Back-Office Automation for Retailers

Growing commerce operations should not mean a linearly growing admin team, but that is the default outcome when every new channel adds another set of manual handoffs.

We build the integrations and internal tools that connect commerce platforms, support desks and ERPs — so headcount tracks the business rather than the number of systems.

30 daysNotice, no exit fee

Retail & E-commerce Solutions

Comprehensive technology solutions tailored to the unique needs of the retail & e-commerce sector.

Operational Friction

Automated Solution

Disconnected Systems

The storefront, support desk, ERP and warehouse each hold a partial view of the same order, and no two of them agree on which identifier is authoritative.

Reporting Dashboards

A reconciled view across channels built from order events rather than exports, so the weekly numbers are queried instead of reassembled.

Back-Office Friction

Each new channel or marketplace adds a fixed amount of manual reconciliation per week, so admin cost tracks the number of integrations rather than revenue.

Tool Automation

Orchestration between commerce, support and back-office systems that keeps order state consistent without a person copying it between them.

Manual Order Workflows

Returns, exchanges and supplier chases run through inboxes and spreadsheets, which means the state of a non-standard order exists only in an email thread.

Account Portals

Supplier and customer self-service over the same order records, replacing status-request email with a view they can check themselves.

Retail & E-commerce Challenges Solved

Retail back-office work scales badly for a structural reason: each new channel, marketplace or supplier multiplies the number of places an order's state can live, and the reconciliation between them is manual by default. The symptom is a weekly report rebuilt by hand because no single system holds the whole picture. The cause is that the storefront, the support desk, the ERP and the 3PL each have a partial view and none of them agrees on an identifier. Two constraints shape what a fix can look like. Handling cardholder data brings PCI DSS obligations, and the cheapest way to meet them is almost always to not hold the data at all — keeping payment details inside the processor's scope rather than pulling them into internal tooling for convenience. Separately, the FTC's Safeguards Rule (16 CFR Part 314) reaches further into retail than many teams expect, since it applies to businesses engaged in activities incidental to financial services, which can include certain instalment and credit arrangements. So the design tends toward orchestration: a workflow layer that holds order state and reconciles identifiers, while payment data stays where it is already protected and the platforms stay the systems of record.

Key Retail & E-commerce Use Cases

Practical applications of our technology in the retail & e-commerce sector

Cross-channel order state reconciliation

Returns and exchange workflows with tracked status

Supplier self-service portals over live order data

Automated handoffs between storefront, ERP and 3PL

Channel-reconciled reporting built from order events

Tokenised payment references that keep card data out of scope

Exception queues for identifier and inventory mismatches

Services behind this work

The capabilities we draw on for retail & e-commerce engagements

Digital Transformation

Custom Software Development

AI Consulting

Data Analytics

Who this is for

Retail and e-commerce operations teams whose order, returns and supplier workflows still run through spreadsheets and inboxes — usually where channel count or SKU count has grown past what the original process was designed for. It fits best where the storefront and ERP are established and working, and the pain is in the connective tissue. It fits poorly if the underlying need is a replatform; that is a different project with a different risk profile, and back-office tooling built on top of a platform you are about to leave is money spent twice.

How we work

Discovery establishes which back-office workflow is actually costing the most time, which is frequently not the one that feels worst — the loudest process is often not the most expensive one. That produces a written architecture review, estimate and delivery plan you own regardless of whether the work continues. Delivery is incremental against that workflow first, committing to your repositories with infrastructure under your accounts, on 30 days' notice with no exit fee. Release timing around peak trading is agreed at planning rather than negotiated during it, on the assumption that peak is when the workflow is least forgiving.

Expected Outcomes

Order and admin steps that move without being chased. Reporting that reconciles across channels instead of being rebuilt each week. Portal integrations that let suppliers and partners self-serve rather than email. Returns and exchanges that have a state in a system rather than in a thread. The specific gain is that adding the next channel stops adding a fixed weekly admin cost, which is the thing that makes the current setup scale badly.

Retail & E-commerce Tech FAQs

Do you build storefronts?

Rarely, and it is usually the wrong ask. Established platforms handle storefronts well and are relentlessly optimised by people who do nothing else. The work that pays off is the back-office layer around them — order workflows, returns, supplier handoffs and reporting — which is where off-the-shelf tooling tends to run out and where the manual cost actually accumulates.

Can this connect to our existing e-commerce platform and ERP?

That is the normal shape of the work. The integrations and the workflow layer on top are the deliverable; the platforms stay as the systems of record. The hard part is rarely the connection itself but agreeing which system is authoritative for each field, which discovery settles before any code is written.

What happens during peak season?

Nothing changes in production that has not been agreed. Release timing around peak is set at planning, and the design assumption is that peak is when the workflow is least forgiving — so load characteristics at peak, not at average, are what the system is sized against.

Will this put us in scope for PCI DSS?

It should not, and avoiding that is an explicit design goal. The cheapest way to meet cardholder-data obligations is to not hold the data: payment details stay inside your processor's scope and internal tooling references a token rather than a card number. If a requirement genuinely needs card data in your systems, that changes the scope of the work materially and we would raise it before scoping, not after.

How do you handle identifiers that do not match across systems?

With an explicit reconciliation layer rather than by hoping they line up. Each external system keeps its own identifier, the workflow layer holds a mapping, and mismatches raise an exception instead of silently creating a duplicate order. This is unglamorous and it is most of what makes cross-channel reporting trustworthy.

Do you cover returns and exchanges as well as orders?

Usually they are where the manual cost is concentrated, so yes. A standard order often flows through the platform without help; a return with a partial refund and a replacement shipment is what generates the email thread, and giving that a state in a system is frequently the highest-value single piece of the work.

Sources

PCI DSS standards and supporting documents — PCI Security Standards Council
16 CFR Part 314 — Standards for safeguarding customer information — US Electronic Code of Federal Regulations
EPCIS — event data exchange standard for supply chain visibility — GS1

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