"There are three aspects to a solution - the first is speed of deployment, second is the cost and the third aspect is the experience of the customer. Zoho Commerce scores well in these three areas.
- Shiju PM, CEO, Miwafes
The partner
The name Miwafes comes from the elements that control life—Mind, Intellect, Water, Air, Fire, Ether, and Space. The company provides digital business models and implements digital transformation solutions and business analytics tools that help offline businesses to be data driven.
The challenge
Miwafes began its Zoho journey with the trial version of CRM, which they initially tested for their own company as a way to automate their processes. "We found that Zoho was an interesting product. We talked to our existing clients for whom we were implementing some legacy applications. We wanted a cloud-based application and began implementing Zoho," said Shiju PM, the CEO of Miwafes.
The solution
Miwafes began implementing Zoho with CRM. "Our own business has two segments— one is training and the other is consulting. CRM worked for us and then we tried Zoho Showtime, which we used for our training. We were also using Zoho Forms to capture customer data. We then built our website on Zoho Sites as we wanted a more flexible option to build it. We automated all our workflows. That is how our journey began with Zoho. We used these products first and then implemented them for other businesses," Shiju explained.
Over time, mailers from Zoho introduced them to Zoho Commerce. "We explored the product further, and during the lockdown implemented a project for a customer with an ecommerce website built using Zoho Commerce."
Miwafes started with the trial version of Commerce and immediately saw the ease of building a store and the flexibility it provided. "We saw that in a traditional business model, businesses were doing a lot of transactions on credit, and this caused a cash crunch now and then. Moving their store online helped them have a seamless cash flow. With Zoho Commerce, implementation of SEO became easy and the whole experience was cost effective," Shiju said. Before Zoho, Miwafes focused on implementing legacy systems but they saw the benefit of working on the cloud.
"Initially, when our clients opt for Zoho Commerce, they go for the basic version. But after using it for a while, they invariably scale up and go for the advanced plans. It's interesting how the front ending has been done by Zoho with Commerce, even as other products work at the back-end. The customers are impressed with this set-up. Now even multichannel integration with Amazon, Facebook and Google Shopping has been made possible. All these have been useful to scale up the businesses."
In Commerce, Miwafes saw a tool that could be used to build a digital business model. "Commerce allows for a multichannel presence with its integration with Amazon and Google Shopping. The Buy button option is another nice feature and with an HTML code, it can be easily embedded in various platforms. Integrations in shipping and payment gateways are excellent. The product-level SEO is amazing. The track and trace functionalities made available for the customer are very good. While retailers can make good use of Zoho Commerce, even some service companies can utilize this product. For these reasons, we don't see Zoho Commerce merely as an ecommerce platform. It is an automated digital business tool," Shiju said, as he gave an example of an interesting implementation done by Miwafes.
"Recently we implemented Commerce for a diagnostic lab. After the pandemic, their business model had changed. Rather than customers walking into the lab, they were looking for home collection. Keeping that demand in mind, we implemented a sound business model for the diagnostic center using Zoho Commerce. Then there is another client who is a safety equipment producer who has been conducting his business via Zoho Commerce. Today, retailing is becoming e-tailing. Everyone wants a digital model. There are popular products like Tally and SAP but they do not have a front-end ecommerce site setup like Zoho."
Shiju believes that the advantages of Zoho Commerce stand out in several ways. "There are three aspects to a solution—the first is speed of deployment, the second is the cost, and the third aspect is the experience of the customer. Zoho Commerce scores well in these three areas. The site builder of Zoho Commerce is user-friendly, which helps you create your own set of designs before you push out the website. People are looking for dynamic websites and with Page Sense, we are also seeing how we can personalize the website more. Then there are additional marketing automations like abandoned cart follow-ups, which make life easier for the business owner. Then with Zoho Analytics added, they can take sound data-driven decisions," Shiju said.
To learn more about the digital transformation solutions of Miwafes, visit their website