Online shopping in Australia is growing rapidly and though there’s still room for new ecommerce companies in the local market, Australian retailers are realizing that another way to grow revenues is by opening their websites to international markets. Although expanding beyond geographical borders presents many challenges with logistics and the heavy planning it entails, plenty of retailers are ready to make the move.
While opening an online store to global markets is not as rigorous as opening an international brick-and-mortar store, expanding globally is still a significant task that requires the right people and tools. One key is to look at the current system. Does it let the business run efficiently? Are staff forced to do manual processes outside the system? It is important to thoroughly evaluate existing business software, because if it is not working well for the business locally, it cannot support global growth.
A good example is Australia-based hair and beauty retailer Hairhouse Warehouse (opens in new tab), which has been providing beauty services and a comprehensive array of professional hair care products from leading brands since it was established in Melbourne in 1992. As the company continued to grow, so did its need for a system that can scale to its customers increasing demands.
The company has been running the business on disparate systems including MYOB Premier, incumbent POS software and spreadsheets that are unreliable, slow, complicated and require a large amount of manual processing. Not exactly a winning formula for global success, which is why after careful evaluation, Hairhouse Warehouse decided to replace these siloed systems with a single, unified cloud commerce solution.
Hairhouse Warehouse will use NetSuite’s SuiteCommerce and Retail Anywhere POS to manage its head office operations, 150 franchised retail stores nationally and a B2C ecommerce site, replacing an unstable system. Apart from integration, NetSuite was the clear choice to support the retailer’s plans for global expansion into multiple territories over the next 12-24 months, providing multi-subsidiary and multi-currency capabilities to manage global operations in real time.
The integrated SuiteCommerce solution enables Hairhouse Warehouse to manage multiple channels and locations, integrate its website with its business, support its POS system, provide a unified real-time view of its business, perform automated merchandising and marketing, and gain a 360-degree view of each customer. It can give the retailer what it needs to grow revenue, open up new sales channels and expand its business globally. It also fulfills a strong demand for a single commerce solution that supports multiple customer touchpoints.
International ecommerce expansion can be a long and hard journey, especially when a business is running in weak siloed systems that cannot support growth. NetSuite's integrated commerce solution can give businesses a powerful tool to gain a single view of their revenue, customers, and physical and online stores, be it locally or globally.
- Mark Troselj VP and Managing Director for APAC and Japan, NetSuite
