Use Cases
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Ecommerce is big business. It’s estimated that consumers in the U.S. spent $453.46 billion online in 2017, the highest growth rate since 2011.
There are thousands of companies selling online to millions of customers, but what’s the best way to sell? Maybe you’re unsure if your software company should outsource your ecommerce operations to a full-service platform, such as FastSpring, or just stick with a basic payment service? To help you make an informed decision, we’re providing a detailed comparison of full-service platforms vs. basic payment services.
Growing and Scaling Your Company
First and foremost, scaling a software company involves investing considerable time, capital, and energy. Diverting any of these three key resources to other initiatives (like maintaining your ecommerce platform), could unintentionally hamper your company’s growth potential.
We understand your hesitation. On paper, point solutions – like a basic payment service, seem like a good idea. Companies think they are doing themselves a favor by only paying for the functionality they need currently. However, this decision can prove to be very costly in the long term. Instead of just relying on a single full-service solution to handle their entire ecommerce engine, software companies utilizing point solutions must allocate additional resources to piece together different tools just to stay competitive. Not only do these companies have to worry about the compatibility of these solutions, they often realize later that the cost of maintaining a set of point solutions is even more expensive than that of a full-service platform.
Functionality Provided by a Full-Service Solution
1. Back Office Assistance
Software companies can focus on growing their company knowing that they have a full-service ecommerce solution ready to handle back-office operations like chargeback management, global tax compliance, and order processing. If your software company is looking to scale into global markets, partnering with a full-service ecommerce platform helps ensures that your company is complying with all local and international taxes. Maintaining proper tax compliance is a critical requirement for protecting your company’s bottom line. However, instead of investing considerable time cultivating your own in-house tax experts, you can simplify the process by just outsourcing your entire tax operations to FastSpring.
Chargebacks can also be another bottleneck for your company’s growth. Not only can hefty chargeback fees hurt your revenue potential, but the overall process of ensuring proper chargeback management is also time-intensive. It can be hard to explore new verticals or improve your current product offerings when you’re preoccupied with customer refunds. Thanks to our strict account acceptance criteria, FastSpring’s platform is designed to save you time by preventing chargebacks from happening in the first place.
2. Fraud Prevention
Fraud is an increasingly prevalent issue in ecommerce; in 2016, fraud cost consumers over $16.7 million. Reducing fraud rate is the best way to protect your hard-earned sales revenue.
Naturally, you might consider this an area where a dedicated payment service would have an advantage, but don’t discount the value of a complete ecommerce solution just yet. Full-service solutions can be just as effective at deterring fraud on your site! FastSpring’s platform automatically aggregates all order data and provides anti-fraud analysis in real-time. Additionally, because your customer’s transactions occur on secure servers that don’t store sensitive payment information – your company is further shielded from serious liability issues in the event of a malicious attack or data breach.
3. Localization & Personalized Ecommerce Experiences
Increase international sales by displaying your order pages in your customer’s preferred language and accurately presenting prices in your customer’s local currency. FastSpring supports 25 languages and more than 20+ currencies including Euros, Pounds, USD, AUD, CAD, and Yen. Localizing shopping experiences to meet your customer’s expectations and accepting a broad range of currencies helps ensure that your software company is getting the most from every transaction.
4. Customer Acquisition
Like any growth-oriented company, your software company must continuously look for innovative ways to attract and acquire new customers. Increase your sales velocity by partnering with a full-service solution equipped with powerful customer acquisition capabilities. With FastSpring, your company can:
- Tap into a network of 10,000+ affiliate partners to increase awareness for your software.
- Maximize your revenue potential by implementing cross-sells and upsells on order pages.
- Drive more click-throughs to your site using FastSpring’s optimization tools to track email marketing, banner Ads, and PPC campaign analytics.
- Increase customer loyalty by leveraging FastSpring’s award-winning customer support team to ensure a positive customer experience.
Ready to see what a full-service ecommerce platform can do for you? Click here to speak with one of our platform experts and learn how outsourcing your ecommerce operations to FastSpring can help you maximize your sales revenue today!
