E-commerce operation: Introduction to e-commerce product structure

In our daily lives, we often deal with e-commerce, but we are more often in the position of consumers. Today, the author of this article has conducted a series of thoughts on B2C type shopping malls. This article mainly introduces the e-commerce product structure.

When talking about e-commerce, the first things that come to mind are Tmall, JD.com, and Pinduoduo.

E-commerce is classified into B2C and B2B2C types. Tmall, JD.com, and Pinduoduo all belong to the B2B2C type, that is, "platform to merchants, merchants to users"; while the B2C type, that is, "merchants to users", is generally a direct purchase and direct sales type by a certain enterprise, not through a third-party platform, such as Huawei Mall and Xiaomi Mall.

The B2B2C type has an additional platform side compared to the B2C type, and the platform is responsible for operating the merchants on the platform. This series mainly discusses B2C type shopping malls. B2C is the business that most companies are doing. For B2B2C types, you can add another topic for discussion.

1. B2C e-commerce business architecture diagram

What else does a complete B2C e-commerce platform include besides the mall that users see?

As shown below:

When planning a mall, we first need to ask a few questions:

• Where does product information come from?

Answer: Create a new product.

• Where does the inventory come from?

Answer: Procurement planning, procurement warehousing, and procurement shelving.

• On which platforms are you selling?

Answer: Third-party platforms such as Tmall and JD.com. If conditions permit, you can build your own shopping mall platform, including APP, mini-programs, official accounts, mobile websites or PC websites, etc.

• How to market through events?

Answer: Third-party platforms can directly use the activity tools provided by the third-party platforms, while self-built platforms require building an activity center.

• What is the entire process of order flow?

Answer: From the time the user places an order, the order is synchronized to the order center, the customer service reviews the order, arranges warehouse packaging, shipment, user signature, etc., the entire process requires the construction of an order center, connection with WMS, connection with logistics companies, etc.

• How to build the company's internal operating incentive policy?

Answer: All roles in the e-commerce backend that contribute to the operation of the e-commerce platform, such as customer service and operations, need to have their performance statistics compiled and a performance center built.

• How to establish follow-up contact with users?

Answer: We need to build a customer service center so that users can contact our e-commerce customer service at the mall entrance; we need to build a call center to make return calls to customers when necessary and follow up with secondary marketing, etc.

• How to promote customer relationship management?

Answer: Establish CRM and perform basic user portrait management for users. At the same time, it is necessary to tap into users, establish a membership center, and provide value-added services to members.

Below, we will describe the systems currently used in e-commerce in order from 0 to 1. If you need to know the detailed modules of each system, this series will introduce them later.

2. Product Center

The product center, first of all, meets the needs of enterprises for unified management of products: unified filing, unified information (SPU/SKU, etc.). Then provide basic product information to business systems such as ERP, WMS, shopping malls, etc., so that other business systems can process other product business data.

Regarding the use of displaying goods in the mall and on third-party platforms, of course, some third-party platforms are unable to provide product management interfaces. When opening a store, you will also need to invest manpower in the third-party platform to create product files, but the file information must be based on the product information of the current product center.

3. ERP

ERP, the full name of which is Enterprise Resource Planning, includes procurement management, financial management, human resources management, etc. For a high-investment project like ERP, most companies would choose to purchase ready-made ERP on the market. Redeveloping ERP from scratch requires huge R&D costs and it may not be mature.

In the field of e-commerce, we are currently focusing on procurement management, which is a basic process that is carried out almost every day in e-commerce business.

4. WMS

WMS, warehouse management system, mainly includes the entry and exit of goods, inventory management, transfer management, inventory management, etc. Like ERP, WMS will also be purchased from the market.

In the e-commerce business flow, WMS is responsible for receiving orders from the order center, and then the warehouse keeper performs a series of operations such as picking, packing and shipping. It also provides product inventory information to various business platforms. At the same time, it is necessary to connect with logistics companies to lay a good foundation for order logistics and logistics financial follow-up.

5. TMS

TMS, transportation management system, is mainly used by express delivery companies. As an e-commerce platform, WMS connects to the third-party logistics company system to read the basic logistics information and logistics reconciliation information of the goods. It is beyond the scope of this series.

6. Order Center

The order center needs to take over all shopping orders, including orders from self-built shopping malls, orders from third-party platforms (such as Tmall and JD.com), etc. Since each company handles the workflow of order business differently, it is also necessary to handle the process links according to the flow of orders.

After the order is processed, it is connected to WMS to complete the order push and delivery. When pushing orders, if the company has multiple warehouses, you can also do delivery routing and select the delivery warehouse to push based on user location, logistics costs and other conditions.

7. CRM

CRM, customer relationship management, is a landmark system of e-commerce system. Many people tend to misunderstand the concept of CRM, iterating functions in the system without boundaries, and then uniformly calling it CRM.

Customer relationship management, as the name suggests, is about managing customer relationships, including customer information, customer loyalty, RFM consumption model, etc. If the user portrait can be improved, it will have a more profound meaning for CRM.

User portraits will not be discussed in the current series, but will be discussed in a separate series.

8. Member Center

Building a membership center and exploring user value based on CRM play a key role in the operation of the platform. Based on member points and member growth values, we build membership levels. Different levels of members are given membership rights and interests at different levels, and then use the member mall as a service output to monetize members.

9. Customer Service Center & Call Center

After establishing user relationship management, in addition to allowing users to find us through our portal (mall), we should provide users with channels to directly contact our customer service, so we need to build a customer service center and call center.

The customer service center mainly provides users with online consultation channels; the call center mainly provides users with telephone consultation channels. Of course, calls are two-way, so call centers can also provide customer service with a channel to contact customers.

Customer service centers and call centers are tool-type systems that can meet the needs of enterprises. They can also be used directly by selecting mature products on the market.

10. Activity Center

An e-commerce platform that operates for users but has no activities is a platform without soul.

Therefore, we also need to establish a complete set of e-commerce operation tools: limited-time flash sales, coupons, multi-item discounts, packages, raffles, gifts, etc. For members, we also need to provide member discounts, points redemption, etc.

11. Performance Center

Finally, to ensure the healthy operation of the company's internal e-commerce platform and protect the service staff participating in the platform, that is, the company's employees (customer service, operations, etc.), we need a complete set of tools to measure their performance. Performance sharing is related to company policies and is basically an absolutely customized functional section.

12. Finally

E-commerce has now become a very common topic.

The mall we see involves a wide range of systems for its back-end operations, which are basically as above. E-commerce is divided into different industries. For example, cross-border e-commerce needs to be connected to the customs system; pharmaceutical e-commerce needs to be connected to the electronic prescription platform, etc.

Products will never remain static. Their forms of expression in various scenarios need to change according to actual conditions. As a product manager, these are your mission directions. In the coming days, I will share with you the process of building an e-commerce platform from 0 to 1.

Author: Product Manager Long Wangwang

Source: Product Manager Long Wangwang