New Articles

3 Privacy Compliance Priorities for Manufacturers in Ecommerce

manufacturers online

3 Privacy Compliance Priorities for Manufacturers in Ecommerce

Manufacturing leaders aren’t exactly diving into the world of ecommerce headfirst. Instead, they’re cautiously dipping one toe at a time into the waters. Several things keep them from going “all in,” so to speak, but one of the most serious is compliance with privacy regulations.

In June 2018, California’s governor signed the California Consumer Privacy Act into law. This year, the law officially went into effect. Under the CCPA, companies must notify users if they intend to monetize their data and give them the option to opt-out.

Its reach will be significant. The law is expected to affect more than 500,000 businesses in the United States alone — and many more around the world.

Those that fail to comply will face hefty fines. So if manufacturers are going to survive in the age of ecommerce, they won’t be able to wade in little by little and take on privacy compliance halfway. Privacy regulations are complicated, and compliance can literally make or break a business.

Ignorance of the Law Is Not a Defense

Most companies that do business online have researched state and national laws to some extent, but data privacy laws aren’t easy to understand. To truly comply with all of their nuances and demands, businesses have to hire additional people, integrate complex processes into internal operations, and put forth massive amounts of effort.

Most got into ecommerce with the hopes that having an online presence would help them avoid headaches and reach customers more easily. But when the market matures, regulations do, too. And while most companies know not to send email newsletters to people who didn’t subscribe or sell customer information without permission, they don’t know the finer details of regulations, much less how they differ by state.

For instance, a prospective client reached out to us after it had ended up in court for violating a state privacy law it didn’t know existed. The company’s website was using an assumptive privacy policy, which assumes that users agree to their data being collected and used by merely using the site. Because the company was using the site to do business in a state that banned these privacy policies, it faced a potential fine of $1,000 per site visit. The company ended up settling the case out of court, but it was still a shocking and scary discovery.

Even for well-meaning manufacturers, ignorance doesn’t hold up in court as a legal defense. Intentional violations can cost up to $7,500 per violation. And unintentional violations can be $2,500 per violation, making even accidents a significant cost. Manufacturers are timid about ecommerce because data privacy and compliance are intimidating. Some never pursue ecommerce for this very reason.

Imagine a small manufacturer that’s decided to sell online. It goes through the entire process of building a site, implementing new operations, and calculating shipping as transactions occur. Then suddenly, it has to be responsible and ready for multiple data checks and data wiping. It’s a lot to take on, both from the operations and the financial perspective. In total, meeting compliance standards could initially cost companies up to $55 billion.

Make Ecommerce Security a Priority

As you implement ecommerce in your manufacturing business or work to strengthen compliance with your current ecommerce system, here are three things to focus on:

1. Ensure that your systems are secured and encrypted. Wherever your ecommerce data lives, you need to be 100% sure it’s secured and encrypted. This is especially important if you’re handling, storing, or passing along credit card information.

Doing this is a combination of several elements. First, have an audit done that considers your specific industry so you can be entirely sure you know what regulations to comply with and to what degree. After that, you’ll have to put additional processes into place, and those processes will likely need additional software and hardware systems to serve their purpose.

We’ve worked with manufacturers where credit card information was being stored on-site and transferred between systems in a way that wasn’t secure. Often, older ERP systems don’t have the necessary security fields. It’s key, then, to move to a modern ERP and integrated ecommerce system to avoid and rectify situations like these.

2. Monitor employee access. Be aware of which employees have access to your development, staging, and production systems. While digital hacking is a security concern, physical access to information is, too. The best way to control who has access to private information is to grant permission to only specific roles and for only certain pieces of the system. A developer shouldn’t be making coding changes and publishing unchecked. A combination of role-based technical security and tight control on physical access is the best way to address this concern.

A manufacturing company often has a small technical team. We’ve seen teams of one that have access to all levels of data in these smaller organizations. Hiring multiple people just for data privacy management and security purposes is a serious financial burden, but you need to make having multiple people designated to multiple parts of the privacy process a priority.

3. Keep up with CCPA and GDPR. Being aware of and keeping up with CCPA and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation will be essential to staying compliant. If you meet the criteria for CCPA, be sure that you can wipe customers’ information from existence completely upon request.

If your annual gross is more than $25 million or you derive more than half of your annual revenue from selling California residents’ information, you have to comply with the law. This means being transparent about your data-usage policies, giving consumers access to the information you’ve collected about them, offering the choice to sell their information, and being capable of deleting all of their personal information upon request.

Knowing the processes and resources you need to handle compliance obligations is the hard part. You need people who can handle customer requests for data review and deletion and who can remove and keep the right data. Being supported by business and accounting teams will make this process smoother and stronger.

A few years ago, the internet was like the Wild West. Like most wild things, it gets bigger and needs to be tamed and managed. That management is a process. Some laws sound good on paper but will do more harm than good if fully enforced. They can even force honest manufacturers away from ecommerce. Ultimately, we will find a balance with responsible security and data if everyone works together. In the meantime, be aware of laws and make an honest effort to comply with them. There’s plenty of opportunity in ecommerce; you just have to pursue that opportunity with the right systems, team, and security in place.

_____________________________________________________________

Michael Bird is the CEO of Spindustry, a digital agency focused on eCommerce, SharePoint portals, and enterprise websites. He has almost 30 years of experience in interactive development, user behavior, and business solutions.

e-commerce

5 Must-Have Features of Enterprise E-Commerce

E-commerce is everywhere — unless, of course, you look in the B2B space. Unfortunately, one segment lags behind all the rest when it comes to online sales: manufacturers. Just 38% of manufacturers have e-commerce websites, and only 6% of all manufacturer sales come through this particular channel. 

Part of the reason manufacturers are so slow to adopt e-commerce can be traced back to the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The traditional ways of doing business largely haven’t posed a problem yet, so many manufacturers don’t feel a real sense of urgency to explore the increasingly relevant direct-to-consumer model. 

It also has a lot to do with technical hurdles. For many manufacturers, moving to e-commerce involves taking on yet one more system to master — that or an expensive integration with their current enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. It’s nearly impossible to get an e-commerce platform to talk to an old “closed” mainframe, so plans to upgrade often involve a two-year timeframe or longer to get everything up and running. They might also involve a million-dollar price tag. Not surprisingly, this tends to put e-commerce on the back burner pretty quickly. 

And it’s important to note, too, that most manufacturers work through distributors and dealers, making e-commerce seem like nothing more than a mere alternative to their current traditional sales channels. 

A Missed Opportunity

What many manufacturers seem to be missing, though, is that B2B customers are also B2C customers. Chances are that they’re already shopping online for their personal needs, and not having a way to buy their business products and services online can have a hefty negative impact on the customer experience. If you’re manufacturing a commodity product and your sales process lacks the convenience of shopping for that product online, your customers might begin to look elsewhere. 

Remaining passive about e-commerce is simply the wrong approach, especially with B2B buyers moving more of their purchases online all the time. As it stands, nearly half of all companies utilize online channels for 50% to 74% of all their corporate purchases. Not being online just means you’ve missed out on an opportunity — not only to secure additional sales, but also to broaden your reach to a global level

Also, remember that it’s easier than ever for competition and new players in the market to get in front of your customers via Google, Facebook, and email. Not having an e-commerce site could easily cost you market share, even if the competition’s product isn’t as good as yours.

Beyond the Basics

Knowing that it isn’t enough to conduct all business offline, know, too, that it isn’t enough to just invest in getting an e-commerce platform, leave it there, and call it good. Your site has to offer the functionalities necessary to run an online business. If your system doesn’t support multiple pricing tiers, it probably also doesn’t mimic your current sales process. Clearly, that’s not a good thing. 

Your site needs to be able to support multiple buying options, such as “requests for quotes” as opposed to a shopping cart model. It can take time to arrive at a number in a complex B2B transaction, and the last thing you want is for a customer to have to take the interaction offline just to finalize scope and nail down specifics. 

This naturally leads to my next point. Assuming your e-commerce site comes equipped with all the basics like browse, add to cart, checkout, email confirmation, etc., there are a few features to look out for at the enterprise level. Those often include the following:

System integration options

In e-commerce, a certain amount of coordination is necessary between the website itself and your back-end system that you use for inventory and accounting purposes. Without proper integration, order fulfillment can easily get problematic. Focus on maintenance, data input, and offering a seamless user experience. Most of all, understand all the system integration options of your marketplace website before going with one provider over another.

Proper data to support search

Product information is important. It’s what consumers see prior to making a purchase decision. But it can sometimes pale in comparison to the product data used behind the scenes. A number of data fields and HTML tags enable your products and website to rank in both Google and on-site search results. Make sure your platform accommodates these options. Also, inquire about the tracking capabilities of your on-site search function. It can be useful to monitor what users found — and didn’t find — during a visit.

Customer tiers

At the enterprise level, you’ll likely run across different types of customers. Being able to segment these customers into various tiers can come in handy. Based on their purchase history, for example, you might determine that one tier would respond well to a certain promotion while another’s browsing behavior could inform subsequent product recommendations. In other words, segmenting tiers allows you to personalize your messaging, pricing, and other marketing efforts to fit the needs of your customers. So look into this functionality while reviewing your e-commerce options.

Analytics integration

Whether you’re looking at an off-the-shelf platform or a custom solution, reporting is very important. At a bare minimum, make sure a standard tool like Google Analytics can be integrated with your e-commerce system. You’ll also want to inquire about the setup of advanced features like e-commerce tracking.

Merchandising

Generally, any platform you go with will provide the functionality of assigning products to categories. This can help with on-site search and make it easier for visitors to browse your product line. Beyond that, you might wish to feature certain products. The question, then, is what ability do you have in the platform to create banner ads, highlight related products on a product page, create landing pages around a spotlight topic for the month, and feature products in other ways? 

Providing a good online experience naturally makes customers feel good about doing business with you. It also increases the likelihood of driving new customers to your business without needing to invest in additional resources. 

Ultimately, you can handle more transactions with an e-commerce site in your corner. Just make sure your site provides you with all of the functionalities you need to keep your business running smoothly and your customers happy. 

____________________________________________________________

Michael Bird is the CEO of Spindustry, a digital agency focused on e-commerce, SharePoint portals, and enterprise websites. He has almost 30 years of experience in interactive development, user behavior, and business solutions. His successful agency, Spindustry, puts these strategies into practice to help businesses grow.