Ecommerce CatalogBlueport.com

• HTML5 Moves to the Head of the Line for E-Commerce Web Development
  
• When It Comes to the Newest Technology, Set Objectives First
  
• The Next Big Thing in Big-Ticket E-Commerce
  
• What You Should Know About E-Commerce Hosting
  

• Improving the Big-Ticket E-Commerce Online Shopping Experience
• Approaching E-Commerce Applications with the Wisdom of Maturity
• Creating an Immersive Online Shopping Experience

• "T-Commerce" Reinvented As iPads Reshape Multichannel Retail
• Retail E-Commerce Trends to Watch in 2011
• A Big Screen for Big-Ticket: In Defense of the iPad
• Square Register Lets Retailers Play with the iPad Too

• A Fluid Online Shopping Experience Trumps Deals and Offers
• Marketing to the Smarter Consumer
• E-commerce 2.0 – the Next Wave

Ecommerce is an excellent way to bring a new stream of sales revenue to your retail business as well as to gain awareness for your brand. However, if your retail business is composed of franchises, you face a number of unique challenges. That means you need a unique franchise commerce solution for operating on the Web.

The International Franchise Association outlined a number of issues franchise companies may face as they consider ecommerce. Among them:

• Who establishes pricing and the terms of purchase with the customer?
• What are both the franchise company and the franchisee each responsible for when fulfilling orders? Customer support?
• Who gets credit -- and revenue -- from the sale?
• Who is responsible for billings and collections?

And because of these concerns, the International Franchise Association suggests that franchise companies looking to try ecommerce “consider adopting ecommerce models that…actively involve franchisees.”

Our Franchise Commerce Solution

Blueport Commerce embraces franchises. In a previous blog post -- “Ecommerce for franchise retail: Can it be done?” -- we discussed how our ecommerce solution specifically works for the franchise model. We are able to help you centralize much of the heavy lifting around merchandising, catalog, marketing and technology with the parent brand, while each independent franchise dealer retains local control of the online store content, pricing, marketing and fulfillment.

More than 900 independently owned and operated dealers use Blueport Commerce to offer their local customers a best in class franchise retail experience online. Find out why.
 

There’s no shortage of e-commerce conventional wisdom - sweeping pronouncements that online is growing at a certain rate. That one tactic works, another doesn’t.   That a multi-channel strategy is increasingly important. 

I love such analysis and opinion – back in the day, as a consultant at McKinsey, I performed and provided my fair share.    However, I will point out the need to dig deeper. What is loosely called “e-commerce” is dramatically different in its application depending on what you are selling. 

A few things to keep in mind as you digest the latest e-commerce wisdom or evaluate a vendor:
 

E-commerce expertise correlates with where money has been made to date, not where it will be made.

Well known e-commerce experts, agencies and technology companies become so because they’ve been doing it for a while and have been well paid for their work. As such, their experience tends to be in those categories that went online early and successfully, yielding enthusiastic clients and customers who could pay.

There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you are also in those categories. If not, think about whether what you are being told makes sense for your business.

One example: It’s been said that 65% of e-commerce keyword searches include a manufacture name and/or model number. Most online agencies build keyword strategies around that fact. And, it works well in those categories that have dominated e-commerce in the past.

But, say you’re a furniture retailer. 

Most of your prospective customers have no idea who manufactured the sofa they already own, much less the one they are thinking about buying.   Model number? Forget it. Conventional wisdom is out the window - how will your agency react to not being able to rely a favorite approach?
 

Beware sweeping pronouncements and general statistics. Dig for what’s happening in your market.

I’m an e-com stat addict. There are outstanding analysts out there providing the pulse of e-commerce on a regular and accurate basis. That said, it’s important to pull apart e-commerce statistics and trends to find those that apply to what you do. 

Some recent examples:

E-Commerce Growth Statistics

Pundits seem to be in general agreement that in 2009, e-commerce grew or shrank by single digit percentage points. In the face of brick and mortar declines, this is touted as strength – ecommerce holding its own despite significant economic headwinds.

All true – but there’s more to the story. Big ticket online took off in 2009. 

Big ticket (think things that cost more and can’t ship via UPS…consumer durables like furniture, appliances, flooring) is 45% of the US Retail Economy, $550B in annual retail sales.  It’s never done much online – until now.

Consumers are online and big ticket retailers are now meeting them there. Forrester reports customers feeling comfortable buying furniture and appliances online just in the last 18 months. Big ticket players Blueport works with are seeing monstrous comp increases for online sales and even bigger benefits in stores. 

If you happen to be in big ticket markets, this is an opportunity you can’t miss…but easily could, if you just look at broader online growth stats.

E-Commerce by Channel Statistics

Similarly, stats show roughly 45% of e-commerce transacted by Web-only players and catalogers (i.e. pure plays), 15% by manufacturers, and 40% by retailers.

Beneath this stat is a dramatic big ticket vs. small ticket schism in who is winning in e-commerce. 

For traditional (small ticket) e-commerce, pure plays have tremendous cost advantages. With no store costs, they can price low. Their products are well known, approaching commodity status, and the shipping is fast, cheap and risk free. In categories from books to shoes, pure plays are cleaning up.

Not so in big ticket. Here, consumers know less about the product. They want to touch and feel in a store. They look for trusted brands – not only for the product, but for the retailer who can deliver and service it. And, they are highly focused on delivery times and costs. Here, retail chains, with trusted brands, local stores and fast, cheap local delivery have the upper hand. 

Combine these advantages with the growth noted above, and it’s a good time to be going online if you’re a big ticker player. And, if you’re a retailer in these categories, there’s certainly more than 40% of the online marketplace available to you.

The Importance of Cross-Channel Commerce

There’s significant recent buzz about “multi-channel” or “cross-channel” commerce as the next big thing. We couldn’t agree more – with emphasis on the “big”.

For small ticket items, I don’t think cross channel is that important. Anyone think that opening Zappos bricks and mortar stores is on any of the whiteboards at Amazon?

Conversely, in big ticket, cross channel is critical. The key differentiating factors in big ticket online are store based. Big ticket online and offline channels must be synchronized, as consumers move between them constantly. 

This is why we’ve architected our platform to be localized. Big ticket commerce comes down to the local relationship between a consumer, a store, and the inventory in her area. If you’re in big ticket and you’re not reflecting this reality online, you’re missing the point.
 

Balance online conventional wisdom against what you know about your customers. 

Ultimately, e-commerce comes down to a combination of persuading and enabling consumers to buy, using the internet.

Here again, how your consumers do this may not be the same as in “traditional” e-commerce categories.

To grossly over simplify traditional e-commerce shopping, it comes down to finding a product and deciding you like it. After that, the assumption is that UPS takes it from there - you will have your product cheaply, quickly, and some nice brown-shirted gentleman will take it back if things go awry.

As such, most e-commerce wisdom is focused on search and merchandising, helping consumers to find and buy (maybe getting a deal).

These areas are critical (and unique) in big ticket as well, but there’s more to the story – specifically, the part of the story that UPS takes care of in traditional, small ticket e-commerce.

With a sofa or a fridge, more goes into the shopping process than features and price. Customers want to touch and feel in a store. They may want to speak to an expert. They want to know how fast they can get something, and that delivery is as cheap as it can be. They may want financing options. They want to be sure the product can be serviced, and that, worst case it can be returned.

If these are questions your consumer is likely to ask, be sure to push beyond UPS-based ecom conventional wisdom. If you’re a retailer, you’ve got some of the best possible answers to these questions – be sure your online presence takes full advantage (see localization above).

*             *             *

As consumers look to buy more products online, and e-commerce pushes beyond the simple, UPSable products that were the first wave of e-commerce, the importance of disaggregating e-commerce increases. The opportunities online have changed. E-commerce conventional wisdom soon will too.

While other e-commerce providers avoid the unique challenges of franchise retail models, Blueport Commerce embraces franchises.  We are the only e-commerce solution designed to handle the complexity of putting a distributed, localized franchise retail model online.

In this franchise retail model, the parent brand handles the "heavy lifting" of content development, catalog development and maintenance, overall marketing strategy, payment processing and technology management. Centralizing these functions guarantees a high quality e-commerce experience that is both highly valuable and affordable for their franchise's membership. Dealers then “localize” the e-commerce experience in their region, refining selection, pricing, promotions and delivery options. 

The independent franchise dealers reap the benefit of a fully functional e-commerce website they could not afford alone, but retain local control of online store content, local marketing, pricing and fulfillment of local orders. More than 900 independently owned and operated dealers use Blueport Commerce to offer their local customers a best in class franchise retail experience online.
 

While the talk is often about what new technologies can enhance your ecommerce store, the nuts and bolts of any shopping experience lies with merchandising. Just like in your physical stores, selling the right item at the right price is key.

But when you're a multichannel operation, doing that successfully online can be a challenge. Customers want the multichannel commerce experience to be seamless and consistent – and Blueport Commerce can help you meet their expectations, without a lot of extra work.

For the past decade, Blueport Commerce has helped big-ticket retailers like you integrate their online store into their merchandising vision with the following strategies.

Using your existing data: Blueport Commerce's Product Sync updates your online catalog from your existing systems. Once it's in there, our Online Merchandising component allows you to augment that data  for presentation in your ecommerce store, such as adding rich imagery and additional product information. And our Catalog Services division will help you develop the elements you need to display your catalog in its most engaging form, including providing image support, refining product information and copywriting. And all this information is kept current because we sync nightly, importing new individual items as well as packages, thus retaining critical relationships between items. 

Making it easy to merchandise the ecommerce store: Through our Online Merchandising system, additional relationships can be introduced such as cross-sells or upsells, or configure new money-saving packages. Feature your bestsellers, new items or use your ecommerce store to sell items that you don't have the floor space to display in stores. Best of all, by analyzing your retail sales online, we can tell you precisely which products and merchandising approaches people like best.

Pricing Management Tools: To start, our Price Sync updates pricing on your site nightly based on your systems, making baseline pricing the same online as it is in your stores. But then our Online Merchandising system allows you precise pricing control, including the ability to modify pricing locally. We can even scan your inventory for odds and ends and add them to an online clearance center automatically.

Merchandisers, we're here to help you manage your ecommerce store – learn more by contacting us.

 

• Multi channel Sales – Allow customers to view branded sales events, including promotional pricing and event materials that coordinate with TV, print and store visuals.
• Dynamic Fliers – Feature your print fliers and catalogs online, with complete multi channel marketing integration.
• Multi channel Coupons – Allow customers to use coupons to receive discounts, bonus items, free shipping or other custom offers online.
• Financing – Allow customers to finance their orders with the same deferred payments offered in stores.
• Custom Pages – Provide your customers with pages promoting retailer store events and allow them to enter in-store contests online.

• Product Search – Allow customers to browse for your ecommerce catalog using several types of searches, including keyword, category, advanced and style searches.
• Bestsellers – All customers to view your best-selling and highlighted products.
• Rich Product Presentation - Provide multiple, zoomable product images, flash animations, and detailed product features for your merchandise.
• Regional Pricing – Provide customers with retail prices for their area, ensuring a seamless web-to-store experience.
• Find Store with Item – Allow customers to lookup nearby stores displaying a product based on store inventory levels.
• Reviews – Allow customers to see consumer reviews of products, and other user-generated content.
• Cross-selling and Recommendations – Provide customers with personalized, automated recommendations for merchandise based on preference data of other customers in their area.