Running a hybrid business requires more than just what you need to run them independently. Of course, having two platforms to manage and run demands more attention and expertise, but the need to bind two disparate platforms as part of one business system puts further demands to be met. While the two platforms are different, products & inventory are the same, and the transactional processing for all sale channels is preferred on a single platform for consolidation reasons. Here the role of integration solution is crucial to realize a unified system. This article will introduce the integration solution offered by x2xecommerce between RMH and Shopify and will talk about how it syncs the data between these two solutions.
Two modules of x2xecommerce RMH-Shopify
The x2xecommerce RMH-Shopify integration solution is a comprehensive solution that enables bi-directional data flow between RMH and Shopify. The solution is divided into two modules: The Order Manager and the Product Management Portal. The Order Manager mainly deals with order downloads from Shopify so they can be processed in RMH and then uploads the fulfillments and invoices back to Shopify. On the other hand, the Product Management Portal is responsible for uploading the data from RMH to Shopify. Both modules provide options to enable/disable different syncing features they offer. While the two modules offer different syncing features, the price & inventory upload/update features are offered by both owing to the fact that these are the main components that require necessary syncing allowing the user who uses either one of them if not both to be able to sync these two values.
Data mapping
Whenever we talk about integration one important thing at play is data mapping. Data mapping defines how the data would be synced between the two platforms – which value from RMH would correspond to which value on Shopify. Both the order Managers and the Product Management Portal need to have data mapping defined during the configuration stage as per the requirements of the user. Data mapping also provides flexibility to users by deciding how and which values get synced between the platforms rather than depending on pre-defined static data mappings.
Data Integration through Order Manager
Once the order gets downloaded in the Order Manager user can see the information about the downloaded order with their status or any error along with other details such as Shopify order no. This information window provides quick information about all the online orders and their syncing with the RMH; these orders can then be recalled in RMH and processed. Once processed RMH transaction transaction number appears in the order information in the Order Manager indicating that the order has been successfully processed in RMH. This order is then uploaded to Shopify as invoice & fulfillment to mark the order as complete on Shopify.
Data Integration through Product Management Portal.
To achieve complete integration between your RMH and Shopify utilizing PMP is a must since this module is responsible for importing product information including categories from RMH to Shopify. An important feature of the PMP is that it first brings the product information on its platform and then exports it to Shopify; this is important since it allows the user to change any information before uploading it to Shopify, in case they want product information to differ on both the platforms. Users can also create and assign products to different categories on PMP that differ from RMH allowing them to create and manage catalogs and collections as per choice on Shopify from PMP, independently from RMH categories.
Conclusion
The business information system for a retail business is always varying and consistency must be ensured along all the sales channels and their respective management solution. This holds crucial importance in maintaining the operations of a hybrid retail business. However, before all this business management must learn the dynamics of the integration solutions so that they can correctly analyze their integration requirements and choose a suitable integration solution.
If you’re looking for an integration solution in the domain of ERPs, POS, and ecommerce platforms, then x2xecommerce can help you implement a solution that meets your specific demands. As an example, another example of an x2x solution is the x2x RMH-BC integration solution. Reach out to the x2x team for a free query or a demo.