1. technology and computing
2. internet technology
3. ecommerce

Where every interaction matters.
Winning eCommerce
Sites Go Beyond the
Shopping Cart
How to Avoid the Common
Platform Pitfalls that Derail
eCommerce Success
White Paper
October 2012
By: Shane Blandford, CEO of Orange Collar Media
www.peer1.com
Contents
Introduction 3
Key considerations for eCommerce success Supply chain/inventory management
Order fulfilment Customer support experience Driving traffic Back-end integration Common barriers to success Comparing two real-world eCommerce site launches Summary: Delivering an optimal shopping experience goes beyond
having a shopping cart About the author
About the Author
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White Paper
Introduction
Are you able to accomplish everything that you want with your eCommerce
platform—now or three years from now? If the answer is “no,” then you should
be considering a platform switch sooner rather than later. You won’t be alone
by doing so, as retailers are searching for every competitive advantage online.
Forrester Research conducted a survey asking companies when and if they
plan to replace their eCommerce platform and a majority have plans in place:
• 9% plan to change it within 12 months
• 12% within 12 to 18 months
• 25% within 18 to 24 months
• 20% within 24 to 36 months
But don’t fall into the trap of choosing a platform with only the features you
need today. A shortsighted approach will leave you undergoing another
platform migration far too soon in order to satisfy your marketing requirements.
Or it will force you to integrate additional solutions over time to address your
changing needs—and that means more work and more challenges deploying,
administering and managing the technologies underpinning your business.
The reasons for an eCommerce platform migration are myriad. You may
need to enable advanced merchandising and sales, such as mobile
applications. You might need to integrate with existing warehousing and
inventory systems. Or you may require global scalability, performance,
language and social commerce support, as well as the ability to deliver a site
user experience that facilitates shopping and keeps customers returning.
An eCommerce platform isn’t a
once-and-done
eCommerce sites can quickly
stagnate. And it’s tough to regain
momentum if you do not stay
abreast of the latest best practices.
In the past, many of these features were seen as nice-to-haves only available
to the largest retailers. Now these capabilities are best practices—and
table stakes—for any successful eCommerce site. In fact, without these
capabilities, you risk losing significant revenue and market share.
Key considerations for
eCommerce success
Building an eCommerce system is one piece of a much larger operation
that can’t be approached in a vacuum. You need to understand what you’re
doing well and where you need to improve to deliver an optimal customer
experience—the ultimate measure of eCommerce success and the one that
affects all success metrics. That goes beyond the look and feel of your site.
And it’s about more than a one-time exercise. The following are the most
critical considerations—and the ones that often trip up retailers.
Supply chain/inventory
management
Being able to deliver for your customers means having product in stock and
available, and that requires you to maintain an accurate accounting of your
inventory. Inventory levels can change quickly, especially at certain times of
the year. Consider that while most retailers turn their inventory three times
a year, an online retailer can turn inventory in a single month. That’s why it’s
critical to establish a plan for handling inventory.
Tip:
Even if you only sell through your
eCommerce channel, create a plan
for handling back orders, out-ofstocks and low inventory levels.
Read on for key considerations as you’re preparing for your eCommerce
platform launch.
The key is to understand how your supply chain works across your entire
business. Specifically, how do you get product into and out of your
warehouse, and how do you know how many parts or products are on
hand? This is vital for an accurate inventory count and ensuring you’re not
overselling and under-delivering to your customers.
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As a first step, determine how many channels you’re selling products
through (for example, your eCommerce site, eBay and Amazon). Then
pinpoint how inventory is recognized and reconciled across these channels.
For example, do you know how inventory levels are displayed on the
platforms that support these channels?
Order fulfilment
You can present the most dazzling, intuitive easy-to-use eCommerce site
featuring popular products that consumers love. But if you don’t smoothly
fulfil orders, customers will likely be upset—and very possibly choose not to
purchase from you again.
To avoid this pitfall, document your order fulfilment process. Determine how
you retrieve the order and start the fulfilment process once an order is placed.
For example, do you need to manually submit an order or does your
eCommerce system handle this? What is the process for picking, packing
and creating a shipping label? How do you ensure the order gets picked up
by a shipper?
Tip:
Make sure your production server’s
DNS settings are configured to
allow outbound email.
Feedback to customers is critical but often overlooked. Consider whether
you communicate order and shipment details to customers in real time or if
you send out batch communications at the end of each day. If the latter, are
you prepared to handle associated customer support issues? For instance, if
someone places an order for next-day delivery and doesn’t receive a timely
email confirmation that the order is on its way, the customer is likely to call
your company for an explanation.
Customer support experience
Unless you’re selling your own products, you’re competing against other
retailers selling the same products. That means price and customer service set
you apart. Here you need to understand how your customers receive support
and the ramifications for your business.
Start by mapping customer touch points so you can ensure meaningful,
streamlined interactions. While this is crucial to customer satisfaction,
it’s also critical to your bottom line. After all, customer service is a cost
centre for any business, and the ability to minimise direct interaction with
customers has a tremendous impact on your expenses.
Next, document your support model and processes. For example, will you
handle customer service via live chat, phone or through an online form?
When you issue an RMA for a returned item, is the process smooth from the
customer’s perspective?
The reality is that you’ll need to deal with unhappy customers. Think through
your process for handling them, and understand how your eCommerce
system needs to support those interactions. For example, if a customer calls
upset because he hasn’t received confirmation of an order, your customer
service representatives need access to all the order and shipping details
in real time. Or can you empower customers to check on their order and
shipment status by logging into your site?
Tip:
Use a CRM system that will allow
you to track responses, response
times and create metrics to
monitor the performance of your
customer service team.
Ultimately you need to understand how all your processes impact customer
service, such as whether you can expect the volume of phone calls to go
up or down. Just as important, you need to monitor and analyse where
you spend time interacting with customers before and after platform
implementation, making adjustments as necessary to keep customers
happy and costs in check.
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Driving traffic
Traffic won’t appear just because you have an eCommerce site. Considering
that repeat customers are your most valuable ones, you have to give them
reasons to keep returning to your site. The eCommerce platform you
choose can make this easier—not harder. Be sure it supports you in the
following ways:
Tip:
Validate that the eCommerce
platform supports your full range
of marketing needs—including integration with marketing
software—so you can access and
manage everything from a single
• Landing pages. Ensure the platform allows you to create landing
pages and track conversion rates so you can understand your return on
investments (ROI) in Google AdWords and other online marketing tactics.
• Email marketing. Verify that the platform supports integration with email
services. This is essential. For example, when you want to follow up with a
site visitor who abandoned the shopping cart, you may be able to salvage a
lost sale by sending the shopper a coupon via email.
• Analytics. Make sure you can analyze your site’s performance and pinpoint
issues so you can respond to them quickly and avoid revenue loss.
Back-end integration
Because your eCommerce site is tied closely to your overall operations and
processes, you want to make sure you can easily integrate with relevant
back-end systems. With that in mind, identify all the systems that need to
communicate with your eCommerce platform. For instance, you likely need
to connect with your ERP system for multi-channel fulfilment. Determine how
you are doing that today, or how you will need to do that going forward. Just
as important, decide which system is the single source of truth for customer
and product details and what it will take to integrate with it.
Tip:
Avoid inelegant “bolt-ons” and,
instead, look for the ability to
seamlessly integrate with backend systems.
Common barriers to success
Don’t overlook what’s required to create a unique shopper experience. These
days that requires the ability to interact with customers and trigger activities
such as product recommendations based on site activity, such as past
purchases or purchases made by similar shoppers. Find out if the eCommerce
platform supports event-driven integration, for example, by automatically
updating the warehouse and customer support in real time about a purchase.
In general, retailers come up against three issues that make it challenging to
achieve eCommerce success:
• Failing to grasp the limitations of their data set
• Operating in silos
• Being in firefighting mode
Failing to grasp the limitations of their data set
While many factors play into eCommerce success, the ultimate determinant
is data cleanliness and availability. After all, data underpins the entire
eCommerce process.
Tip:
Understand your product set and
make sure all relevant products
are associated with each other.
In many cases, retailers believe their data is clean and that they have
an abundance of it. Unfortunately, the existing data set often doesn’t
support the retailer’s needs. For example, an apparel company may want
to display clothing options by size, color, material, gender and category
(such as “workout” or “casual wear”). To show these options on the site,
your database of product descriptions must precisely cover all possible
permutations. At the same time, you need to think about how products are
associated with one another for cross-selling purposes. For example, which
trousers should you suggest to go with the dress shirt your shopper is about
to purchase?
Operating in silos
Because eCommerce is integral to your overall business, all your business
units and departments need to communicate with the eCommerce group.
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Yet too many organizations operate in silos—and this impacts online
shoppers, who must contend with slow-loading pages, back orders, and
with customer service reps who struggle to provide updates on inventory
availability or shipping dates, for example.
Map out and consider how activities and changes in your business impact
your eCommerce platform. For example, what happens if you engage a new
shipping provider or open a new distribution center?
At the same time, marketing and IT need to be on the same page. In essence,
they both own the site and need to be unified to ensure marketing campaigns
launch without a hitch and that the site can handle the resulting traffic surges.
This means they have to make decisions jointly and work together consistently
to understand expectations and limitations on both sides.
Being in firefighting mode
Many retailers find themselves scrambling to address seasonal requirements
with the latest and greatest technologies. Rather than making drastic
modifications to the eCommerce platform every year, focus on continuously
improving your processes and site. This ensures you keep pace with shopper
expectations and helps you avoid the last-minute holiday site planning that
leaves everyone stressed.
Comparing real-world eCommerce
site launches
The following two real-world examples help illustrate the importance of
setting realistic expectations, embracing best practices and avoiding the
pitfalls presented.
Launching an eCommerce site
In the fall of 2010, Orange Collar Media, a web development company, and
Peer 1 Hosting began working with a retailer selling home décor through
seven brick-and-mortar outlets. The retailer had a single web page and
wanted to develop a full online retail presence. It also wanted to go live in
90 days. However, the retailer soon learned this was unrealistic for a site
representing thousands of products.
Orange Collar Media normally pulls product data from a client’s existing site
in two weeks or fewer. But because it was essentially building the site from
scratch, the web development firm had to work closely with the client for
four months to define all product descriptions, pricing rules and gather all
necessary product images.
Next, Orange Collar Media and the client scripted the purchase process. This
addressed everything from how the company would drive site traffic and who
processes the order on the back end, manages stock and picks and packs an
order to which shippers would be used and how returns would be handled.
When it came to back-end integration, Orange Collar Media had to connect the
new platform with the client’s existing POS system, which presented data from
cash registers in the client’s seven retail outlets. The firm had to transfer CSV
files at timed intervals between the client’s POS system—the source of truth
about inventory and stock status—and the new eCommerce platform.
From start to finish, the new platform launch took 13 months.
Re-launching a platform
For another project, Orange Collar Media worked with a client changing
eCommerce platforms. Because the retailer already had an eCommerce
presence, the web firm was able to automatically pull product data,
descriptions and photos for the 6,000 SKUs into the new platform.
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At the same time, the client already had established processes for fulfilment,
handling customer service and RMAs. As a result, Orange Collar Media
and the retailer could focus on getting the most out of a new platform and
addressing unique needs such as associating products at scale.
The re-launch was completed in four months.
Summary: Delivering an optimal
shopping experience goes beyond
having a shopping cart
Consumer expectations about online shopping are continually changing,
along with the eCommerce platforms that enable that experience. Those
retailers that approach an eCommerce platform project from a strategic
standpoint are able to satisfy those expectations while extracting maximum
value from their investment.
The first step down a strategic path is to honestly assess your existing
capabilities and weaknesses when it comes to eCommerce. This includes
actively developing related processes and reviewing the product and
pricing data that will underpin your site. Taking this step will empower you to
engage in an honest conversation with your web development firm, leading
to lower costs and faster time to market.
Remember, your goal is to launch a platform that will enable you to deliver
an optimal customer experience both today, and in six months, 12 months
and so on. If you plan your platform to only address current needs, you’ll
find yourself re-launching in another year or two. However, by choosing a
platform that satisfies a future-looking roadmap of eCommerce needs, you
should be able to get up to four years of value from your platform.
At the same time, you want to continually adapt your platform throughout
the year to keep pace with changing shopper demands. This also helps stave
off the need for a complete re-launch or migration, while also eliminating
seasonal stress for your IT team.
About the Author
Shane Blandford, CEO of Orange Collar Media
Orange Collar Media is a Magento-focused agency located in Denver,
Colorado. As a Peer 1 Hosting Partner, OCM is recognized for creating some
of the top-performing Magento sites.
As the CEO and founder of Orange Collar Media, Shane brings over 15 years
of combined software development and business experience to the table.
Having a very strong technical background has allowed Shane to lead his
team to consistently produce technically complex Magento Enterprise sites.
Call us to get started now.
1.866.579.9690 / peer1.com
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