There are many important factors when deciding who will be your eCommerce partner. We use the term "partner" because in many ways, our mutual success is linked together. As a result, online merchants need to think about some key areas as they enter in to what will likely be a multi-year relationship.The eCommerce SpectrumWe won't go into great detail as this could be a white paper on its own. It is, however, important to understand that you can accomplish an eCommerce website in a few different general ways. They are:- Build software in-house
- Purchase software
- Host built/purchased software internally or through a 3rd party hosting firm (many levels here)
- Find a mass-market hosted frontend shopping cart
- Find a backend hosted order processing system to attach to your shopping cart (as you grow)
- Partner with an On-Demand eCommerce Solution Provider which normally have front end shopping cart software and backend order processing software, as well as high availability hosting in a turn key solution.
With the capital markets tightening down, its clear that large up-front software and hardware purchasing will not be the first choice for many businesses. Developing your own eCommerce software is almost like building your own word processor or spreadsheet - why re-invent the wheel? On-Demand eCommerce or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution providers offer a powerful core eCommerce platform, on a redundant hosting network payable on a monthly basis. This reduces time-to-sales and allows development budgets to stay focused on creating software and components that enhance the unique value of your business.
Checkmark #1: Ability to Deliver
Lets just start off by saying any company you choose should have a successful track record. Online merchants should probe deeply to get a comfort level on the following from the eCommerce provider:
- Operational structure
- Technology used and redundancies
- Case Studies and Customer References
- Company history, values, and where they're headed
You don't need a 50 page document here, but it is important to do your due diligence and ensure the answers to these questions give you a comfort level that your potential new partner is not a fly-by-night operation. If you feel like there may be a fit, before you sign a contract talk to a Customer reference about their journey and experiences so far.
Important things to ask a reference:
- Are they responsive to your needs?
- Have you ever experienced downtime? if so why, and how often?
- What's the one thing that made a huge difference for your business?
- If you could improve one thing, what would it be?
References are a great piece of validation, but it should come towards the end of the process when you already know they can meet your needs.
Checkmark #2: Find Alignment with your CompanyAs with any service provider relationship, it helps to have a company that you can relate to at many levels. Online merchants should consider:- Size of eCommerce provider - 800 pound gorilla vs. start-up, vs. high growth - these details may affect service quality / relationship.
- How long they've been in business?
- Customer Service Approach - is this important to the provider? Can you pickup the phone and talk to someone that can help you succeed online?
- Your growth stage - are you making the leap to a higher-end solution? Do you have high growth expectations? Will the eCommerce solution scale up with your business plans or force you to re-launch and find a new solution in a few years?
Coming to grips with this is important. Your busienss will be more important to one provider than anothers and its critical to establish this alignment.
Checkmark #3: Your Top 3-5 Pain Points
Have you ever seen a typical eCommerce feature list? If the solution is feature rich, you're looking at possibly 500 or 1,000 lines of text. Not a great way to evaluate anything. So start by picking out 3-5 key things that are challenging today and that you want to specifically improve upon the day the new eCommerce solution goes live.
Any effective consultative sales engagement is about mapping "pain points" and business requirements to the solution and communicating this to the Customer. Whenever we do demos, we start off by asking what is most important to you and what would make the biggest positive impact on your business today. Another question we ask is: "What wastes your time the most, or causes you the most grief." Questions like this immediately identify where you need to improve and what tasks need to be delegated to an automated technology solution. If you can identify these key issues, and find a way to eliminate them, then you will have more free time to focus on growing your business.
Some examples we hear often include:
- Product Management, Content Management and site updates
- Keeping Inventory levels accurate and in sync with other systems such as a POS system
- Easy to use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) features
- Comprehensive reports including, up to the minute sales figures, inventory levels, advertising performance (PPC, etc.)
A simple way to evaluate a service providers sales process is if they're proactively working to understand your top needs. This will also tell you if they're really listening to you. After the product demo, you should have a good comfort that your immediate needs will be met.
Ultimately the final proposal should be reflective of these points.
Checkmark #4: Your Wish List
By limiting the scope of your immediate needs, you should then build a subsequent list of future plans or areas you would like to know more about. For example, SEO control may not be something that is a huge concern over some immediate challenges but may be a deal breaker if the provider cannot deliver this down the road.
This also gives you the opportunity to understand how the service provider responds to questions you may have. After all, they will be a provider of business-critical services for you - you need to know you can pick up the phone and ask them important questions and expect consultative responses. This process should be collaborative with clarifying questions to make sure they understand your needs prior to delivering you a solution.
What if they don't have the features?
If the feature you need is on your core list, you probably didn't hit check mark #3. However if it is something that you can wait for, then the question is a much larger issue. This is because it starts to push on a fundamental issue faced by many online merchants... future features that you may need to drive business - that's check mark #5.
Checkmark #5: Your Future
eCommerce is accelerating at light speeds and online merchants must be able to exploit all the possibilities the Internet may present over time. This includes things like:
- Integration with popular websites and social destinations
- Cross selling and distribution to widen your audience
- Payment and Authorization services
- Marketing and promotions management
- Fulfillment and shipping services
This is a moving target so what you want to know here to meet check mark #5 is really some fundamental company values of your service provider:
- Do they plan on enhancing their platform? When was the last time? How often? If not, move on.
- Flexibility to add new features on-demand - How does this process work? How are they evaluated?
- New feature release cycle (standard release cycle) - How many per year?
- Service Level Agreement - do they even offer one? How does it align to your business needs?
Your future service provider should have a strategy in place to continuously drive future value to online merchants and their end shoppers. This should be a main part of their website, collateral, philosophy, team structure, and business plan.
If you're not getting the signs and signals that this is a core operating focus, you need to continue looking. We call this Dynamic Merchandising at OrderDynamics and this is reflected in our mission statement.
Mutual Success
Its totally clear that your success is highly underpinned by the eCommerce solution you select. The right partner will recognize that you are very much a key to their success. This "partnership" approach isn't for all online merchants, albeit recommended, and the level of the solution will vary based on where they're at in their eCommerce Journey.
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