Are you operating a hybrid retail business? If yes, you must know how two different selling platforms can be independent yet share common resources. These resources, thus, cannot be managed independently and should be incorporated into a harmonious business management system that unifies the utilization and management of these resources between the two platforms. Today, we’ll discuss the product information and how this can be commonly shared across multiple platforms.
Managing the same information on two different platforms independently will not only waste time and resources but could also bring in data discrepancies between the two platforms. This calls for a need to have an integrator that automatically syncs the product information between two disparate platforms and enables you to achieve more accuracy, consistency between the platforms, and efficiency in managing the complex operations that come with a hybrid business environment.
A bit about the x2x RMH-WOO solution
The x2xecommerce RMH-Woo integration solution is a comprehensive well-designed solution to help the users of these two platforms achieve integration between them and enhance their management of hybrid retail business with a fast, reliable, and automatic syncing process. The solutions come in two modules: The Product Management Portal and the Order Manager. Both of these have features that enable the user to achieve data sharing between these two platforms.
Product Management portal: This module of the solution is responsible for syncing the product information such as product name, description, price, images, etc between the two platforms. All the information in this module flows from RMH to Woo; first, the product data comes into this module and is then uploaded to Woo in a separate step. The PMP, therefore, serves as an intermediatory platform where the data is parked before going to Woo. This allows the user to change or alter any information before uploading to Woo enabling the business to maintain different product values such as information on both platforms. The platform also have scheduler features that enable the various syncing features to run automatically at set time interval resulting in two platforms remaining in sync at any given time without any human intervention.
Order Manager: This module as the name suggests handles the web order processing in the RMH and posts them back to Woo. However, like PMP it also offers some product info uploading features which include prices and inventory. It also features a scheduler to allow automatic downloading and uploading of item prices and inventory (if a user is uploading these two from the Order Manager). Once the orders get downloaded into Order Manager they can be seen with their Woo order number and their transaction status in RMH. Once they are transacted in RMH an RMH transaction number is also assigned and then they can be uploaded as fulfilment to the webstore.
Selecting sub-modules
The x2xeCommerce RMH-Woo is a flexible and comprehensive solution that allows the user to configure it according to their requirements. While the solution offers various syncing features it allows the user to enable or disable any feature as they like. This prevents any unnecessary processing and overwriting of data that the customer does not desire. Furthermore, since some syncing functions are common for both the Product Management Portal and Order Manager modules, it allows the user to select which of the two modules to use for specific syncing processes when they’re using both modules for their syncing operations.
Data mapping
To effectively sync the values between two platforms system must know which value from one goes into the other. This is achieved through the process called data mapping. The process involves selecting the RMH fields and their equivalent field on Woo or the WooCommerce field to which you want to send your RMH values. This is one of the most crucial settings when configuring the integrator since it decides how the data is transformed between the two platforms. If wrong data mapping values are defined then your integrator would not function as desired. Data mapping, therefore, also provides the user with the flexibility of using the values between two platforms as they desire.
Conclusion
The introduction of multiple selling channels and the need to present a multichannel business to remain competitive in the market has increased business management complications calling to incorporate new tools into your management routine to tackle such needs. The x2xeCommerce RMH-Woo is an effective integration solution that enables your business to efficiently handle the demands put forward by the need to manage a hybrid business on the RMH and WooCommerce platform.
The x2xeCommerce being an expert in providing eCommerce and integration solutions in the domain of ERPs, POS, and Ecommerce platforms can help you set up and webstore and integrate it with your existing business solution to help you realize an effective unified business management system. An example of another solution by the x2x includes the x2xeCommerce RMH-Shopify integration solution. Reach out to the x2x team for any query or a free demo.