Linking WooCommerce with Bol.com – Plugin or integrator?

As soon as you start selling on multiple channels as a seller, inventory management is the first thing you want to have taken care of on time.

For webshops that do not have this in order, you see – when they get above a certain number of orders per day – that they will have to deal with cross-sales.

Cross-selling

Cross selling means that more items have been sold (across multiple channels) then there are currently in stock. The consequence of cross-selling, is that you have to start canceling orders and therefore selling no to customers.

If this happens a lot, it is obviously disastrous for the brand and the customer’s shopping experience, and if you sell on bol.com you are even punished for this with strikes (for too many cancellations).

To avoid the above situation, many e-commerce entrepreneurs ask if there is a possibility to integrate the bol.com channel into their own webshop.

Are plugins as a solution a good idea?

If you have your own WooCommerce webshop, you can use a plugin that integrates bol.com into your website, and when you use Shopify for your own webshop, there is a bol.com app that does this for you.

Integrating directly into the shop environment can be detrimental in the long term. You may want to move on to other marketplaces such as Amazon, Etsy, Kaufland, Cdiscount or CDON. This is a low-hanging fruit strategy that can quickly give your business a huge boost. The problem, however, is that you would have to install an app or plugin for each sales channel.

On WooCommerce, too many plugin installations can cause longer load times for your visitors. This is unacceptable because site speed is the key metric for SEO!

The golden rule is; install only the plugins you really need.

If you have a Shopify webshop, you will find that apps often individually charge a monthly fee, which can add up tremendously in cost

When you do your own warehousing

In some cases when a webshop grows, you’ll see the choice to start ship orders themselves (if they did not already to this). This might be advantageous at some point because of higher order volumes.

If you are considering this, you need a Warehouse Management System for efficiency. It is then simply no longer profitable to start printing the orders by hand in your WooCommerce (or Shopify) environment.

The longer-term solution

To avoid the above points, a more professional solution is to link your Woocommerce (or Shopify) store and your bol.com sales channel in a marketplace integrator such as Stockpilot. This way you’ll keep your orders and sales data separate per channel, and Stockpilot keeps inventories at the right level. Plus, you don’t have to install any plugins that might slow down your store speed or buy any more paid apps!

With Stockpilot, you connect marketplaces within a few clicks, ready to start growing your business!

Finally, should you ever decide to set up your own warehouse, you can immediately start using the built-in warehouse management feature in Stockpilot. You will be prepared for the future with an all-in-one solution!