Why Retailers and eCommerce Stores Choose Zoho One for Growth

Zoho One offers a comprehensive suite of over 45 integrated apps designed to manage an entire business on a single platform. Across various industries, including Retail and eCommerce, Zoho applications can handle every function, from digital marketing and sales to operations, finance, and customer support. Meanwhile, Zoho CRM often acts as the central hub for data and workflow integration. Below, we discuss how Zoho’s tools can be utilized in the retail and eCommerce industry, covering Marketing & Website, Sales, Operations, Finance, Support, and Analytics capabilities.

Marketing & Website

Retailers can build an online presence and storefront using Zoho Commerce or Zoho Sites for product listings and shopping carts. Zoho SalesIQ embeds live chat and chatbots on websites to engage shoppers in real-time, while Zoho Campaigns and Zoho Social enable email promotions and social media marketing. Zoho’s integrations with Google Ads and Facebook/Instagram capture online ad leads directly into the CRM, ensuring that interested shoppers are recorded for follow-up. These tools support an omnichannel retail strategy – for example, Zoho Commerce, Zoho Inventory, and Zoho CRM together enable businesses to manage online and in-store sales, track stock levels, and maintain a single view of customers across all channels.

Sales

Zoho CRM (configured for retail) acts as the central customer database, tracking leads, purchase history, and loyalty program status. Sales teams can use CRM data to personalize offers and improve the shopping experience. Zoho Inventory is tightly integrated, so sales orders automatically update inventory counts in real time, preventing stockouts and backorders. For wholesale or B2B retail segments, Zoho CRM manages deals and quotes, and Zoho Meeting can be used to conduct online product demos or sales calls with buyers. WhatsApp integration (via Twilio or WATI) allows instant communication with customers – e.g. sending order updates or answering product queries. Retailers also streamline transactions with Zoho Sign for vendor contracts or large client orders and use Zoho Bookings to let customers schedule appointments (for services like personal shopping sessions or curbside pickup times). Zoho Mail ensures all email communications with suppliers and customers remain organized within the Zoho ecosystem.

Operations & Projects

Zoho’s tools help retail businesses run efficiently behind the scenes. Zoho WorkDrive provides a secure cloud repository for all retail documents from product catalogs and SOPs to invoices and branding assets ensuring teams have shared access to the latest files. Zoho People handle HR tasks like employee onboarding, shift scheduling, leave tracking, and payroll, which is especially useful for retailers managing staff across multiple stores. Team communication is centralized with Zoho Cliq (real-time chat and channels for store managers, inventory teams, etc.). Retailers can also use Zoho Projects to manage internal initiatives (like new store openings, marketing campaigns, or merchandising resets) with task assignments and timeline tracking. For custom operational needs, Zoho’s low-code Zoho Creator can be used, for instance, to build an app to track in-store inspections or maintenance requests.

Finance & Billing

Zoho Books is used for all accounting needs – recording sales transactions, managing payables/receivables, and producing financial reports. It integrates with sales and inventory systems to automatically record revenue and update stock values in the ledger. Zoho Expense helps track and reimburse employee expenses (travel between store locations, office expenses, etc.) with receipt scanning and approval workflows. Retail businesses offering subscription services or membership programs can leverage Zoho Billing (formerly Zoho Subscriptions) for recurring billing, such as managing monthly subscription boxes or loyalty program fees. All sales from POS and online channels can be consolidated in Zoho Books for accurate bookkeeping, ensuring accurate tax calculations and inventory valuation. By centralizing finance in Zoho, retailers gain real-time visibility into their cash flow and profitability across all channels.

Support & Feedback

Zoho Desk enables retailers to provide prompt customer support across channels. All customer queries about orders, returns, or product issues can be logged as support tickets, whether they come via email, social media, or chat, and assigned to support agents for timely resolution. This helps improve customer satisfaction and retention. Retailers also use Zoho Survey to gather customer feedback, for instance, post-purchase satisfaction surveys or Net Promoter Score (NPS) questionnaires, to identify areas for improvement. Zoho Assist can be utilized by businesses that involve technical products, allowing support representatives to remotely assist customers (for example, helping set up a device purchased from an electronics retailer via remote screen sharing). Internally, IT teams can use Zoho Assist to support point-of-sale systems in stores remotely. All these support interactions can be analyzed to improve service quality and inform training for store staff.

Analytics & AI

Zoho Analytics provides advanced retail dashboards and reports. Managers can monitor key metrics like sales by product/category, online vs. store performance, inventory turnover, and campaign ROI. By merging data from CRM, inventory, marketing, and finance, Zoho Analytics helps identify trends such as peak sales periods or the effectiveness of promotions. Zoho DataPrep can be used to clean and unify data from third-party e-commerce platforms (e.g. Amazon, eBay) or legacy POS systems for analysis. Zoho’s AI assistant Zia offers predictive insights; for example, Zia can analyze CRM data to forecast which leads or customers are most likely to make a purchase or identify products likely to run out of stock based on current sales velocity. Zia can also power chatbots on the retail website to answer common questions. Finally, Zoho Flow and Zoho RPA facilitate automation in retail workflows, e.g., automatically creating a packing order in Zoho Inventory when an online payment is received, or syncing data between Zoho and external retail systems, minimizing manual work and ensuring end-to-end process integration.

Why Choose Xponential Digital

Choosing a Zoho implementation partner is just as important as selecting the right applications. At Xponential Digital, we don’t just set up the tools; we adapt the Zoho suite to match your business objectives and customize workflows around your operations. With broad industry experience, our team supports retailers and eCommerce businesses in unifying marketing, sales, finance, operations, and customer service under one system. From deployment to continuous improvement, we ensure your Zoho setup delivers real value. With Xponential Digital, you gain a trusted partner focused on efficiency and long-term success.

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