4 benefits of e-commerce for the food and beverage industry

Over the last 2 years, organizations from the Food & Beverage industry have been initiating various strategies to adapt to the changes caused by COVID-19. During the pandemic, many businesses in the textile, restaurant, and other fields had to close. Imports of goods were also severely restricted. As a result, Eurostat statistics shows that the behavior of consumers worldwide in 2021 has changed, as in the European Union, 74% of internet users shopped online. Despite the changes that appeared and the raised popularity of e-buying, there are actual benefits that e-commerce provides to producers in the F&B industry:

Increasing demand for online shopping

Online shopping is gaining popularity. Thanks to the Internet, consumers can buy goods and services quickly and easily. Statista reports that in 2019 worldwide accounted for 3.351 billion dollars in sales. Two years later, with the onset of the pandemic, the measures are being taken and the closure of various sites, sales have increased and reached 4.938 billion dollars. E-stores have become widespread shopping platforms, precisely because customers receive the desired goods to their front door with just a few clicks.

Adaptability to innovation and improving efficiency

With the advent of technology, market trends and customers’ preferences changed. To remain market leaders, retailers need to be flexible and build their business models. When it comes to improving efficiency, the growing popularity of online sales brings many benefits to the food and beverage industry in various directions, such as market sustainability and brand awareness. Moreover, e-commerce enables shops and restaurants to increase their competitiveness, as their location is no longer crucial.

Single administrative panel for all your online stores

Online commerce allows you to manage several web stores for assorted brands or types of goods from one administrative panel. In addition, you can develop and implement both B2B and B2C scenarios. Because all e-shops use the same database, catalog information can be easily exchanged between them. This way, your customers have access to all your stores using the same credentials.

Integration with ERP

The benefits you can derive from the integration of e-commerce with an existing ERP system are related to information management and business processes. For example, the United Integration Framework, created by the Intelligent Systems team, allows your online store to operate with an extension that simplifies data management and order processing by:

• Online publication of articles, photos, descriptions, specifications, features, units of measure, and availability from Microsoft Dynamics;
• Maintenance of price lists, with the ability to visualize individual prices, discounts, and promotions;
• Presentation of your chosen categories, sub-categories, and goods;
• Create new orders and customers in Microsoft Dynamics.

Intelligent Systems offers a service for integration with all e-commerce platforms to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, as well as a complete solution for building an e-commerce platform with Nop-Commerce. See more details about our online trading solution or contact us.