Did you know? 

Total online sales are set to skyrocket to $327 billion by 2016, up from $200 billion in 2011. Furniture retailers can take advantage of this remaining billion dollar e-commerce opportunity, now more than ever. Blueport Commerce offers two ways to help our furniture retailers sell online, tailored specifically for their unique business challenges and allowing them to focus on what they do best – run their brick and mortar storefronts. Blueport Commerce offers the opportunity to sell products on the ultimate furniture destination with furniture.com, or take stores omnichannel on the best online furniture platform on the business. What's better? If it's hard to decide, there's always an option to do both. Interested? Check out our infographic below and give us a call. Click here to download a PDF.  

 

2013 is a year – when you were a kid, picking dates unimaginably far away – that might have been the founding year of your Lego moon colony, the birthday of a future hero or the expiration date of a seemingly permanent galactic treaty.

When I Uber, use Nike+ or email from 34,378 feet, it feels a bit like the future. Things once cumbersome have become easy – they feel clean, simple and efficient, like the future we imagined in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Is an iPad so different from a Tricorder? I think much of Apple’s market cap comes from the fact that it’s one of the few companies that looks and feels like the future. Forget that (Maps, Lighting) and watch out below.

Retail’s challenge – make the messy elegant

While experiences like hailing a cab have been transformed, the messiness that is retail has a way to go. In many ways, it’s messier now than ever. Shopper interactions with stores continue to expand in scope, channels and expectation. 

Morgan’s 3 Key E-Commerce Trends to Watch in 2012 were dead on – highlighting new devices and channels, as well as the need to maintain an experience across these multiplying mediums. Brick and mortar retailers, only a few decades ago able to count on the ritual of “shopping” to drive their traffic, are challenged to adapt. Their real challenge is to streamline this complexity into a modern, clean, relevant experience. Can Ron Johnson bring the future from Apple to JCP? It will be fascinating to watch.
 

2013 – Trees > Forest

2013 feels like the year that the factionalized retail trends of the past few years will start to harmonize. Chasing the latest widget, device or channel will evolve to a holistic view of brand delivery, understanding consumers’ needs and meeting those needs consistently across mediums. 

Three specific trends to keep an eye on in 2013 and beyond:

Ubiquity – Can we count (and scrap) the terms used to describe the ways shoppers and retailers interact? Distinctions between e-, multi-, omni-, digital and physical commerce will collapse, as former pure plays like Amazon build massive physical infrastructure and retailers like Williams-Sonoma consolidate stores in favor of online. 

2013 may be the year we finally start to treat stores as just another brand delivery method. The question for retailers in the past has been “do I need an online/mobile/social presence for my stores?” The question of the future is “do I need stores to deliver my brand?” Some categories (like furniture) will continue find stores useful. Other categories won’t. In either case, the days of stores being the default, requisite method of delivering a brand feel long gone.  

Back to Brands – Just as ubiquity will replace channel focus, a holistic approach to brand will replace digitally limited ideas like “user experience”. Where retailers have been looking at online and social as a way to express their store brands online, they are starting to look at what their brand means – regardless of channel – and how that can best be delivered. New entrants start with brand, and only embrace the channels that can deliver it. 

It’s those retailers that have a strong sense of brand and brand delivery that are winning in retail today. That clarity of purpose drives efficiency in their decisions online and off, and is a beacon to consumers looking for simple, cohesive solutions in a messy landscape.

All Aboard – Laggard industries will continue to be transformed, either by upstart entrants or forward-looking incumbents. If Uber can transform messy municipal markets like taxis, is there any market that “can’t” go online? 

Winners and losers in these markets will be determined by who has the assets to deliver the brand experiences people want. In some cases, those assets will be digital, others physical. Particularly interesting will be markets like furniture, where incumbents have massive advantages in brand delivery, and are finally bringing them to bear in a $70B market.

*          *          *

2012 was an unimaginably great year at Blueport. 2013 looks to be even more so as we continue to work with our retailers to deliver their brands online and recreate our own brand, Furniture.com. We’re looking forward to looking back with you on what will be a fascinating, fantastic year.

Blueport Commerce’s Bob Howland shares his retail e-commerce experience and why he thinks big-ticket retail is the next big thing.

What sparked your interest in e-commerce?

I think e-commerce is all about being customer-centric. In many ways, I felt pre-wired to e-commerce even before I was specifically engaged in e-commerce roles. All of my experiences in the past – whether driving customer segmentation at AMEX, competitive differentiation at GE, or brand management at J&J – were about engaging customers how they want, where they want, and when they want. The focus on end-to-end customer experience was the same across these roles and translated well to e-commerce. 

What led you to GSI?

At Vanguard in the late ‘90s, I led a charge to move the mutual fund giant from being an inbound call center to embracing the internet as a way to educate and engage retail investors. Vanguard became one of the first investment firms to enable transactions online, which was transformational for the business and the industry.  

I was enamored by how the internet transformed customer-centricity, as well as the huge branding implications for businesses. I wanted to find a company that was completely focused on the digital space with a branding and commerce focus. GSI Commerce was a natural fit as a high growth company that served as an end-to-end e-commerce provider for leading retailers. 

How did you help GSI grow to a $1B+ company? 

My expertise is centered on optimizing businesses and the customer experience. At GSI, I saw a significant opportunity to grow our current clients’ businesses as well as expand our offerings to become a more valuable partner to our clients. 

The initial successes were two-fold: 

1. First, we developed our digital marketing services capabilities. Our retail partners were already strong in offline marketing, such as weekly flyers to drive in-store traffic. So, GSI focused on the areas they needed help – online marketing – to drive dramatic increases in site traffic and overall sales.
    
2. Second, we focused on the omnichannel experience. A company’s website is often the hub for their brand. It’s always accessible and available whenever the consumer wants to touch the brand, and gets far more visibility than any other marketing vehicle (often more than ALL other marketing vehicles combined). Helping retailers fully maximize the web, not simply as their online store, but more broadly as an omnichannel tool brought huge dividends to our clients. 

Ultimately, companies such as GSI and Blueport live and breathe e-commerce every day, just as retailers do with their core store businesses. The value that we provide to our clients is the ability to bring the omnichannel opportunity to life and develop a roadmap for maximizing the opportunity. I’ve seen this approach succeed time and time again whether it is apparel, home décor, electronics, or food. Big-ticket retail has a huge opportunity to replicate this success.

Why Blueport and big-ticket?

I was looking for the right opportunity to engage with an organization, but had specific criteria for the business model fit and long-term vision. Furniture is the last $1B+ e-commerce opportunity left. And, for good reason. It’s hard to sell furniture online and drive the type of customer experience that has become standard to online retail shopping. Why? The biggest difference is the end-to-end experience and the many challenges around delivery of big-ticket items, such as sofas into homes. I think Blueport has the will, experience, and technology platform to work with our clients to create a positive and remarkable end-to-end customer experience for furniture, as Zappos did for shoes. This is the vision that Blueport and its client base share, and why I ultimately came on board.

What is it going to take for big-ticket to achieve success in e-commerce?

Consumer demand and technology proliferation leave no choice but for furniture retailers to adopt an omnichannel presence. But, that’s not all – we need to understand the need to provide an exceptional end-to-end customer experience. At Blueport, our mission is to help big-ticket retailers drive exceptional omnichannel experiences in order to optimize both online and offline sales. We want retail partners who believe in delivering these “wow” experiences and the incredible untapped growth opportunity embedded within them. 

Did you know Canadians lead the world in online engagement, with users spending an average of 45 hours online a month? Consumers in Canada are heavily engaged in social media channels, as well as online search and banking. In 2010, 8 out of 10 Canadian households (79%) had access to the internet, and over one-half of connected households used more than one type of device to go online.

Yet in contrast, Canada's internet economy is expected to grow by 7.4% a year through 2016, better than the country's overall GDP, but still lagging many global peers. And shockingly, only 1% of retail expenditures in Canada are from online transactions, compared to 8% in the United States. Compared to similarly connected nations, eMarketer notes that product assortment, payment paths and the number of online operators still lag in Canada’s e-commerce ecosystem.

So with all of these connected Canadians, one would think the consumer demand for e-commerce is there, yet the retailers aren’t. Why the disconnect? Blueport Commerce, the only e-commerce technology and services company that localizes big-ticket retail online, examines some of the reasons for e-commerce’s failure to thrive in Canada.

Lack of Government Support

The federal government could do a lot more to create incentives for the internet economy to take off, said Tawfik Hammoud, partner and managing director at BCG who worked with Google on a study on Canadian e-commerce. Hammoud points to the governments of South Korea and Australia as examples of countries that worked to get e-commerce up and running.

“Canada needs a bit of a shot in the arm to get its e-economy growing going forward and if we don't do that we'll probably lose even more in terms of the ranking,” said Hammoud.

Canadian businesses are investing 40% less in information and communications technologies, or about $2,400 less per worker, than American businesses, according to Canadian Business. This means potential vendors struggle to justify the expense of building out a channel and lack the tools to overcome the challenges.

Selection, Payment & Technology Options Lag Behind

Canada is currently lacking the large presence of small online retailers that the US has. Although 71% of small businesses purchase products online, only 18% actually sell products online. And in order for a consumer to get the selection they want, they are often forced to shop for products from other countries, such as the US or the UK. There are hefty import and tax fees involved for Canadians that choose to purchase from other countries online using a credit card. For example, a $30 shirt imported from the United States could cost as much as $58 after taxes and fees. The inflated price makes many Canadian consumers decide to visit their local brick-and-mortar retailer rather than order it online, even if they can locate the product for less online (before fees and taxes).

Even in-country Canadian credit card transaction costs are prohibitively high for Canadian merchants. Per CBC News, merchants pay two to four percent of the sale price in various transaction fees whenever they accept a credit card for payment. Money first goes to the credit card network (Visa or MasterCard in the vast majority of cases), the company that processes the payments and the merchant's bank. A Bank of Canada survey looked at the estimated cost of processing a $36.50 transaction, which was the median cash transaction in its survey. Costs broke down like this:

• Debit card: 19 cents
• Cash: 25 cents
• Credit card: 82 cents

Additionally the provincial tax system has been cited as an obstacle – in Canada, different provinces have different retail taxes and it is an onerous compliance burden for businesses to attempt to follow all of the rules, leading to less interest in e-commerce. 

And finally, with Canada being a smaller country, there is a lack of capital for funding the necessary expenditures on new technologies needed to drive e-commerce. With telecommunications, for example, this problem is further exacerbated by foreign ownership restrictions. The cost of implementing an e-commerce platform is high and many retailers are unable to currently accept online payments.

Shipping Challenges

Canada’s low population density makes shipping difficult and highly expensive for retailers – and that gets passed down to the consumers. The result is Canadians tend to research products online, but not actually make purchases via the internet, unlike Americans. Additionally, the poor showing of e-commerce as only 1% of Canada’s annual retail expenditures may also be affected by Canadians who shop online but from US retailers who ship north of the border, thus their e-commerce spending is reflected in the US’s annual retail expenditures, rather than Canada’s.

A Brighter Future

However, there is hope on the horizon. Large Canada-based retailers have begun to compete with US-based Canadian operators such as Amazon, online offerings have begun to expand, and creative solutions to supply chain difficulties have been implemented. One of Blueport Commerce's success stories, Leon's Furniture, has worked for five years to bring their furniture, electronics and appliance sales online. Their e-commerce revenue now holds its own against their physical store locations. And Canadians’ noted preference for going to brick-and-mortar stores to shopping online could work to big-ticket retailers’ advantage. Because of the consumer’s need to oftentimes see the furniture in a physical showroom, Blueport Commerce is able to localize the big-ticket retailer experience, creating an integrated shopping experience. This also applies to shipping, with consumers entering their Canadian postal code to allow for their local supply and local delivery, cutting down on shipping costs. With eMarketer predicting $35 billion in e-commerce spending by Canadians in 2016, it’s in Canada’s best interest to incentivize Canadian retailers to get their big-ticket retail items online.

Related posts:

• Move Over Omni-Channel Retailing, It’s Time for a Little Soul
• E-Commerce Leads to Smarter Brick and Mortar Retail
• Canadian Consumers Are Waiting for You Online

A common problem for potential consumers of big-ticket retail items such as furniture and appliances is that it's almost impossible to know how a certain piece will look once it is in their home or office. Measurements can be taken, and photographs can be scrutinized, but it's more often than not a guessing game as to how everything will fit together on delivery day. In fact, one of the biggest e-commerce challenges is that the consumer is often uncomfortable pulling the trigger on big-ticket retail items that cannot be visualized in their own personal space.

At Blueport Commerce we combine the industry's only big-ticket retail e-commerce solution with dedicated e-commerce integration services and personalized service packages to build the right solution for your business. Part of providing all of the components required for a successful e-commerce site is ensuring retailers have the technology necessary to help consumers solve the age-old dilemma of how furniture or appliances will look in their rooms. Here are two hot new furniture retail technologies currently on the market that attempt to do just that.

1. 3D Room Designer by Crate & Barrel

Crate & Barrel has introduced 3D Room Designer, an in-store tool which allows a customer to drop a digital photo of a room in their home or office into a 3D room model – without recreating a floor plan. The customer makes an appointment online and either emails or brings a photo on a USB stick to a nearby Crate & Barrel location. The height of the room is the only measurement the customer needs to know. From there, the customer can work with a store associate to transform their space with 3D models of Crate & Barrel merchandise, swapping out products, materials and colors. More than 2,000 Crate & Barrel products are incorporated into the 3D Room Designer, with all combinations of materials and fabrics together. Store associates are then able to print and email photos of the redesigned rooms to the customer, along with a list of all the items chosen.

While this technology certainly aims to solve the issue of visualization, the problem is that the final image can often look cartoonish and not realistic enough for the consumer to want to purchase. And while the goal of this 3D Room Designer is to drive traffic to brick-and-mortar stores, some customers will not want to make an in-store appointment and then go to the physical store. Additionally, by having the product only available in stores, it turns away those customers who may be in the research stage and want to simply “play around” with the tool online, and make a purchase decision weeks or months down the road.

By ignoring the needs of customers who live in rural areas, far from a store, as well as those who simply prefer to do all of their research and shopping online, Crate & Barrel is losing potential customers. In the spirit of true omnichannel retailing, Blueport Commerce recommends that Crate & Barrel creates a web version of 3D Room Designer that allows customers to do the manipulations themselves, as well as purchase the items online, rather than only going to the physical store.

2. Mydeco 3D

Mydeco.com, a UK-based online home store that sells furniture and home accessories from multiple retailers, boasts 3D, an online floor planner that lets customers visualize their home in 3D when buying new furniture. From the comfort of their home, a customer can upload up to 2 floor plans for free and move the walls and manipulate furniture from any of Mydeco’s retailers to their liking. After the customer is satisfied, they will receive back a 3D rendering in one business day. Additionally, the site has a community feel in that customers can connect with Mydeco’s collection of interior design enthusiasts, students, and professionals.

Mydeco.com also has another tool, Moodboard Creator, which is a Pinterest-like tool that lets consumers use furniture and home accessories from Mydeco.com (or any image they like) to get inspired to redecorate their homes. Pictures can be rotated and mixed, along with background and frames.

Blueport Commerce recognizes the value of Mydeco.com’s 3D tool, as the output is more realistic than Create & Barrel’s 3D Room Planner, and it allows users to get more creative, with furnishings from multiple retailers. Additionally, consumers can use the tool from their homes or offices, and not have to make an appointment or drive to a physical store location. The community and social feel of Mydeco’s 3D planner and Moodboard Creator allow for a greater viral reach, encouraging users to share their designs within the Mydeco community, as well as social sites such as Google+, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon and Pinterest. The only negative is that it’s not as fully visually compelling as it could be yet – it has not achieved the next step of augmented reality.
 

Augmented Reality – The Next Dimension

Imagine in the near future a customer being able to walk into a brick-and-mortar store and, with their mobile device or a device supplied by the store, scan and have elements of the display room pop out with information such as pricing, reviews, dimensions, availability and description. Or imagine being able to scan a room in your home or office you wish to redecorate with your mobile device, and have a retailer’s furniture placed into your home, in varying colors and at scale. Hidden Creative has a video depiction that suggests such a possibility here (at the 2:00 minute mark) through the next step of Augmented Reality, called Articulated Naturality Web. As the drive to capture the increasingly-connected consumer continues, retailers will need to stay attuned to technology advancements that can aid them in reaching and capturing tech-savvy consumers.

Blueport Commerce is currently developing exciting new technology that includes augmented reality. Our goal is to help solve the e-commerce challenge of allowing consumers to envision their desired big-ticket retail item in their own space. Let us know if we can help you develop technology to enhance your brick-and-mortar store or e-commerce website presence – we would welcome the opportunity to enrich the consumer experience and increase e-commerce transactions for your business.

Related posts:

• How You Can Capture the Mobile Consumer
• Making Sense of Mobile Payments & More
• How Will Facebook’s Acquisition of Instagram Impact the Social Network for Retail Brands?

Back in the early 2000s, the path to purchase for a jacket or dress probably went something like this: choose a store or cluster of stores, browse around, try a few items on, make your decision and buy. The entire process took about half a day. But now in 2012, the time to get from browsing to buying takes 3.4 days, according to this article from InternetRetailing.

The article cites data, focused on fashion, showing that digital retail channels are responsible for this shift. Between e-commerce websites, mobile apps and physical stores, shoppers have a number of outlets to complete the full purchasing cycle as compared to 10 years ago when they primarily relied on the physical store. Today, nearly 91% of consumers use at least two channels before making the purchase.

The purchase process is composed of four steps: “browsing, researching, purchasing and collection.” The data shows consumers are spending half an hour longer on the first step and less time on the last three (largely because online retailers make it all more efficient). Then what is responsible for the nearly three additional days dedicated to shopping? Much more time now exists between each phase. A shopper can look in a store on Saturday and then visit the retailer’s website on Monday at lunch to pick up where she left off.

This creates a new challenge for multichannel retailers that need to keep customers engaged with their brands over a longer time period. It also creates additional opportunities as retailers know more about their customers, being able to better target and personalize this longer shopping cycle through emails and advertising.

What About Big-Ticket, Highly Considered Goods?

Big-ticket items, like furniture and cars, already have a significantly longer purchase cycle, lasting months, so these retailers already have some valuable experience in maintaining relationships over a longer period of time. The challenge with big-ticket retailers is adapting offline strategies to work in this increasingly digital world.

Here at Blueport, we work with our furniture retail clients to leverage the best the digital channels have to offer in a way that complements their existing physical programs. This includes everything from integrating physical store customers into our targeted email streams and leveraging the data we have on online customers to create a more personalized experience on site and off.

The increased length of time it now takes consumers to make a purchase could be a winning proposition for retailers and their e-commerce websites. The big opportunity is that there is now more time to target and refine your messaging as well as build your brand to potential shoppers – those retailers that seize this opportunity will end up ahead!

Related posts:

• Email's Not Dead for E-Commerce, But a Little Relevance Goes a Long Way
• Omni-Channel Retailing 2012: Marrying the Best of the Digital and Physical Channels
• The Future of E-Commerce Will Go Beyond Transactions
• E-Commerce Leads to Smarter Brick-and-Mortar Retail

Blueport Commerce would like to offer a hearty congratulations to Demandware, which priced 5.5 million IPO shares at $16. They closed at $23.59 making the company’s value $530 million. Demandware joins the likes of other cloud computing-based software companies, including Brightcove and Bazaarvoice, that have joined the IPO wave since December.

There are a number of reasons why we here at Blueport are happy for Demandware’s success. Above all, it shows how more and more retailers are looking to the cloud for e-commerce solutions, rather than trying to build and run their own e-commerce software.

Retailers who use Software as a Service (or SaaS) e-commerce solutions like Blueport or Demandware leverage the cloud, cutting-edge technology and the expertise of companies that live and breathe e-commerce to bring their brands online efficiently and effectively.

This IPO is also a good reminder of how far e-commerce has come. Demandware’s e-commerce solution focuses on apparel. There was a time when no one believed anyone would buy clothes or shoes online. Now, buying clothing online is as commonplace as buying as anything else.

Just as Demandware has done for its apparel clients, Blueport takes the hard work out of e-commerce for challenging categories like furniture, flooring and appliances. We provide a robust SaaS e-commerce platform that solves the unique, local challenges our customers face, so they can focus on their businesses, rather than attempting to reinvent e-commerce technology.

We’ve seen our customers have great success selling big-ticket items online. Demandware’s IPO reminds us this is only the beginning.

Related posts:

• E-Commerce 2.0: The Next Wave
• Blueport Commerce to TJX: How to Bring Your Local Stores Online
• Retail CIOs Should Champion Collaboration Across Departments
• Keep Your E-Commerce Site on Target and Avoid Outages

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

In February, when TJX announced its plan to nearly double its annual sales, we here at Blueport took notice, especially since e-commerce is a crucial part of the plan to get there.

For the fiscal year ending January 28, 2012, TJX, parent company of T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods in the US, had $23.3 billion in net sales. The goal is to reach $40 billion by investing in technology and e-commerce. While the company has a web presence with a combined 4 million visitors per month for all of its properties, they do not sell merchandise online in the US and have not since their last attempt at e-commerce in 2006.

“E-commerce is clearly in our future,” said TJX CEO Carol Meyrowitz in a recent conference call as reported by RIS News, Internet Retailer and others. “We believe e-commerce will open up a greater landscape for categories. Just think about the potential for us to carry categories online that we wouldn’t carry in our stores.”

At this point, TJX is building a team of e-commerce experts with a focus on developing the new initiative.
 
My Advice for TJX

Working at a company with more than 10 years of e-commerce experience, I have some thoughts on the possible tact TJX could take in growing its online retail business.

As I understand the retailer’s overall business, much of the merchandise it sells comes from opportunistic buys, like when a distributor liquidates 900 name-brand sweaters or 500 sofas in a discontinued upholstery pattern, or from program buys, when items are manufactured specifically to be sold by discount chains. Most, shall we say, Maxxinistas, go to the stores to land the opportunistic merchandise, which is harder to find because of the limited supply. So not every store carries the same merchandise, and much of the more sought-after stock moves very quickly. How does this translate to an online retail business?

Option 1: The Gilt Model

TJX and all of its properties could follow in the paths of Gilt Groupe, Fab.com and the like, selling the best stuff online, perhaps even following the invite-only model. Then, items could be shipped from a central location, which tends to work best for smaller items that can be packed in a Fed Ex box.

The challenge here is that their retail websites would directly compete with their stores rather than creating a beneficial and seamless multichannel retail experience for consumers. (Hint: Don’t do this.)

Option 2: Localized Cross-Channel Commerce

TJX could go for a truly localized e-commerce solution that ties into real-time inventory data would provide the best results for their overall bottom line. Customers would be able to get their purchases inexpensively and quickly or even see items in a nearby store. The web presence would continue to improve the overall bottom line without jeopardizing any individual location’s own fiscal health. (Hint: Do this!)

Based on the e-commerce solution we’ve created for our own clients, we think the second option and offering customers a localized cross-channel e-commerce experience would be the best for any retailers’ long-term growth. After all, we’ve already proven this model in the home furnishing industry for stores just like HomeGoods.

Related posts:

• When Charging Online Customers for Shipping, Localized E-Commerce Helps Make the Price Right  
• Hyperlocal Beyond Marketing -- Think Localized E-Commerce
• Online Advertising: Now Delivering Local Shoppers -- Is Your Website Ready for Them?
• Consistency Is Key in This Multichannel Retail World

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

Earlier this month, when Groupon’s first big-ticket deal for $199 for $500 toward a new car at a Detroit area dealership failed, it didn’t only make for amusing headlines (“Groupon Hits the Skids,” for example). It also got people asking whether the daily deal model can work for big-ticket items.

As a company that provides the technology and services to help its clients localize big-ticket retail online, Blueport Commerce takes the stance that daily deals can work for big-ticket items if executed correctly. The Groupon car deal was not.

Why Conventional Daily Deals Work

Daily deals are so popular, because they are great deals. Groupon’s subscribers expect a significant discount on the goods or service being sold. Half off a dinner? Wonderful, and I’ve been meaning to try new places!

So far, successful daily deals have been somewhat simple and often for items subscribers were likely to spend money on anyway. Salon services at 70% off? Well, I do need a haircut anyway.

Lastly, the offer is usually concrete. I will pay X and get Y. Any variables in what I spend beyond what I paid for the Groupon are easily in my control.

So What Was Wrong with the Automotive Offer?

The offer was to buy $500 that could then be used toward a new car. A quick look at the dealer’s website has cars starting around $16,000. So someone who bought the deal is only getting at most a few percent off his final purchase. 

Among the things that makes daily deals so successful is the easy spontaneity of it all. You only have a short amount of time to choose this deal, and then it’s gone. But it takes people some time to research a purchase like a car.

A recent article from The Atlantic, points out that one issue with this deal is that car price is negotiable. The piece quotes Ben Edelman, an associate professor at Harvard Business School as telling Reuters: “This voucher is for a very small portion of the cost of a car or lease, so it’s basically an agreement to buy or lease a car from LaFontaine. That’s poor negotiating because the dealer could take advantage f that by offering the same car for more money. They (Groupon) need to fix that before this part of the model can take off.”

The Big-Ticket Daily Deal Challenge

Many folks are saying that daily deals won’t work for big-ticket items. Perhaps these are the same people who years ago told us that consumers would not buy furniture online. But people do buy furniture and other big-ticket items online, so eventually daily deals in this arena could take off.

Our client The RoomPlace actually did a successful daily deal with LivingSocial not too long ago. The offer was $150 worth of furniture for $75. This worked because even though the offer was for big-ticket items like furniture, consumers could choose from a large price range and could choose whether they purchase something solely for the face value of the deal or use it toward a larger purchase.

Big-ticket retailers can look to daily deal sites, or create their own, in order to drum up business. For great results, they need to turn their big-ticket deal into something that is concrete for users. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Be sure that a consumer could leave your store or website with an item or service for the value of the deal.
• Consider offering a specific item at a steep discount rather than following the voucher model.
• Once the consumer cashes in on the deal, be sure you do what you can to keep in touch, such as offering an at-register email sign-up or customer survey.

Related posts:

• Get Your E-Commerce Website Ready for Daily Deals
• E-commerce 2.0 – The Next Wave
• When It Comes to the Newest Technology, Set Objectives First
• Online Advertising: Now Delivering Local Shoppers -- Is Your Website Ready for Them?
• See, Like, Buy - Capitalizing on Group Buying and Facebook This Holiday Season

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

Last week we posted about Forrester’s report on Facebook as an ecommerce driver. And while we agree that Facebook will likely not become a major ecommerce platform any time soon, we do see the social network’s value for marketing your ecommerce brand.

There’s more to marketing on Facebook than adding a Like button to your web pages. You need to become a content publisher with a marketing slant. You need to provide value in the form of resources, product information and special deals. The frequency and scope depends on your audience, and cultivating that audience is the number-one step for successful marketing on Facebook.

Building a Facebook Audience for Your Ecommerce Website

We recently worked with one of our clients to run a Facebook fan promotion. The more likes the store’s Facebook page received within a specific time period, the larger the discount all of the Facebook fans would get.

We promoted this “The More You Like, the More You Save” campaign on Facebook, the store’s website and through email marketing. The nature of the campaign was for fans to spread the word -- if their friends liked the page too, everyone would save more. In two weeks, we nearly doubled the store’s Facebook fans, but it didn’t end there. Once we posted the special coupon code on Facebook, we promoted the discount to the site’s audience, encouraging an additional 1,300 of the store’s customers to go onto Facebook and like the page to get access to the code.

We’ve been able to attribute tens of thousands of online sales to this promotion, not to mention additional in-store traffic and sales. And we can continue to use the store’s Facebook page to market to these customers.

Create Social Noise Around Your Ecommerce Brand

A side effect of this promotion beyond the dollars, is that this store’s customers are talking to each other on Facebook about the store and its products. They’ve discussed the furniture they planned to buy with their discount, great experiences they had and what they like most about the store and brand. By administering this Facebook promotion, we’ve helped our client to create an army of brand ambassadors -- specifically brand ambassadors who like to post to social networking sites.

Engage Your Facebook Fans

Now the big challenge is engaging these fans and keeping them interested in a brand that sells big-ticket items the average consumer does not buy every day. To successfully do this, you need to think community more than transactional. Help your customers keep the conversation going about their purchases. Solicit pictures of what they bought, provide tips for caring for their items, and offer tangential information from other sources that complements your brand. This will help your fans remember you, recommend you and come back to you the next time they’re looking to make a purchase.





Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

Will Facebook become a major ecommerce player? According to the latest from Forrester Research, probably not.

In her newly released report, “Will Facebook Ever Drive eCommerce?,” Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru claims a social-network presence is less effective at online retail customer acquisition and retention than e-mail and paid search. She notes that Facebook's major challenge is that the majority of the 650 million users visit the social network to socialize, not to shop. While I agree Facebook is not on track to be the next Amazon or eBay, the social networking site does have a part to play in ecommerce.

Facebook and Online Considered Purchases

Facebook will likely never be a destination for major ecommerce transactions, but I do believe consumers will leverage the community's tools for the social aspect of shopping online and in-person. Whether sending a picture from their mobile phone or posting a link from an ecommerce site, Facebook is one of the quickest ways for consumers to ask their friends if they should get the new sofa in brown or gray.

Retailers can also use the Facebook platform to engage with customers and offer special deals and information specifically for their Facebook fans. Consumers want to be a part of the conversation, and Facebook lets you connect in new ways retailers only wished they could before. And a potential audience of 650 million makes Facebook a very difficult website for retailers to ignore.

What benefits you have seen from your retail store’s or brand’s Facebook presence? Has the site played a role in increasing conversions or helping to drive engagement?

Related posts:

• E-commerce 2.0 – The Next Wave
• The Numbers Speak for Themselves
• Online Shopping on Facebook Gains Momentum
• See, Like, Buy – Capitalizing on Group Buying and Facebook This Holiday Season
• Social Media Monitoring: Facebook and Ashley Furniture HomeStore

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

Excerpts from Lazard Capital Markets  Tech and Media Conference
March, 13, 2011; Boston, MA

Blueport Commerce executives recently participated in a panel presentation titled “E-Commerce 2.0: The Next Wave” at Lazard Capital Markets Annual Technology & Media Conference. Held in Boston, on March 14 and 15. This conference brought together industry executives in a fireside chat format, with presentations from more than 50 leading technology, media and Internet companies. 

Drawing on his deep expertise developing online strategies for leading big-ticket retailers, President and Chief Executive Officer Carl Prindle, discussed the next e-commerce frontier and what brands need to do to capitalize on its growth.  Below are some key excerpts from his presentation:

Colin Sebastian – Lazard Capital Markets:  Carl, please take a minute to introduce Blueport.

Blueport is the only managed e-commerce provider focused on localized, big ticket commerce.

Think of us as GSI Commerce (GSIC) for players that need to involve local stores in their online efforts and whose products don’t fit in a UPS box.

Our clients range from a $250M furniture chain in Chicago, a $1B appliance, electronics and furniture superstore chain in Canada, a $4B flooring retailer with 1,100 independent dealers, to Sears (SHLD).

We provide each with a managed e-commerce solution – a localized, cross-channel commerce platform and the managed services to make their unique businesses work online.

CS: The pace of innovation in e-commerce is accelerating.  This is also driving another step forward in the shift of commerce and advertising from offline to online channels.  Given this overall trend, in your own businesses and markets, can you specify what are the 2 or 3 most important drivers of growth today?

Well, this session is definitely aptly named.  We’re at an inflection point – the start of a second wave of e-commerce.

The first wave of ecommerce was characterized by the Amazon model – online shopping for relatively simple, understood products shipped via UPS. 

There’s very little local store involvement in this model.  Customers buy things on their lunch break, and a guy in a brown shirt delivers it. 

A massive eco-system has grown supporting this model in last 15 years – advertising, merchandising, technology and so on. And, it works great – we see 45% penetration in some categories like PCs.

But, the e-com 1.0 model is bounded in a couple of ways.  One boundary is size – this model probably only works for less than half of all retail, less if you include services. 

The other boundary is profitability – e-com 1.0 was first because it’s easier.  Because it’s easy, it’s prone to commoditization, price pressure…it’s an efficient market, with all of the margin pressure that it entails.

What we’re seeing now is a second wave that pushes past these boundaries, engages the rest of the retail economy, and can be more profitable.

What’s driving it? Consumers looking to apply the habits learned via the Amazon model to new areas.  Companies that that have for a long time been on the sidelines because they DIDN’T fit that model – are now heading to the internet to meet them. 

The energy, the growth, is in the technology connecting the two – whether it is mobile, social, coupon sites, etc. – new technologies are giving new players access to new customers.

And Blueport is providing the multi-channel solutions for these new players to do something meaningful with that traffic.

CS:  You mention mobile. How big a factor is mobile becoming, for example as a percentage of your own transactions or volume, or as a lead generation tool?

Mobile is a huge factor, but different depending on whether you are an e-com 1 or e-com 2 player.

For e-com 1 players, mobile’s increased convenience is arguably driving new volume.  It’s also increasing price transparency, which accelerates the commoditization of some of these categories.

For an e-com 2 player, it’s a huge factor in a different way:  local.  Where e-com 1 was national, e-com 2 is local – local businesses, local services, huge retail chains were their offering is fundamentally local.

Take appliances as an example – I don’t think we’ll see refrigerators transacted via phone any time soon, but mobile can drive customers to local stores, critical for retailers trying to gain a slice of precious weekend “in-store” shopping minutes.

The game changer that starts to blend the two is the tablet…increased use of big screen browsing plus local is intriguing.

CS: There is a fairly rapid increase in merchant and enterprise use of Facebook, not only as a tool to reach out and communicate with consumers, but also to drive transactions.  Similar to the mobile question, how quickly is social becoming a meaningful part of real lead generation and driving online sales?

Well, Facebook, at its most powerful, is a personal network of friends.  A company interrupting that conversation can be pretty cringe worthy.  A company trying to be your friend doesn’t really work.

At the same time, along with apps, Facebook has become the “other” Internet, and retailers have to be there. 

We’ve seen it work in three ways:

1. Brand Building: in high engagement categories, brands can interact with their customers on topics they are passionate about.
2. Deals: Facebook can replace email as a way to distribute deals.
3. As a Platform: we look at Facebook as an emerging platform/operating system that can host online stores with built in traffic.

CS:  Blueport appears to be in a sweet-spot helping merchants in challenging product categories figure out their e-commerce strategies.  Can you talk about the multi-channel environment, how the pace of that shift online may be changing?

It’s a phenomenal time to be where we are.  As we’ve talked about, there’s a seismic change from e-com 1 to e-com 2, and we’re in the middle of it.

You asked about the multi-channel environment.  The term multi-channel has been around a while, but its meaning is changing. 

In e-com 1, multichannel meant exactly/only that – more than one channel.  Retailers in categories that work well via direct ship built drop ship e-com systems, often entirely separate from their store business.

In e-com 2 today, we see true multi-channel, or cross-channel commerce (or just “commerce”).  Retailers are using the internet to drive their core business, not build a separate one.

Companies that were on the sidelines are now investing in solutions that reflect their businesses.  They look to online to drive customers to local stores, sell their local inventory and services, reflect their local pricing and local deals – to drive their core business.

A client, CarpetOne, is one of my favorite examples of this.  They are a $4B flooring retailer in 1,100 local markets.  They didn’t want to be Lumber Liquidators and drop-ship cheap boxes of hardwood.  They wanted to drive their core business – local installation of quality flooring. We enable that – their site reflects each market’s local product, pricing – pictures of owner’s dog, whatever makes that local market work.  It’s a seamless online experience that connects online to local store.

Sears (SHLD) – is a company taking another innovative approach.  They are reentering the furniture category via a unique cross-channel strategy.  They’re putting small footprint galleries in their stores, that drives traffic to a dedicated furniture website that we run for them, http://sears.furniture.com.  The site taps into local inventory, and Sears customers can get a sofa delivered tomorrow for $79.  Blueport powers the whole thing.

So, we’re seeing massive change in these categories, the evolution of true cross-channel categories, and it has accelerated dramatically in last 18 month. 

CS:  What are the key attributes that a bricks-and-mortar retailer or supplier of goods look for in an e-commerce vendor?

When looking at vendors, look at what experience they have in YOUR vertical.  Are you looking for an e-com 1 solution, or e-com 2?  Do you want a direct ship, separate enterprise, or do you want your local markets involved? 

Make sure the vendor has experience in your markets and your vision of what you want ecommerce to do for your core business. 

You can make some disastrous mistakes trying to sell appliances or furniture like you do shoes & apparel.

CS:  What would it cost a retailer or brand to build and maintain a state of the art e-commerce site from scratch, versus using a service provider such as Blueport?

Here again, it depends on what you’re selling. 

If you’re looking for an e-com 1 solution – you can put up a Yahoo! store up for next to nothing.  My 10 year old has one.

For e-com 2 – it’s more complex, requiring far more integration with your local stores’ existing systems and operations.  There’s no Yahoo! store or ready-made platform for that (but Blueport is close).

If you try to build an e-com 2 solution yourself, you have to look at three costs:  the cost to build it, the cost to run it, and the opportunity cost of screwing it up. 

We have a current client who first tried to build it themselves.  They spent $3M, and it never got off the ground.  It was two years of lost opportunity. 

With Blueport, they pay a monthly platform fee and a revenue share.  We’ve done major redesigns of their sites three times in the last two years, and added countless new features.  And they pay only their share of the overall platform and hosting costs.

We also help run the business for them from a marketing, merchandising and services perspective.  This is paid through the revenue share, so they get a turnkey, expert staff on a pay for performance basis.

This story has repeated itself a number of times – people trying it themselves, then deciding to work with us.  At the other end of our contracts, we’ve never lost a renewal, so people see the value of what we do (and would prefer not to have to do it themselves).

Part of the story is that the categories we’re in are a good fit for outsourcing.  They are challenging, don’t match the internal expertise of the players in them, and ultimately, they’re not like PC’s or software, where online is 45%-65% or more of volume. Stores are still key, so our clients get to focus on that part of their business, while we port and drive that business online.

CS:  Can you talk about the competitive nature of your business, who do you see as the most successful competitors and what are trends in pricing for these e-commerce services?

Sure, we segment the market on two dimensions. 

One dimension is e-com 1 versus e-com 2.  Is the customer in a market that will be a simple drop ship model, or do they need a cross-channel solution involving local stores?

The other dimension is platform versus managed solution.  Does the customer just want a technology solution, or are they looking for a partner to help them manage their online business?

On the e-com 1 side of the market, e-com 1 platforms are increasingly commoditized and under a lot of price pressure.  It’s a pure customer acquisition game.  Yahoo stores again.

For e-com 1 managed solutions, GSI Commerce (GSIC) is dominant with a huge lead in infrastructure and increasingly in services, where they’ve made some great strategic acquisitions.  While Amazon (AMZN) keeps looking at this space, GSI is the clear leader.

On the e-com 2 side of the market, e-com 2 platforms are mainly custom builds from players like IBM, and ATG (ORCL).  These are big dollar projects with two commas in the total cost, and they leave the customer to manage the solution - there’s no marketing, management, etc. And, they don’t have a ton of experience in these e-com 2 categories.

For e-com 2 managed solutions, where Blueport plays, we’ve yet to run up against a true competitor. 

I guess we really have two competitors: a customer doing nothing, which is less and less of a factor, and a customer trying to do it themselves, which with our case studies, is an easier and easier argument to overcome.  In a lot of cases, people are coming to us now who tried themselves, and now want out.

We expect competition to evolve, but we have a technology platform and service staff with a lot of specific functionality and experience in these markets, which makes it easy to talk to prospective clients, most of whom have been on the sidelines waiting for a provider that understands their business.

CS: That’s time – thanks to everyone for their participation.

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

This week I read about an interesting report from IBM, titled “Capitalizing on the Smarter Consumer.”  It contains the results of the company's recent survey of 30,000 consumers about how they shop and why.  This is the latest report to underscore just how much technology is driving e-commerce growth and affecting consumers' shopping habits.  According to IBM, consumers are more comfortable than ever using the Internet, mobile technologies, in-store tools and other innovations to research and buy products.

Most interesting was IBM’s identification of the “instrumental customer”: a consumer who uses two or more technologies to shop. According to IBM, this constitutes a growing number of shoppers, with 49 percent of survey respondents falling into this category (up 36 percent from last year).

Other findings of note:

• 75 percent of consumers would shop on a retailer's e-commerce store
• 39 percent would use in-store kiosks, a 10 percent increase over last year
• 25 percent want to shop via the mobile channel, up from 13 percent
• 78 to 84 percent of consumers now rely on their social networks when researching new products

IBM's research is in line with what we see amongst our multichannel retail clients' customers -- the growing number of technologies and tools at their fingertips is helping customers make more informed decisions and is changing how they go about their research and purchasing process. Their path to purchase may no longer be a straightforward visit to the store -- or even a simple visit to a retailer's website! Today's smarter consumers may research and browse across numerous channels before ultimately buying the product.  Rather than see this as a marketing challenge, we work with our clients to identify new opportunities for engaging shoppers through multichannel communication.

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

There were several great articles published this week on the impact the iPad will have on retail and, eventually, workplace computing.  One that I particularly enjoyed was focused on the device’s impact on female shopping behavior.  In her AdAge piece titled “How the iPad is Reshaping E-commerce,” Engauge CMO Patti Ziegler draws on her own experience as an iPad-loving mom.  She quickly points the growing cohort of iPad owners – wealthy, tech savvy and increasingly female – a group that is quickly becoming a powerful driver of B2C e-commerce sales.

Ziegler uses the term “t-commerce” which was coined by Forrester in a January 2011 report to describe shopping on a tablet device.  About a decade ago, Forrester coined the term “t-commerce” to mean e-commerce undertaken using digital television. We think tablet commerce will have a much larger impact on retailers.  Here’s why you should be paying attention, and marketing to, this group of women leading the t-commerce charge:

• Within four months of launch, the female-to-male ratio of iPad users shifted from 1:2 to 2:3
• iPad owners are typically affluent and more likely to be spending money online
• Women control between 70-85% of household spending in the US
• Tablet sales are forecast to nearly quadruple from 2010 to 2015
• Many retailers report that over 50% of their mobile traffic is already coming from tablet devices

What is your organization doing to rise to this new multichannel challenge?  Are you creating shopper experiences that extend across mobile phones, computers, in-store kiosks and tablets – including the iPad?  We're interested in hearing your big-ticket retail t-commerce plans and success stories.

Additional reading:

Ad Age - How the iPad is Reshaping E-commerce

MarketingVox - Time to Start Prepping for T-Commerce

New York Times - After the iPad's Head Start, Rival Tablets are Poised to Flood Offices



Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

If you are a multichannel retailer, chances are your website has a store locator.  But, according to a new report from Tempkin Group, online store locators are missing a key part of the shopping experience.  The report, issued in December, evaluated five retailers – The Home Depot, Kroger, Target, Walgreens and Walmart, as well as five banks.  Companies were rated across six criteria: start, locate, interact, complete, end and brand coherence.

Tempkin Group found that most of the sites' store locators were mediocre because they had poorly organized results pages, lacked important information and made it hard to find the store locator on the homepage.

While store locators are often a ‘checklist’ feature, is critical to get it right, or you risk losing traffic (and therefore sales) to your competitors.  There is no reason that the store locator should become one of your ecommerce challenges. Based on the Tempkin Group’s criteria, as well as our own experience with big-ticket retailers who rely heavily on cross channel commerce, we put together the following tips to ensure your store locator makes the grade:

1. Ensure your store locator is easy to…well, locate! The store locator should always be easy to find - not only on the homepage, but within search results and product pages.

2. Include all the information needed to find the store, not just the address.  Include local store hours, a phone number, a map and directions.

3. Keep everything “above the fold.”  Maps should never push important information to the bottom of the page.  Be sure to test your page within multiple browsers and on different size screens to ensure pertinent information is always above the fold.

4. Offer local inventory checks so a consumer can check whether a product is in stock before making a trip to the store.  If a product is not in stock, suggest the next closest store where the product can be found and/or offer to have the product shipped to the customer's home or closer store location.

5. Enable the shopper to text, email or click on a printer-friendly version of the store info and/or directions.

6. Finally, for mobile retail sites and applications, create a GPS-enabled store locator function to make it as easy as possible for the on-the-go shopper to find your store.

As Tempkin advises, think the entire customer process through when designing your store locator.



Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

Oftentimes, the big-ticket retailers we speak with think their business is too complex to go online.  Those readers familiar with Blueport know that we specialize in meeting the unique, localized needs of these types of companies.  Doesn’t fit in a UPS box? Perfect! That’s our specialty.

And that’s why we thought the findings of a recent study from ShopVisible and JC Williams Group was worth sharing.  The study discusses the challenges that retailers are currently facing to provide excellent online customer experiences. After conducting interviews with executives at leading retailers and consumer product manufacturers who had undergone an e-commerce platform change or were currently in the midst of an enterprise-wide system change, the report found that those companies who are just getting started in ecommerce have an advantage over those who have had an ecommerce site for years.

Why?  The answer is simple.  While retail executives are aware of current trends such as social and mobile commerce, they are having trouble innovating based on old legacy systems. The report concluded that “brands that perhaps have not previously had direct-to-consumer interactions with customers have an advantage of coming into ecommerce with a clean slate.”

Ecommerce is no longer a luxury – it is a necessity and key initiative for many brands today. So if you think you’re late to the ecommerce game, think again.  You may be just in time to deliver the right kind of experience that your customer is looking for!




Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

OK, so the headline is a little harsh. Personally, as a marketer, I love the emergence of multichannel communication. Why wouldn’t I want to be able to communicate with my customers (and customers-to-be) when, where and however works for them? Why wouldn’t I embrace social networking sites that give me insight into what the public thinks about my company or products? Why wouldn’t I thank the techies who created smartphones, making it possible for me to reach my target audience 24/7 without anyone having to be sitting at a computer or picking up their mail?

Of course, nothing this good is easy.

The Challenges of Multichannel Communication

In today’s marketplace, you see a lot of good examples of marketers communicating through multiple channels, but you also see a lot of bad ones. Some of the challenges of multichannel communication include keeping track of your own messages, monitoring what others are saying, determining which of the messages work, and consistency.

Consistency proves to be the big one. For example, if you’re like many of Blueport Commerce’s customers, you started out with a brick-and-mortar store and likely did direct mail and print advertising. Then you ventured online with an ecommerce site and perhaps an accompanying email program – somewhat similar, right? Now with social networking, you want to go viral and create community, and many companies think about what might be interesting without thinking about how it relates to their brand or the barrier to participate. Just because some college students think it’s OK to destroy their personal brands by uploading pictures of their Saturday night festivities, that doesn’t mean Facebook is an appropriate place to put your corporate brand through the same ringer.

So as you reach out to your customers using the multiple channels available to you – as you should – stay true to the brand you have created for yourself. Keep your multichannel communications consistent, so your customers can recognize you no matter how you reach them.

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.
 

Back around 2001, it was common for retailers with brick-and-mortar stores to bring their retail model online. The point was to have the website work just like the store. The whole endeavor was based on bringing in a new revenue stream for the retailer with little actual thought given to the medium and how consumers’ expectations and needs might be different. Very few thought about an online retail strategy.

Defining Your Retail Strategy Today

Now that it’s 2010, we can look back at those sites that have done ecommerce right (Amazon.com, of course) and remember those sites that did it wrong (may they rest in peace). But even with this knowledge, you still see new ecommerce sites popping up with little regard to ecommerce’s nuances and unique demands.

There is hope for companies that are interested in adding an online dimension to their businesses but do not have the ecommerce expertise in-house. Just take a look at Blueport Commerce’s solutions. We can help you with every facet of your retail strategy -- from online merchandising to email marketing and security considerations -- especially if you are working with the additional challenges of big-ticket, considered purchases.

Learn more about the advantages of partnering with Blueport Commerce to address your retail strategy needs today.