With Everything Going Right, Why Did a Business Fail?
A few years ago an ecommerce business owner (let’s call him Paul) went out of business despite receiving venture capital from Shark Tank. He sold innovative pillows (who can’t use a good night’s sleep?), had funding, and was even featured on the Today show. With so much going right, why did the business have to close their doors?
Paul showed us the reason for the popular saying “Be careful what you ask for.” While all businesses would love to have more sales, what few businesses realize is that an influx of sales can bankrupt you if you don’t have the right systems in place.
Paul advertised his pillows on the Today show and gave viewers a 50% discount to boost his sales. Not only was he losing money on the discount, but his team could not handle fulfilling the large volume of sales from such a powerful marketing tactic.
Do Holidays Make Your Cringe About How You Will Fulfill Orders?
Paul is not the only business owner who lost money with a boost in his sales. Every holiday season we get calls from flustered ecommerce business owners who are unprepared for the high volume of sales during Christmas, and even during Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day. Instead of excitement over an increase in sales, these business owners feel overwhelmed by having to fulfill a large number of sales with limited resources. To top it off, the slew of customer complaints and refund requests make these business owners cringe at the thought of an upcoming holiday.
As a business that started with limited resources ($20 and a laptop), we get what it’s like to feel stuck. You want to grow, but can you fulfill all the orders and ship them out the door on time? Can your staff handle all the requests, and if not, can you afford to hire another person?
After working with thousands of business owners, we have observed how over-marketing can kill your business. A big advertising budget not only drains your resources, but it brings in sales that you are not prepared to handle. Rather than growing your business, over-marketing can lead to an exhausted staff, small bank balances, and irate customer reviews.
Freedom from this hamster wheel lies not in a big marketing budget, or even a boost in sales. Rather, your freedom lies in your operations: what systems you put into place and what you can automate.
Your Key To Freedom Lies In Your Operations
Most of our customers have outstanding products, but it wasn’t the products themselves that made their businesses successful. Instead, they got rid of waste at every stage of their business growth. They invested in whatever technology was appropriate for their stage of business to be as efficient as possible.
Bare Bones Broth, for example, started in the kitchen of founders Katherine and Ryan Harvey. Their main pain point was not that their broth wasn’t tasty or that they didn’t get enough sales. The Harveys needed a tool for keeping track of their cash and inventory. Thanks to automating their inventory management and order entry, they were able to reduce costs and fulfill orders quickly. Bare Bones Broth is now among the most popular bone broth products and is even sold at Whole Foods.
If you’re worried about how to handle an influx of orders due to a holiday, what could you automate?
Choose Automated Operations Over Flashy Marketing
Remember Paul, the business owner featured on Shark Tank, who lost money on a marketing campaign on the Today show? With the right systems in place, he could have:
- Calculated how much discount to give on his product on the Today show and remain profitable
- Fulfilled his orders more quickly to gather positive customer reviews
- Reduced his costs of fulfilling orders, storing inventory, manufacturing, etc.
It’s tempting to go for a flashy marketing campaign, but at best it will give you just one boost in sales. A dependable system, however, can give you a steady volume of sales and reliable way of fulfilling orders for as long as your business is open.
What we are offering you here at Connex is an automated system to free you from the emotional rollercoaster of running an online business. Rather than anxiously waiting for sales to come in (which is outside of your control), you can create an automated system that is profitable regardless of how many sales you are making. Connex itself was started with a $20 investment, and through the power of its systems, it has generated over $10 million dollars in revenue since 2014.
Size does not matter when it comes to automation. Whether you are just starting out, have surpassed the six figure mark, or are making millions, Connex’s automation can free you from inefficient processes, and give you back the resources you need to reach your business goals.
Is Connex the Right Tool To Sync Your eCommerce store with QuickBooks?
Most of our customers sell on multiple eCommerce channels, such as WooCommerce, Shopify, Amazon, and ShipStation.
They want to grow their business, and value up-to-date accurate accounting so they can better serve their customers. Above all, they know a key component to growth is to track business expenses for better forecasting. With automated sales syncing to QuickBooks, they can feel confident they have the information they need to make important business decisions.
Why Our Customers Choose Sync with Connex
- Developed specifically eCommerce business owners.
- You can scale your business by automatically syncing sales & inventory from multiple eCommerce platforms to QuickBooks Desktop or Online.
- You don’t have to spend your resources manually entering sales, inventory, and customers into your website and QuickBooks accounts.
Recommended by Intuit itself, Connex for QuickBooks will give you peace of mind that your inventory will be updated. Moreover, you will be free of the frustration of oversells and missed items.
- When your inventory is up-to-date, you can achieve higher customer satisfaction, leading to more positive reviews, and increased sales.
- For phone orders, we can sync sales from QuickBooks to your shipping solution.
- If you sell on multiple channels, you can simplify by using our solution instead of multiple tools.
- Connex integrates QuickBooks with all major e-commerce platforms, such as Woocommerce, Shopify, Magento, Amazon, and e-commerce shipping solutions such as Shipworks, Ordoro, and Shipping Easy.
–Click here for a full list of our ecommerce, shipping, and payment integrations
How can you decide whether Connex is right for your business?
The easiest way to tell whether Connex is right for your business is to try it out.
During this introductory call, you will discover how Connex can help you to:
- Eliminate manual data entry into QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop
- Automatically update your inventory and prevent oversells and refunds
- Manage sales from multiple channels in one app
- Connect your shipping solutions to QuickBooks
- Have accurate financial information in your QuickBooks, every day