline and online transactions ll get nullified. , Here is more details
Shipping Service integrations :
Key players in delivery apps are its delivery partners, a Good ecommerce platform must be equipped with options to bring all possible shipping service providers with easy to plugin options. Read more on shipping classes ( WooCommerce )
