Ultra-lab store
Optimization of an E-commerce Management, Billing, and Inventory
Ultra-lab is an online shop specializing in electronics and digital fabrication, with a focus on educational solutions and customized projects for events. From robotics kits to digital fabrication and 3D printing tools, they offer innovative products designed to encourage hands-on learning and creativity applied to educational environments.
In addition, they also provide 3D printing and electronic projects for corporate events and other special initiatives.
With over a decade of experience, they support schools, businesses, and institutions with technology that promotes education, technology, and innovation.
The growth of this online business and the sale of a broad product catalog created difficulties in order management, billing, and inventory control. The team faced recurring issues due to the lack of integration between the online store systems and internal platforms, leading to inefficiencies in order processing, billing delays, and inventory errors. Additionally, the manual management of some tasks, like preparing quotes and generating and sending delivery notes, slowed down the times to send the products to their clients.
Ultra-lab needed a comprehensive solution to automate these key processes, optimizing the management of the online store, its inventory, and the supplier orders. Our primary goal is to improve user experience and communication, reduce the time and resources spent on repetitive management tasks, and eliminate errors related to the stock and orders.
Ultra-lab needed to automate its workflow for managing orders, billing, and inventory, reducing errors and improving the operational efficiency of the store
Our solution
The first step was integrating WooCommerce with the Zoho Books accounting tool. Connecting the two platforms allowed all online orders to be automatically recorded in the Zoho accounting system.
To reduce management time and prevent order delays, Zoho Books was integrated with the store’s email system. Delivery notes were sent automatically to the person in charge of shipments as soon as an order was confirmed or a new invoice or quote was approved by the client.
The next step was integrating WooCommerce’s online orders with the shipping service used.
As a result, the shipment preparation and handling process was streamlined, improving delivery times.
One of Ultra-lab’s main challenges was inventory management. The multichannel approach often caused inventory errors, as some orders were not always immediately reflected in the system. This led to counting and availability errors on the website.
To solve this problem, a new inventory management tool was implemented that allows a more accurate and convenient control for the person in charge. An internal application was developed that facilitates the automatic updating of inventory at the different platforms whenever the stock of a product needs updating.
To further improve efficiency, the preparation of supplier orders for key products was automated. When one of their top-selling products goes out of stock, the system automatically generates a restocking request to suppliers.
Results
Decrease in Administrative Tasks
Reduction in Logistics and Stock Errors
Almost-complete Automation of the Online Store and its Related Management Tasks
