We recently had the opportunity to speak with Mikel Lindsaar, CEO and founder of StoreConnect, about StoreConnect’s most recent integration with TwoCanConnect, the advantages that this integration will have on small businesses, the time that consumers will be able to save entering individual invoices into Xero using the TwoCanConnect + StoreConnect, effects of direct StoreConnect integration on the users of Salesforce, and the impact of eCommerce linkages on online shopping.
Mikel Lindsaar, CEO and founder of StoreConnect, is an experienced technology entrepreneur whose mission is to infuse small and medium-sized businesses with the power to be successful in eCommerce 3.0 and scale to meet growing demand. Small businesses can’t waste time setting up their business on a platform only to repeat the process by changing platforms when they want to scale, nor do they want to waste time figuring out how to integrate multiple platforms. StoreConnect (built on the World’s Number 1 CRM, Salesforce) gives clients a complete, powerful, configurable eCommerce and CRM solution where they can manage their website, online and in-store sales, provide amazing customer service, run all their digital marketing campaigns, and have up-to-date detailed metrics, reporting and full understanding of their customer. They were awarded Salesforce’s 2021 International Partner Innovation Award of the year for the Retail sector and are changing the ease with which small businesses are run ─ with a manageable price tag. StoreConnect is Time. Well spent. Visit getStoreConnect.com.
How will you describe your journey as an entrepreneur, which has included experience in network infrastructure design, VOIP and telephony, custom web application development, and operating profitable SaaS businesses?
Rocky! But a lot of fun!
I don’t think there is a self-made entrepreneur out there that has not had their fair share ups and downs, it is tough creating and growing businesses and you quickly learn that the people around you have their own problems and have little time for yours.
So, I think my biggest take away though on the journey is that there is ALWAYS something you can do about any situation that you are presented with, and really, the only way to truly fail is to decide to fail and give up.
What do you think of StoreConnect’s most recent integration with TwoCanConnect? How will small and medium-sized firms benefit from this integration?
When I built StoreConnect my vision was to make life easier for the “Davids” of small business owners and allow them to compete on an even footing with the Goliaths of industry. That meant making sure StoreConnect makes it possible for integrations to occur. So, I’m delighted that TwoCanConnect has taken the opportunity to integrate their system with StoreConnect, it just opens a lot more opportunities for our joint customers.
This integration though really was made possible by our early decision to build StoreConnect on top of Salesforce and leverage the core features of Salesforce, allowing other Salesforce Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) like TwoCanConnect to easily build integrations with us. This provides incredible benefits to end customers, who do not have to spend valuable money and time building custom integrations to accounting systems.
How much time can the consumer save entering individual invoices into Xero using the TwoCanConnect + StoreConnect?
Obviously, every business is different, but if you were doing 10 or 20 invoices per day, all the manual time that it would have previously taken to key those invoices, as well as the time spent checking and correcting for errors would be completely saved.
So, for a good-sized small business, this could easily add up to half of a team member’s job, every week, week after week.
These sorts of savings are significant to small businesses and allow for greater expansion, and more importantly, more jobs and employment.
On top of this, the manual data entry can quickly eat away at margins, causing retail giants to gain an even larger lead over small businesses by discounting further.
How would the direct StoreConnect integration affect the users of Salesforce? How will it be a unique, integrated solution for them?
Many small businesses have to give up control of their data to industry giants like Amazon to fulfil customer order requests. Big companies can afford data integration, but it doesn’t come cheap. With StoreConnect being built directly on the Salesforce platform you have E-Commerce and CRM in one place. There is no duplication or writing of data from one system to another – it IS one integrated system.
What impact, in your opinion, will these eCommerce linkages have on online retailers’ ability to operate more affordably and with fewer resources being strained?
We refer to this integration as E-Commerce 3.0 which is shorthand for a fully integrated system where the user owns the data and has a real-time source of truth on their business and customers. The benefits are obvious as the online retailer only must worry about one system with one version of data. It makes taking and delivering orders much faster since you don’t have to jump between systems, double-enter data and then go on the merry-go-round of getting systems to talk to each other. And since you don’t have to pay humans to get the systems to talk to each other it is far more efficient and cost-effective to service clients. Ultimately this makes your online retailing business more profitable and more valuable to investors.
