The Mid-Market is the Zone of Architecture Confusion
The Mid-Market is the Zone of Architecture Confusion
If all the world could be as simple as an SMB stack, wouldn't life be grand? You have an eCommerce platform that serves as your product catalog, your POS, your content repository, etc.
That plus Shipstation can get you pretty far :)
But alas the world does not stay that way. As a brand grows, they are forced to navigate an extremely complex world not just in each individual domain (marketing, warehouse, payments) but also in areas that start to form the "core" of a business.
It often starts with accounting. The integration between eCommerce and Quickbooks is often "loose" at best, with something like monthly journal entries seemingly being the most common practice.
Whether you need ERP Software to handle suppliers and purchase orders, inventory movement, cost of goods, bill of materials, and other essential functions is a major pivot point.
A shift from an eCommerce-only business to adding wholesale + stores often demands new thinking as well because of the new demand channels it creates.
Suddenly, all products are not born in the eCommerce platform, and all orders do not come through it either. It starts to become obvious that you need systems of truth for key concepts in your business (the nouns). Products, orders, and customers are usually the start.
If you're a retailer or marketplace, a system of record for suppliers -- whether dropship or wholesale can also become quite important as you grow.
Navigating this change while still growing is one of the hardest challenges any brand will ever face because while you do not need a technology background to set up a Shopify store, you do need one to at least hire an architect to help you understand these systems and help you roll them out.
What challenges have you or your customers faced as you grow?
