Automating e-commerce and digital.
Catalogue, product pages, visuals, merchandising, prices and promotions, available-to-sell stock, orders, ship-from-store, click & collect, returns, marketplaces, reporting: an e-commerce department runs a chain of flows every day between the e-commerce platform, the PIM, the OMS, the ERP, the store tills and the seller accounts. Many of these flows still go through exports, spreadsheets and re-keying. Automation connects them, checks what can be checked and leaves the team what actually sells: the assortment, the product highlighting, the price and the trade-offs between channels.
Who does what in the department.
One team, distinct roles. Those with their own page are linked.
- E-commerce manager website, online revenue, service providers
- Merchandising and e-commerce product highlighting, category sorting, campaigns
- Marketplaces seller accounts, offer feeds, orders
- Product catalogue management PIM, product pages, attributes, visuals
The relays : Product and the photo studio, who supply product data and packshots; the supply chain and warehouses, who pick and ship; the stores, who hand over, ship and take back; marketing and CRM, who bring the traffic; customer service, who answers buyers; finance, who reconciles sales and payments. E-commerce sits in the middle of them all.
What the department receives, and what it passes on.
Dotted flows are those where information is most often re-keyed by hand.
It receives
- Product data and attributesproduct, PLM, ERP, suppliers
- Visuals and packshotsphoto studio, DAM, agencies
- Stock by warehouse and by storeERP, WMS, store tills
- Prices, sales and promotionspricing, sales, marketing
- Shipping and return statuseswarehouses, stores, carriers
It passes on
- Website and marketplace ordersto the OMS, the warehouses and the stores
- Sales, returns and refundsto finance and accounting
- Customer and journey datato CRM and marketing
- Performance indicatorsto executive management and management control
- Stockouts and replenishment needsto replenishment and merchandising
flow that worksflow often re-keyed
What gets automated.
Not an isolated task, but the circuits that run through the department every month.
Product feeds
Attributes, descriptions, visuals and prices flow from the PIM and the DAM to the website, the marketplaces and social networks, with a completeness check before each publication.
Available-to-sell stock
Warehouse and store stock, open orders, safety buffers: a single calculation, updated continuously and published to every channel.
Order orchestration
The OMS chooses the shipping or collection location according to written rules, and orders in exception land in a single queue, sorted by urgency.
Writing and translation
An AI agent writes product descriptions from the attributes, translates them and suggests highlighting copy, in the brand’s tone of voice.
Website checks
Products with no visual or no price, inconsistent strikethrough prices, pages in error, out-of-stock products being promoted: detected daily and flagged to the right person.
Omnichannel reporting
Revenue, conversion rate, average basket, returns and margin by channel: calculated the same way every day, from the platform, the OMS, the tills and the marketplaces.
What stays human
- The assortment, the product highlighting and the allocation of stock between the website, the stores and the marketplaces.
- Prices, markdowns and the calendar of sales and commercial campaigns.
- The choice of what to automate, and in what order.
How to automate, case by case.
Each case starts from a question leadership teams ask. The starting point, what gets automated, the tools involved, and what stays in the teams’ hands.
How do you automate the calculation of available-to-sell stock across all channels?
- Today
- The website shows the e-commerce warehouse stock, the stores sell their own stock and the marketplaces receive an export sent once or twice a day. Sales of items already gone, and products hidden while they sit in a shop, are sorted out afterwards with customer service.
- What gets automated
- A single calculation aggregates warehouse and store stock from the ERP, the WMS and the tills, subtracts open orders and safety buffers by location, then allocates what is available according to each channel’s rules. The result is pushed continuously to the e-commerce platform, the OMS and the marketplaces. Gaps between theoretical stock and refused sales are reported every day in a dashboard.
- What stays human
- The e-commerce department sets the buffers and the priorities between channels, and decides when stock is not enough to serve everyone.
- ERP
- WMS
- Store tills
- OMS
- E-commerce platform
How do you automate ship-from-store?
- Today
- When the warehouse no longer has the item, the online order waits or someone phones the stores to find who has it. The store then prepares the parcel without a ready shipping label, and the order gets lost between two tools.
- What gets automated
- The OMS assigns the order to a store according to written rules: available stock, proximity to the customer, store workload, shipping cost. The store receives the order on its tablet or till, with the pick list and the generated shipping label. An order not accepted within the set time is automatically reassigned to another store, and the customer is informed at each step.
- What stays human
- The assignment rules and the acceptable workload per store are decided with the store managers and the retail network.
- OMS
- Store tills
- Carrier platform
- Messaging
How do you automate click & collect, from order to in-store collection?
- Today
- The store discovers orders to collect in an e-mail or a separate back office, reserves the items by hand and calls the customer. Uncollected parcels pile up in the stockroom with no reminder and no return to stock.
- What gets automated
- The order reaches the store’s tool with the items reserved from its stock, or with the transfer from the warehouse already triggered. The customer receives a message when the order is ready, with a collection code checked at the till. Uncollected orders get automatic reminders, then are cancelled and returned to stock when the deadline passes, with the refund prepared.
- What stays human
- The store keeps the customer welcome at collection and the decision to extend a reservation.
- OMS
- Store tills
- Messaging
- E-commerce platform
How do you automate in-store returns of online purchases?
- Today
- The customer brings back to the shop an item bought on the website; the sales associate looks for the order in a back office they barely know, refunds at the till or issues a credit note, and e-commerce only finds out several days later. The returned item stays in store without being sellable online, and finance reconciles the refunds by hand.
- What gets automated
- The till finds the online order by its number or the customer account, checks return eligibility and triggers the refund to the original payment method. The return is recorded in the OMS at the same moment, the item goes back into the store’s sellable stock and the reason is logged. Refund entries go to finance with the order reference.
- What stays human
- Exceptions to the returns policy and goodwill gestures are decided by the store manager or customer service.
- Store tills
- OMS
- E-commerce platform
- ERP
How do you automate omnichannel reporting for the e-commerce department?
- Today
- Every Monday, someone extracts sales from the e-commerce platform, the marketplaces and the tills, removes cancellations and returns by hand, then assembles a spreadsheet for the executive committee. The figures differ from one source to another and the meeting starts by reconciling them.
- What gets automated
- Sales, cancellations, returns and costs from each channel flow every day into a single database, with definitions written once: gross and net revenue, conversion rate, average basket, return rate, online sales collected or shipped by stores. The dashboard updates itself and an AI agent drafts a first commentary on the week’s variances.
- What stays human
- The e-commerce department interprets the variances and decides on actions; the rule for attributing online sales to stores is validated with the retail network management.
- E-commerce platform
- OMS
- Store tills
- Marketplace connector
- Reporting tool (BI)
How do you automate the coordination of a commercial campaign between the website, the stores and the marketplaces?
- Today
- A campaign (sales, private sales, Mother’s Day) is prepared in spreadsheets passed between merchandising, pricing, marketing and the stores. Prices, banners and the products involved go live at different times depending on the channel, and inconsistencies are discovered on launch day.
- What gets automated
- The campaign is described once: products, prices, dates, channels, visuals and messages. From this sheet, prices go to the platform, the tills and the marketplaces at the scheduled time, pages and banners are scheduled and a checklist verifies, the day before, the stock, visuals and prices of each product. The end of the campaign restores the original prices automatically.
- What stays human
- The content of the campaign, the discounts and the calendar are decided by sales management and the e-commerce department.
- E-commerce platform
- Store tills
- Marketplace connector
- PIM
- Project management tool
How do you automate product feeds to the website, the marketplaces and social networks?
- Today
- Each channel expects its own format: a file for a marketplace, a feed for online advertising, a catalogue for social networks, an export for retailers. They are produced by hand from different exports, with out-of-stock products still published and attributes badly filled in.
- What gets automated
- All product feeds start from the PIM and the available-to-sell stock, with an attribute and category mapping table specific to each channel. They are regenerated at fixed intervals, filtered by rules (published products, in stock, allowed on this channel) and checked before sending. Rejections returned by the channels are read and grouped by cause.
- What stays human
- The team decides which products are published on which channel and fixes the rejections that require an editorial choice.
- PIM
- DAM
- Product feed management tool
- E-commerce platform
How do you automate selling in store an item that is only available online?
- Today
- The customer wants a size the store does not have; the sales associate calls other shops or tells them to order on the website themselves. The sale is often lost, or attributed to the website without the store ever seeing it in its results.
- What gets automated
- From the till or the tablet, the sales associate sees the available-to-sell stock of the warehouse and other stores and places the order in the customer’s name, paid in store and delivered to their home or to the shop. The OMS fulfils it like an online order and the sale is attributed to the store according to the rule agreed with the network.
- What stays human
- The rule for attributing these sales to stores and how they count towards bonuses are decided by the retail network management.
- Store tills
- OMS
- ERP
- E-commerce platform
How do you automate margin calculation per e-commerce order, returns included?
- Today
- Website revenue is known every day, but the real margin only at month end, after manual reconciliations between shipping costs, picking costs, payment fees, discounts and returns. Campaigns that sell a lot but earn little go unnoticed.
- What gets automated
- Each order is matched with its costs as soon as they are known: purchase cost of the items, discount applied, shipping charged and paid, payment method or marketplace commission, return cost where relevant. Margin by order, product, channel and campaign is read in an up-to-date dashboard, with the detail of each line.
- What stays human
- Management control validates the cost allocation rules; the e-commerce department decides what to do about low-margin products or campaigns.
- OMS
- ERP
- Carrier platform
- Reporting tool (BI)
How do you automate the go-live schedule for a collection?
- Today
- For each collection, e-commerce tracks in a spreadsheet the arrival of samples, the shoot, retouching, product pages, translations and the go-live date. Each team updates its column when it remembers, and delays are discovered in the week of the launch.
- What gets automated
- The list of products in the collection is taken from the PLM or the ERP, and each step is tracked automatically from the tools that hold it: sample received, visuals uploaded to the DAM, product record complete in the PIM, translations done. Products behind their milestone are flagged to the team concerned, with the go-live date they put at risk.
- What stays human
- The e-commerce department decides to postpone a product, put it online without all its visuals or change the launch order.
- PLM
- DAM
- PIM
- Project management tool
- Messaging
How do you automate the handling of orders in exception in the OMS?
- Today
- Pending payment, incomplete address, item not found at the shipping location, order not accepted by a store: blocked orders appear across several screens and are spotted when the customer calls. Nobody has the full list.
- What gets automated
- All orders in exception land in a single queue, sorted by cause and by age. Simple cases resolve themselves: reassignment to another shipping location, payment reminder, request to the customer to complete the address. The others reach the right person with the order context, and an AI agent drafts the message to the customer.
- What stays human
- The team decides whether to cancel, offer a substitute or make a goodwill gesture on orders the tool cannot release.
- OMS
- E-commerce platform
- Customer service tool
- Messaging
How do you automate price consistency between the website, the stores and the marketplaces?
- Today
- Prices are entered in the ERP, copied into the e-commerce platform, sent to marketplaces by file and changed locally during campaigns. A customer finds a different price in the shop, on the website and on a marketplace, and customer service has to explain it.
- What gets automated
- Selling prices and their rules by channel and country live in a single source, with their validity dates. They are sent automatically to the platform, the tills and the marketplaces, and a daily check compares the prices actually displayed with the source and flags every discrepancy.
- What stays human
- Intended price differences between channels or countries are decided by pricing and sales management.
- ERP
- E-commerce platform
- Store tills
- Marketplace connector
The same principles, different rules.
- Fashion and luxury
Selective distribution, editorial product presentation, scarce stock to allocate between boutiques, website and department stores, prices harmonised by country and strict control of the brand’s presence on marketplaces.
- Retail
A store network that ships and hands over online orders, collections renewed every season, sizes and colours managed as variants, sales and strikethrough prices to set on the same day across every channel.
- Cosmetics and beauty
Regulated product pages (INCI list, precautions for use), gift sets and limited editions, launches synchronised between website, marketplaces and retailers, samples and gifts to add to orders.
- B2B distribution and wholesale
Catalogues of tens of thousands of supplier references, technical attributes to standardise, prices and stock that change often, selling on the website and on several marketplaces at once.
- Construction and property
Trade websites with customer-specific prices, catalogues of materials and equipment with technical attributes, collection at a branch or depot and delivery to site.
- Industry
Online technical catalogue or B2B ordering portal, data sheets and compliance documents to attach, spare parts identified by reference or by equipment, prices and terms specific to each customer.
- Pharma and healthcare
Online sales regulated by product category, mandatory statements on product pages, batch traceability down to the order and ordering portals for pharmacies and healthcare facilities.
The e-commerce platform, the PIM and the OMS stay in place.
The website stays on its e-commerce platform, product data in the PIM, orders in the OMS and valued stock in the ERP. Automation plugs in around them: it connects these tools, which communicate poorly with each other and with the store tills, feeds the marketplaces, checks data before publication and calculates the indicators. No forced change of tool.
- E-commerce platform
- PIM
- OMS
- DAM
- ERP and store tills
- Marketplace connector
- Web analytics tool
- Reporting tool (BI)
What leadership teams ask.
- How do you automate an e-commerce website?
- By starting from the flows that repeat every day: putting products online, available-to-sell stock, orders, returns, prices and promotions, reporting. Start with the one that costs the most re-keying or lost sales, measure it, then move on to the next.
- Do you need to change e-commerce platform to automate?
- Rarely. Most platforms, PIMs and OMSs open up through APIs or file exchanges; automation plugs into them and fills what is missing between them. The assessment shows whether a limit of the platform justifies changing it, and when.
- What is available-to-sell stock, and why calculate it automatically?
- It is the stock a channel can sell safely: physical stock, minus open orders, safety buffers and stock reserved for other channels. Calculated by hand or too rarely, it leads to selling products that are not there, or to products hidden while they are in stock.
- How do you connect store stock to the e-commerce website?
- By pulling each store’s stock from the till or the ERP at short intervals, then applying a buffer per store to cover inventory discrepancies and sales in progress. The OMS can then offer ship-from-store and click & collect without promising an item already sold in the shop.
- Is a PIM essential to automate the catalogue?
- Not always at first. A single product reference base, even a simple one, is enough to automate the first flows. A PIM becomes useful when channels, languages and attributes multiply. Automation can feed an existing PIM as well as prepare for one.
- Can AI run website merchandising on its own?
- It sorts, suggests and detects: out-of-stock products being promoted, badly classified categories, complementary product recommendations. Choices about brand image, editorial highlighting and commercial priority stay with the merchandising team, which validates the rules and the exceptions.
- How do you automate selling on marketplaces without losing control of the brand?
- By first deciding which products, at what price and in which countries each marketplace may sell, then sending offer and stock feeds from the PIM and the OMS according to those rules. Automatic monitoring flags third-party offers and discrepancies in price or presentation.
- Where do you start when automating an e-commerce department?
- With a survey of the week’s flows: who exports what, who re-keys what, where orders and returns get stuck. Available-to-sell stock and putting products online are often the first projects, because they affect sales directly.
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