Being able to gauge demand is a helpful part of selling in volume. Zoey has the ability to accept orders for items that are coming soon or on back order, even if other items on the order are in stock. You can fulfill items that are already in inventory, and complete the order when the missing items arrive. In that way, you can be sure you don’t miss out on sales, as well as gauge how demand is for items not yet in inventory.

Many businesses work with vendors as their fulfillment partners and need to be able to route orders to them. Zoey offers split orders, a way of breaking down an order so that you can submit the right orders to the right vendors, with only orders with their products being sent to them. A split order allows each vendor to submit shipping updates and other order information back to the buyer, so they can track on their self-service login how each of the split orders is progressing.

There are a number of ways Zoey assists in speeding up fulfillment. One aspect is getting orders to fulfillment faster by having orders entered directly into the system, instead of being accepted in other forms (phone, email, fax, on paper) and manually transcribed into the system. Once in the system, Zoey offers a variety of abilities, such as Pick Lists and third-party integrations, that can make bulk processing and fulfillment of orders a reality. No matter how complex your organization’s warehousing, Zoey has a way to ensure you can move forward more efficiently.

If your inventory is primarily managed through another solution, you’ll want your Ecommerce inventory synced in real time. Zoey offers a variety of ways to do this, including:

• Direct inventory syncing as part of our integrations with NetSuite and QuickBooks Online
• File uploads from sources such as FTP/SFTP and Google Sheets
• Open APIs that can be connected with other systems
• Links to third party options such as Finale Inventory for more complex inventory management scenarios

There are a lot of Ecommerce solutions out there, including some that claim to support B2B businesses, but not all solutions are created equal. For one, do they support ordering in quantity increments that you ship in? If you need to sell by the case, and that requires quantity increments that equal a case,you’ll have lots of fulfillment and customer service issues if your Ecommerce solution doesn’t cleanly and clearly support that. Second, do they support shipment types that you utilize? If you ship via Frieght or LTL options, for example, be sure to confirm how they can work with those shipment types so you don’t get caught short when you need them.

Many businesses like to validate what they’re picking in real time against an order or batch of orders, which is where pick lists come in. While electronic solutions have their place, especially in locating and confirming the items being shipped, many businesses still incorporate a printed record to validate that they checked what’s in the shipment that went out to a buyer, offering some additional piece of mind.

Technology can replace existing methods of capturing orders, and in some cases facilitate orders taken in non-ideal ways through technology today. Instead of manually receiving orders by phone, email, pen and paper while in person, you can use a B2B Ecommerce platform built for your warehouse to thrive online. You can connect Ecommerce to other key systems, including inventory management solutions, especially if you’re managing a more complex business scenario. If you have fulfillment partners or a warehouse, they can be linked in as well, allowing a seamless flow from order placement to fulfillment to invoice management/payment.

Shopify is a popular Ecommerce platform, built primarily to support B2C use cases. Its app ecosystem allows for extending the platform in a variety of ways. That said, relying on a platform built for a different use case means more frequent frustrations and limitations that can constrain a business. A B2B-focused Ecommerce platform can help, not just with accounting and financing, but many other roles that can benefit from B2B-specific tools, such as marketing, sales and fulfillment.