Go beyond retail sales

For businesses that sell products online, a shopping cart is a must-have. What you may not realize is that these virtual shopping carts serve a purpose beyond processing retail sales; they can be used to facilitate internal distribution systems. For example, a retailer that needs to send supplies to its stores or bank that wants to ship forms to its mortgage loan officers can do so using its existing shopping cart.

Using your existing platform

This sort of system is called shopping cart integration. It combines virtual shopping carts with fulfillment software to create a system that automates the labor-intense process of shipping and handling and inventory management. Bluegrass Fulfillment can create a customized shopping cart integration system for your company.

We integrate with 3dcart, Big Commerce, Shopify, UltraCart and Volusion.

Saving man hours and money

It doesn’t always make sense for a company to handle its own distribution network. By outsourcing this fulfillment function to Bluegrass, a company can avoid a number of expenses. Man hours are decreased because the company no longer handles ordering, fulfillment and shipping. Bluegrass will store the goods and supplies that must be distributed so that your company doesn’t have to buy or lease warehouse space.

Before fulfillment software was integrated with shopping carts, companies dedicated all or part of an employee’s time to overseeing the supply chain. With shopping cart integration, much labor is eliminated because 80 percent of the process is automated.

Inventory and shipping costs are easy to monitor

When fulfillment software is combined with shopping cart programs, a robust system is created. Here’s what these systems handle:

• Orders
• Billing when applicable
• Payment when applicable
• Inventory
• Shipping records and costs.
• Communication with recipient
• Communications with company

Time spent upfront will save money in the long run

Because shopping cart integration allows for so much customization, it takes about a month for the initial setup and customized design of the system. This is the most challenging and labor-intensive aspect of shopping cart integration. After the setup is complete, the system nearly runs itself, mechanizing a lot of the functions that were once handled by staff.