Articles

From Chaos to Clarity: The Journey to Data-Driven Decisions

Written by Dora Farkas | Dec 4, 2023 1:41:29 PM

Growing your e-commerce business means having the correct financial reports and knowing what future steps to take. Even our company went through the journey from data chaos to success. Joe Anderson, CEO of Connex, wants to help your business do the same.

With Connex, you can skip scrolling and switching tools to track your orders, new clients, and returns. Instead, take advantage of automation, understand your data, and see future steps towards growth.

Facing the Data Overload

Our CEO, Joe, realized he needed more from the tools he used. While updating billings for his company, he saw that he didn't know how many customers he had or how well his company was performing, even with metrics. 

He decided to make a reporting tool to see the forecast of his future actions. Over time, the tool helped him make changes that doubled the company's revenue in just two years. After Joe's success, he decided to help other companies do the same. 

E-commerce companies often work on several different platforms. For instance, your company might use Shopify for sales, HubSpot for marketing, and another tool for customer support. Every click, purchase, query, or feedback from a customer creates data points. With hundreds to thousands of interactions daily, this leads to massive datasets. 

But having all this data still doesn't guarantee success. Learning how to use them does. According to McKinsey Global Institute, companies that use data for their decisions are much better at customer acquisition, retention, and profitability.  

Connex for QuickBooks

The goal of our company is to continuously find ways to provide clarity and organize small to medium e-commerce businesses around the country. We accomplished this by inventing the right tools. With Connex for Quickbooks, you get an easy way to: 

  • Automate data entry 
  • Find your sales in one dashboard
  • Manage your inventory
  • Reconcile QuickBooks
  • Update tracking information and invoice customers
  • Expand your business to new marketplaces

We want to use your time effectively. With Connex for Quickbooks, you can start automating your e-commerce business immediately. 

Connex Inventory Planner

Since we understand companies' struggle with using multiple platforms to manage inventory and get actionable data from their reports, we created the Connex inventory planner, which is here to help with: 

  • The desire for actionable insights
  • Efficiency in financial decisions
  • Minimizing manual efforts
  • Real-time feedback and alerts
  • Filling the data gap

Joe explains our planner through an interesting analogy, comparing the Inventory Planner to a car dashboard. Much like how the dashboard of a car gives you immediate and actionable warnings about oil change, tire rotation, or a flattening tire, the Inventory Planner acts as an intuitive dashboard for businesses.

Imagine logging in to your planner and instantly knowing if you've acquired new customers or if there's a spike in cancellations. No more digging through complex dashboards or clicking through layers of reports. 

Instead, get real-time alerts: "Hey, Joe, you've got ten cancellations today." This immediate feedback will allow you to take action – be it a quick check-in with the sales team or a change in your strategy.

Easy Design, Powerful Features

We wanted to create an easy-to-use platform so that you can focus only on your work and results. With an intuitive interface and our guidelines, you can start automating and organizing your e-commerce business from the first login. You will get a clean interface, logical layouts, and user-friendly dashboards to navigate through easily. 

Turning Data into Strategies

As a small to medium e-commerce seller, you might be using a combination of Woocommerce, Shopify, Amazon, Shipstation, and Quickbooks. Working with or selling on various platforms means sifting through a plethora of different reports.

The first step in making a strategy that benefits your e-commerce is getting all your data in one place. Next, you automate it. Lastly, you learn to properly use that data to take actionable steps to grow your e-commerce business, the same as executives of Fortune 1000 companies have.

We can take the example of Soap and Paper Factory. This company started as a basement hobby by Lisa Devo. Once she saw that the soaps were popular with her family and neighbors, she started selling them at local farmers' markets. But, expanding into e-commerce and selling online proved to take time and effort.  

Lisa was stuck spending time entering data by hand between Quickbooks and ShipStation since they didn't have a way to communicate across platforms. They would enter the order manually and copy and paste it once it was shipped. All this manual work took time, and the company needed help scaling. 

Connex for Quickbooks managed to bridge the gap between the tools Soap and Paper are using. Their business data is in the same place, and they have easy automated communication with the fulfillment center. They have been our clients for years, turning their business into a successful e-commerce store and selling in large chain stores like TJ Maxx. 

Lessons from the Journey

Every journey, with its highs and lows, teaches invaluable lessons. Connex's journey through the maze of data analytics and business intelligence has been no exception. 

We know that once-size-fits-all solutions don't address challenges from different businesses. Our tools provide options for customization so that every business owner can create their strategy. How Connex helped the Soap and Paper Factory differs from how we helped Gentent. 

Gentent developed a safety canopy cover for portable generators and had problems keeping all their sales in the same place. While they sell to individuals on Amazon and via their website, they also sell to several small dealers and big chain stores. 

With our automated bookkeeping, the company can pull orders from different selling channels and reconcile fees by having both individual and summary orders. 

Benefits Beyond Business

While the Harvard Business School article shows the great benefits of data decisions, we know something else. Something that all business owners can relate to. That is, establishing boundaries can be a challenge. In today's digital age, work often blends into personal time. 

Our journey is about more than being just a management tool. Connex serves as a bridge to a balanced life. 

You can step away from your desks confidently, spend quality time with loved ones, and even embark on those long-overdue vacations, all while staying well-informed. 

Your Turn to Find Clarity

Try our financial tools and see how they can help your small business reach the next level, whether this for you means more customers, higher revenue, or simply gives you more freedom.