By: Josh Riegle
Many of our clients benefit immensely from the eCommerce capabilities in their learning management system (LMS) that we built for them. Here’s a handful of advantages of why an LMS with eCommerce is the best way to sell courses online, saving you time and money by managing everything in one convenient location.
#1 Unmatched Training Expertise
Unlike a standard eCommerce solution, an LMS with eCommerce allows you to manage both eCommerce and training all in one place. An LMS with eCommerce gives you the ability to:
- Attach surveys to the courses you sell
- Set pre-requisites
- Sell admission to training events
- Book rooms
- Manage waitlists
- Track attendance
- Group courses together
#2 Advanced Tracking & Reporting
It’s essential to maintain training records when it comes to professional certification, licensing and compliance training. An LMS with eCommerce can benefit both administrators and learners with advanced tracking and reporting.
- All activity in the LMS is tracked for both learners and administrators and can be accessed at any time.
- The version of the course can be tracked to determine if learners need to complete a newer version.
- Detailed reports can be pulled to give valuable insight into the most popular and profitable courses and even areas for improvement.
#3 Extendable Access for B2B
If your company has a B2B model, an LMS with eCommerce can give you the flexibility to extend access to your training so that your employees, customers and/or channel partners can all have their own separate sites.
- Manage multiple sites from one administrator account
- Grant or restrict access to any part of the platform
- Implement multi-tenancy plug-ins (for Totara)
#4 Pricing Options
An eCommerce LMS can be custom built to use a variety of different pricing models, such as:
- Bulk purchase/voucher buying options for a B2B model
- Subscription-based pricing
- And more!
#5 Certifications
If the training you sell will be used for any type of certification program, you can benefit greatly from an LMS, as it can manage the entire process for you. Some LMS features for certification programs include:
- Certifications are automatically generated after the training is complete, or a specific score is received.
- You can assign different credit amounts or types for an individual course.
- There are automated reminders sent to learners when a certificate is close to expiring, prompting them to sign up again.
#6 Compliance Made Easy
Staying in compliance doesn’t have to be challenging! Utilizing an LMS with eCommerce will streamline the management process for you. Some handy features include:
- eSignatures
- Compliance dashboard plug-ins (for Totara)
- Audit-ready compliance reports
#7 External System Integrations
LMSs give you the freedom to integrate with external systems and all sorts of functionality to reduce administrative time.
- Integrate with CMS, CRM, HRIS, AMS to create new user accounts
- Set system rules
- Automatically register users
#8 Flexibility, Scalability and Freedom with Open Source
Any kind of proprietary software won’t give you the freedoms you need to test out the right the solution. Here are some benefits of going open source:
- No vendor lock-in
- Reduced cost (no per-user fees)
- Constant stream of innovation
Webanywhere has vast experience in open source, unique-use learning management solutions with eCommerce capabilities which we have built for companies like Texas Instruments, IPC and CATV to name a few. We can build a Totara platform for you from scratch or implement our own custom eCommerce, multi-tenancy or mandatory compliance training dashboard plug-ins with your existing Totara platform.
We’d love the opportunity to showcase our solutions to you. Feel free to reach out to me for a private demo at (312) 588-7284 ext. 124.
Josh Riegle is a National Account Executive at Webanywhere who is passionate about open source technology. He’s also an expert in creating H5P content. Josh connects with L&D professionals on a daily basis helping them find the right learning platforms and training solutions to meet their precise needs.