Zoho Commerce stands out for its simplicity, support, and intuitive design, which makes it easy to set up. It's like having my own IT team. If you have all your products, pricing, and media content ready, you can easily be up and running in a few hours with Zoho Commerce.
- John Reagan
CEO, E-Powersport
The company
E-Powersport is an electric mobility, micro-mobility dealer, repair and knowledge company, founded by John Reagan. It started as an online store selling e-bikes, e-scooters, and e-motorcycles, with the idea to provide people with efficient, reliable electric transportation.
The challenge
Reagan had previously run a company that handled business consulting process design, and always believed in the ability of tech to transform businesses. "Today, even the smallest businesses can benefit from a simple website—but if you can add an interactive component like a store, you'll get more sales," says Reagan, who began using electric vehicles and felt this was the way forward.
He began looking for tech solutions online. "I had looked at Shopify and Office 365 and these were quite expensive. Also, if I scaled up my work over the years, I'd have to spend a lot more to get all the add-on integrations." Reagan had some experience with Zoho while running his earlier venture, so he knew that an online presence would be possible with Zoho Commerce.
Solution and benefits
Reagan believes that a lot of common knowledge about customer acquisition, which focuses on high spends on social media platforms, needed to be given a second thought. "I found my ROI to be low with the traditional method of social media advertising, but I had benefited from Zoho Social, which allowed me to quickly manage my posts and respond to people. It brings customers in. Also, SalesIQ gives me a good contact point to leverage with our customers. These conversations have led us to many sales."
Besides, having used Zoho services for over 12 years, it made sense to have Zoho at the core of their IT. Reagan started coding right from the age of 10 and knew clearly what he wanted. "Having worked in IT in the past, I knew that it was best not to take on the IT risks. I entrusted everything to Zoho. I also have high regards for the emphasis Zoho has on security. It was the most cost-effective option for a small business and at the enterprise level, it's as good as it gets."
The initial test site for E-Powersport was live in a couple of hours. "I took a month to build the complete website. But if you have all your products, pricing, and media content ready, you could easily be up and running in a few hours with Zoho Commerce," says Reagan, who is also using Creator, Inventory, Books, Social, and CRM among other Zoho apps. "We're even creating payment plug-ins with the help of Zoho and the payment processors, which we'll be making available to other Zoho Commerce users via the Marketplace."
Reagan keeps a tab on his Zoho integrations to check the traffic flows, target channels, and the performance of their media campaigns. "I check the purchase trends, the source of website traffic, and the products that evoke a lot of interest. I'm able to plan my purchase orders better that way. We're not sitting with stock that nobody wants. What we've gathered so far is guiding our business decisions." E-mountain bikes and e-motorcycles have drawn a steady response on the website from customers.
This is one of the many comparison charts on the E-Powersport website. It's an embedded Creator application they've made to address all the information in one place. Reagan intends to use Creator and some automation to make those tools live. These will also be updated at regular intervals to allow people to make the best decision for their needs.
"Other platforms come with a huge disadvantage, where you need to get different plug-ins separately. It leads to a huge support issue and is a cost drain on the company. Zoho allows seamless integration with different apps working in tandem," says Reagan, who believes that automation, if done right, can make a great deal of difference to a business.
"Automation has to be done correctly, where it runs through the right processes and hits the right points, and human interaction can be reserved for validation. If you can strike that balance, one person can provide the output of 10. Automation needs to augment your employees' capabilities, so they can then focus on helping your customers.
The road ahead
Today, E-Powersport runs fully online. Reagan intends to open a brick and mortar facility and use Zoho to power that as well. "We're currently approaching investors to open multiple physical locations. We'll be leveraging the full power and systems integration capabilities of the Zoho family of applications. With its predictable costs, backed by a developer-centric support team, we expect this to help us grow fast, while easily scaling systems to meet our growth."