A busy and successful ecommerce website will handle 1000–5000 orders plus per month, so the management of this is crucial to save time and keep costs down. Everything from payments to shipping and returns needs to be managed easily and effortlessly, so that customers get their orders on time every time, while being updated at every step via your email communication.
Everything is controlled, handled, monitored and processed from the back-end CMS admin area. This is literally the engine room of a website. The best-suited software for you is one that can be synchronized with your existing systems, giving you optimal automation, efficiency and productivity.
The Main Tasks of Operations:
- Order stock, pricing, product management
- Take orders online and by phone (if you accept phone orders)
- Handle payments, order amendments and refunds
- Make decisions on suspected fraudulent orders
- Process & ship orders
- Speak with customers about order security issues such as potential fraud
- Speak with customer about any shipping requirements (for example if sending frozen goods you need to ensure the customer is available to sign for delivery)
- Submit claims to your shipping company for any lost orders
- Provide customer support and technical support (if required)
- Process returns
Handling Suspected Fraud.
This is in addition to having the necessary fraud prevention measures in place as suggested in 6) (Payment), including 3-D Secure, MasterCard SecureCode and Verified By Visa. You can also take the following steps with any orders you feel are potential fraud:
1) Log in to your ecommerce admin and send your template fraud email that you have pre-written. This is located in your Order Status menu. When you send the email, the status of this specific order will then become ‘Potential Fraud’ until you get a response. The email itself will detail there is a minor issue with the order and you need the customer to call you to discuss within ‘X Days’.
2) If you have no response within your requested timescale then either delete the order or do what we do and call the customer to see if the order and payment are genuine or not. You will intuitively pick up clues from the conversation. Most fraudulent buyers will give incorrect phone numbers, incorrect email addresses, etc. and they very rarely answer the phone when you call them. Go with your gut response on these orders.
