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Many merchants may face a problem of optimal product management, inventory, billing rates ... which gradually with the development of their business will put more stress. At one point in the development of the company's business, a matter of improving the flow management will arise and even become crucial. Should I develop an interface between my solution to e-commerce (osCommerce, ClicShopping, PrestaShop, Magento ...) with an ERP or is it to develop my ecommerce solution taking into account my own business needs? This strategic issue is difficult to resolve because the costs of development, integration can be diffcult see significant quantifiable excluding pass in the organizational environment of the company. Here is some considerations on our part to help. - Ecommerce solutions, including open source, can easily evolve and incorporate many features to enhance business management. Furthermore the integration of new features to meet the needs of business not too complicated can be easily implemented. - The introduction of synchronous or asynchronous links, using current technologies, can help pair your e-commerce solution for ERP. The question is, should it my solution ecommerce pilot partially my ERP or my ERPsolution pilotpartially my Ecommerce sofware or the two solutions that are synchronized if a action is made on one or the other. There is no specific answer, it must fit with your business needs and abilities of management information between the ERP and Ecommerce platform or vice versa but also in terms of growing your business, the needs of business and organizational envrionment. A small business, a medium enterprise or a large have needs that are completely different. Case of development of a major business or organizational environment already structured. In this case, the choice of the implementation of ERP systems such as steering information is clear because it is beyond this article and creates a complete business management envrionment taking into account accounting, human resources, projects ... Ecommerce platform was only a element of the commercial sales force that reflects the product catalog for customers to the company. All activity related to product management is managed by the ERP that will drive the ecommerce site. If the ERP does not include its own ecommerce platform, then it will put in place a very rigorous technical link between the ERP and ecommerce solution. A project that will require a lot of technical analysis and be faced with many constraints. Avantages : - Seamless integration of information systems - No duplication of information between technical platforms - Native link with accounting (which is a limit of ecommerce platforms) - link with other channels sales force of the company Disadvantages : - The architecture to implement is not simple and requires a good understanding of business processes - Timing information can be problematic if a break occurs - High cost generally. For a development in a non structured, small company or launching a ecommerce business In case the activity is to offer products on the internet without a strong coupling of the enterprise information platform and ecommerce system, the choice of the establishment of an ERP may arise but can be helpful. Useful because even if the link between the two platforms is not entirely successful, it will allow the company to develop an organizational environment, business minima structured and save time in managing its daily business. Not useful for the implementation of an ERP system is related to relatively high stresses, see too evolved for acttivté company in the field of ecommerce and its pilot everyday tool. In this case the ecommera§ant prefer to have a greater agility in its inventory, rates and customer relations (sales) ... Avantages : - Scalability of the system depending on the degree of evolution of the business environment - Product management and business relationship integrated ecommerce platform - Nonessential synchronization with ERP platform, but not with very low cost and scalable thereafter - Lighter Architecture Disadvantages : - does not cover a spectrum ERP can - Duality of information produced can include the product sheet, inventory management ... - The analytical analysis is more limited fortiori - The consideration of compatibility can be a problem Conclusion : There is no single solution, everything is related to the degree of formalization of the organizational environment, the evolution of the company's business and strategy development. But the possibilities for e-retailers are present and allow it time to choose the degree of coupling of information systems enabling it to improve its daily management to better respond to changes in its activity. Currently, Odoo, ex OpenERP is a interesting solution for the little or medium company. Note : ClicShopping integrate natively coupling with openSource Odoo (eg OpenERP),. This will allow the merchant to have flexibility on their ecommerce platform in the daily management but also in providing a reliable tool for structuring activity. Moreover, as the whole is in open source, the cost is greatly reduced. The client, based on its needs and the evolution of its business, will have the option to enable or not the link between ClicShopping and Odoo to see and subsequently invest to have a sharper coupling. More