Ecommerce Blog of Blueport Commerce, Big Ticket Ecommerce Solutions Provider

Hyperlocal Beyond Marketing -- Think Localized E-Commerce!

Friday, November 11, 2011 by Carl Prindle

Earlier this week, Forbes.com ran a guest post titled "The Benefits of Geolocation Marketing." It discusses how online marketing needs to be hyperlocal to appeal to an audience that prefers to make purchases close to home.

It’s a good read that makes some good points – particularly that 80% of consumers’ disposable income is spent on businesses within 10 miles of where they live, and that marketing needs to be location based to effectively influence this spending.

What struck me, however, was the opening sentence of the article. “The seeming ubiquity of e-commerce…masks a very contrarian reality,” the authors warn, “Most shopping is still local.” What a late-nineties view of e-commerce! People either buy via e-commerce or locally? These two ways to buy aren’t contrary in the least.

At Blueport, we’ve been hyperlocalizing e-commerce since the early 2000’s. In today’s world, both your online marketing and your e-commerce experience should be hyperlocal to best meet your shoppers’ – and your business’ – needs.

Localized E-Commerce

Consumers want to shop locally because they want trusted service from brands they know. They want to be able to talk to people, experience the merchandise, get local deals and have the instant gratification of having merchandise in their homes as soon as possible, delivered by someone who can provide service after the sale if needed. And with the right technology, even a large retailer can combine these powerful benefits of its local stores with the convenience of e-commerce.

We work with our retailers to help them sell big-ticket items on the Web. All of our sites reflect local markets – from hyperlocal selection, deals, delivery and service. It’s everything consumers like about local stores, effectively ported online so that consumers can conveniently research and buy our clients’ merchandise, knowing they’ll get the same local store experience they love – especially for big ticket purchases.

So yes, hyperlocal marketing is important. But viewing it only as a way to drive people into stores misses a huge opportunity. Hyperlocalizing both your online marketing and your e-commerce presence ensures the best of what your stores have to offer is leveraged where today’s consumer can be found – online.

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Luxury Websites: If You Don’t Have E-Commerce, Why Not?

Friday, October 28, 2011 by Morgan Woodruff

Many luxury brands have been slow to cultivate their online presence, and even slower to integrate e-commerce capabilities. They seemed to think that the mass appeal and convenience of online shopping would dilute the value and prestige of their brands or that consumers would not be willing to pay big-ticket prices via the Web. This has been proven wrong, as research shows that wealthy people shop online more frequently and spend more per transaction. As of late, many luxury retailers have come around to see the value of the Internet for driving sales, and, even more, the value in allowing customers to transact on an e-commerce site.

According to a recent study by PM Digital, 81% of the luxury websites surveyed now have e-commerce, and the sites with e-commerce get 98% of the traffic that goes to these luxury sites. About a third of this traffic comes from search engines, and there is very little cross traffic, since luxury shoppers are very loyal to their brands. Surprisingly, only a very small amount of luxury brands’ traffic (0.29%) comes from luxury daily deals sites, like Gilt Groupe, ideeli and RueLaLa.

What Makes Luxury E-Commerce Successful?

When selling big-ticket luxury items online, however, it’s not as simple as using a plug-and-play e-commerce solution. Luxury brand customers expect a high-end boutique experience whether in-person or online. Here are some aspects to consider when selling luxury via e-commerce:

You need to provide rich product descriptions. The more expensive an item is, the more information the consumer will want you to provide.
Offer exceptional customer service, getting as close to what you offer in-store with a personal shopper. On the Web, that translates to online chat.
The entire online shopping experience should be like going into one of your boutiques. Craft a strong welcome message on your home page. And then as customers drill down into products, allow them to zoom in on the images or even watch product videos – the goal is for them to handle the product, virtually.

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Blueport Commerce Is on the Move!

Thursday, September 8, 2011 by Morgan Woodruff

It’s moving week at Blueport Commerce! We will be opening for business at our new offices at 580 Harrison Ave. in Boston’s South End on Monday, September 12th. Everyone here is very excited about this next step in our company’s growth.

We spent quite some time finding our new space, all told about 16 months. We wanted a mix of everything: a beautiful space where we could continue to grow, a building that could meet our technical needs, amenities for our staff and an exciting place for clients and partners to visit. After much searching, we found the space. We were able to get all we wanted and more. The time is right, and we’re making the move.

These types of changes often get you thinking about your past as much as your future. How did we get here?

Remember when people were hesitant to buy anything online? That’s when we started selling furniture on the Web as Furniture.com. We have evolved from a Web portal selling furniture to a technology and services provider for big-ticket retailers who want to sell and brand their hard-to-ship items online. We’ve already extended to markets adjacent to the furniture industry, such as appliances, electronics, flooring, carpet and more. We’ve been helping clients navigate their ways through social networks, daily deals and more. As a business, we have evolved, and now it’s time our office space catches up.

The future for Blueport Commerce is forecasted to be even brighter. As the market focuses on local e-commerce (something we’ve done for quite some time), we are poised to continue to be a leader. Come visit us, and see for yourself.

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

Can Groupon Work for Big-Ticket Items?

Friday, July 29, 2011 by Betsy Miller

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.

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Online Advertising: Now Delivering Local
Shoppers -- Is Your Website Ready for Them?

Friday, July 8, 2011 by Carl Prindle

According to a recent eMarketer article, 90% of national ad agencies have clients asking for geographically targeted online ad campaigns. Daily deal sites, like Groupon, and mobile check-in sites, like foursquare, are hot because they can deliver local shoppers.

Seventy-five percent of survey respondents said location was key in helping national brands reach their target audiences, and more than 50% said the ROI on geographically targeted ads is higher. It makes sense -- if you’re looking to buy a new sofa in Chicago, would you be drawn to an ad about stylish sofas or one about stylish sofas in Chicago?

Local advertising brings what the consumer is looking for that much closer. Local means you can see it in a store; maybe get a local deal; and get it quickly and cheaply (and even get service if you have to).

But is your ecommerce platform ready for local shopping? Very few are.

Local Commerce Makes Good on Local Advertising

Remember the early days of ecommerce, which promised to “Amazon” everything? Stores were to become obsolete, and as a result, most ecommerce platforms were built as national channels, designed to bypass local stores entirely.

That’s a real problem for most bricks-and-mortar retailers. The promise of a local ad falls flat when a customer clicks to a homogenized, national website.

To monetize local ads, you need to provide your customers a complete location-based experience that delivers on the ad’s local promise. A landing page isn’t enough -- you need to deliver local online shopping.

At Blueport Commerce, we enable local online shopping experiences for our clients. Blueport’s clients present localized content to their shoppers based on location, including merchandise trends, selection and availability, in-store inventory and pick up, local pricing and deals, fast, cheap local delivery, and even “About Us” pages, managed by stores, and that can speak to a local store’s place in a community.

It’s seamless cross-channel shopping between online and a local store, and it dramatically improves the already impressive ROI of local online advertising.

Your customers are ready for a complete local commerce experience -- are you?

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E-Commerce Is About More Than Online Shopping: Think Digital Marketing

Tuesday, May 3, 2011 by Betsy Miller

This week’s article from Multichannel Merchant “How to Drop the ‘E’ from E-Commerce,” talks about the evolution of folks who are now in charge of retailers’ e-commerce sites and how they likely worked their ways up through the retailers’ IT ranks and are now measured by online sales. But the article points out that e-commerce shouldn’t be about website sales as much as it should be about digital marketing for the entire retail organization.

Your e-commerce website is an influencer and should be designed to be a cross-channel powerhouse that drives sales and interactions with your business. You need to create a retail business that lets the consumer interact with you on the consumer's terms. And with the way people begin shopping using online search, your website could very well be the first touchpoint for new customers.

6 Ways to Turn Your E-Commerce Website into a Retail Digital Marketing Machine

Offer real local inventory information with local pricing -- right down to the store.
Provide a feature-rich store locator, allowing customers to search stores by location, hours and other customer-centric criteria.
Allow customers to buy online and pick up at a store location.
Be sure there is consistency between your e-commerce website and store when it comes to messaging, naming conventions and pricing.
Boost your local store online, using Google Places and the like, and integrate with location-based services like FourSquare.
Allow local stores to customize their information, and include store specific events, contacts and more.
Work with your marketing and merchandising counterparts to ensure a consistent message that works both in-store and online.

Remember: E-commerce is simply an extension of your existing stores. Don’t overlook your website’s full ability to market your products by focusing solely on online sales.

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5 Ideas to Help Multichannel Retailers Beat Big Internet Discount Sites

Thursday, April 7, 2011 by Betsy Miller

I read an interesting article this week in Floor Covering Weekly: “Tile Industry Battles Internet Pricing.” While the article is specific to the flooring industry, it discusses an issue that big-ticket retailers, like the ones we work with, face. With big-ticket items for the home (i.e. carpet, flooring, furniture, etc.), consumers like to visit the retail location to “touch and feel” the product before they make their purchase. But then, the consumer might go home and search for the item online and ends up buying from the e-commerce site with the lowest price.

As a multichannel retailer, what can you do to keep the sale rather than lose it to the lowest bidder? Be sure when consumers leave the store, they will get a consistent experience that focuses on their needs.

Here are 5 things you can do online to help keep the sale you start:

Offer free samples that can be ordered online and shipped directly to the shopper’s home.
Offer free in-home measurement. Bring samples right to the customer’s door and give a free estimate, including installation.
Include coupons on your e-commerce site. You can test a variety of different offers, including incentives for new customers.
Make guarantees on your installations so new customers feel comfortable doing business with you.
When customers do take action, use trigger/automated emails to bring people back to your site and offer additional purchase incentives.

You can’t stop consumers from looking for the best deal online, nor do you necessarily want to. It is up to you to offer the best complete deal, including superior customer service and other incentives that a large discount e-commerce site may not be equipped to provide. As the article mentions, sites that offer discounted prices strip away much of the added value consumers need when shopping for big ticket retail products - no hassle returns, product education and design assistance are just a few.

What advice would you give retailers for “keeping the sale”? We’d love to see your comments below.

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

E-commerce 2.0 – The Next Wave

Tuesday, March 22, 2011 by Morgan Woodruff

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:

Brand Building: in high engagement categories, brands can interact with their customers on topics they are passionate about.
Deals: Facebook can replace email as a way to distribute deals.
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

Big-Ticket Purchases Require Research -- Does Your Ecommerce Site Meet the Need?

Tuesday, October 12, 2010 by Carl Prindle

As we've discussed, researching products online is very common (especially with big-ticket items), so Pew’s new research came as no surprise for those of us in the retail software industry. The research house found that 58% of U.S. adults research products and services they are considering purchasing online (compared to the 49% who did so in 2004).

Additionally, 24% of U.S. adults say they have posted comments or reviews online about the products or services they buy, indicating that many consumers are willing to share their opinions about products and their buying experiences.

With Big-Ticket Items, Research Is a Bigger Deal

Understanding this behavior is particularly important when selling big-ticket items. Big-ticket purchases require more research and consideration due to higher price points and complexity. In fact, 81% of consumers say they conduct pre-purchase research once the cost hits $100. Furniture, mattresses, appliances, flooring and home decor are all examples of products that consumers are spending a significant amount of time researching online prior to purchase.

Whether the ultimate purchase is made online or at a local store, retailers needs to take the necessary steps to ensure they are providing a seamless cross-channel customer experience that ultimately makes a sale. When executed well -- and with these shoppers in mind -- ecommerce sites can become a critical tool to help stores compete both locally and chain-wide.

The report’s author, Jim Jansen, comments, “Ecommerce is now a 360-degree experience for shoppers. It begins with research that in turn leads to purchases that then trigger commentary and reviews by shoppers. Every part of the online experience seems to have become second nature to Internet veterans.”

To cater to consumers' need for information, your online merchandising should include rich product descriptions and imagery as well as the ability for users to add and access product reviews. It should also be synchronized with local stores - so that selection, prices and promotions online match what's in stores in local markets.

Is your ecommerce software equipped to handle this growing group of U.S. shoppers?

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

13 Ways to Compare Ecommerce Website Software Providers

Wednesday, October 6, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

If you are looking to add an ecommerce component to your business, you need to conduct an ecommerce software comparison. With so many ecommerce software providers out there, this may seem like a daunting task.

Mighty Merchant offers 13 techniques for evaluating which companies might be right for you and your unique business needs. Here is a quick look to help you get started with your ecommerce website software comparison:

1. Look at and use real websites powered by the ecommerce software you are considering.
2. Note the visual design of these sites, including whether they all use the same template or if there is customization.
3. Does adding items to cart require creating an account?
4. Check the sites’ Google PageRank.
5. Look for the sites using major search engines.
6. Evaluate which features come with the base package and which are add-ons.
7. Carefully examine what is included in the setup costs.
8. What merchandising tools are available?
9. What are the administration tools like?
10. How easy or hard is it to add additional pages and make site changes?
11. Is this solution hosted by the provider, or do you need to manage that?
12. Get references on the ecommerce website software provider.
13. Call the provider to gauge customer service and support.

At Blueport Commerce, we create ecommerce website software solutions that specifically meet the unique needs of big-ticket retailers. You can learn more about our solutions here.

The Next Frontier for E-Commerce

Friday, October 1, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

According to the State of Retailing Online 2010 report from Forrester and Shop.org, the next big frontier for e-commerce lies in international expansion. The annual report was unveiled this year at the 2010 Shop.org Annual Summit in Dallas, Texas, and it provides insight into where B2C e-commerce retailers are in terms of their capability to expand globally.

According to the report, nearly 73% of the 87 online retailers surveyed are already sending merchandise abroad from their home country's distribution center, with an additional 17% having an established foreign warehouse in place. Retailers who ship abroad see about 5% of their revenue generated from foreign orders.

However the big hurdle still remains in establishing and testing e-commerce logistics or e-commerce payment solutions to service these international customers. For example, when it comes to processing international returns, 37% of retailers currently require customers who want to return an item use a returns center in the retailer's country of origin, while 12% have an international returns center located in their own country to handle foreign returns.

Beyond just international e-commerce expansion, the report also offered a picture of some of the gains online retailers are beginning to see resulting from online retail site improvements, especially as the industry gears up for the critical holiday shopping period: 54% of online retailers say they've increased conversion rates over 2009 levels, 27% have seen gains in units per transaction, 47% say the value of average orders has gone up, and 31% say they've seen a decline in shopping cart abandonment rates, a key measure of customer satisfaction.

I’d love to hear whether these gains are in line with what you are seeing across your e-commerce sites?

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

RoomStore Re-launches Its B2C E-Commerce Site with Blueport Commerce

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

We’re thrilled to share with you the new site for RoomStore, a long-time customer and one of the largest furniture retailers in the country with more than $325 million a year in sales. We launched the first RoomStore site more than five years ago and, since then, we’ve continued to evaluate and make changes to the site on a regular basis.

But with this major re-launch, we have leveraged our unique B2B e-commerce solutions to improve the online customer experience to drive cross-channel sales. Among the new features:

Precision Localization: The site automatically adjusts based on a user’s location, dynamically providing inventory, pricing, promotions, delivery details and more create a seamless cross-channel shopping experience.
Live Chat/Click-to-Call: Shoppers can now choose how they want to communicate with customer service representatives -- via online chat or phone. Dynamic icons reflect real-time availability of customer service reps including when they’re able to chat, connect via phone or request a call-back.
Collaboration Bar: Social media and other enhancements are available via a single tool on product pages, giving customers the additional resources they need for big-ticket purchases, like sharing an item with a friend, live chat or printing a store-ready page.
Shoppable Images: Interactive information tags are displayed on room settings, allowing shoppers to get information on the items in the room and add them directly to their shopping carts from the image. This feature allows customers to be as few clicks from purchasing the items they want as possible.

That is just a taste of what the new RoomStore.com offers. To learn about all of the innovative features, check out the press release.

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

Nordstrom Links Online/Offline Inventory to Increase Multichannel Sales

Friday, August 27, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

The New York Times had a fascinating piece this week about how multichannel retailer Nordstrom is reaping the rewards of integrating its online and offline inventory.

When shopping on Nordstrom.com, consumers are able to see what items are in stock in the Web warehouse as well as what is in stock in Nordstrom stores. This means that if a particular item is out of stock online, customers can quickly search for it across Nordstrom’s 115 retail store network and, even if just one single SKU of that product is left in the most remote retail store location, it would be displayed in the ecommerce store, and store employees would ship it to the Web customer.

Nordstrom has seen immediate and quite remarkable results from this initiative. In the 11 months since Nordstrom made the inventory change, its same-store sales have increased 8 percent and have outperformed the department store average. The number of customers who buy products after searching for an item in the ecommerce store have doubled. But, in my opinion, one of the most important benefits for Nordstrom has been that its inventory is moving faster, and often at high prices.

The fact is that consumers don’t want to have to think about what "channel" they are shopping -- the most important thing to them is getting the product they want when they want it. Today, a consumer may do research on your ecommerce store, visit your physical retail location to see the product firsthand and perhaps even do some price comparisons on their mobile phone, in any given order. Where they make the final purchase is really not as important as ensuring they get the information and products they need, and that all of the information they get is consistent and accurate.

What Nordstrom has done is still considered unusual in the industry. But, it’s at the heart of big-ticket multichannel retail and an ecommerce strategy inherent to the ecommerce services we provide our clients. I'm certain we will be seeing more retailers adopt this strategy in the near future.

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

Local E-Commerce:
The GSI Commerce Perspective

Friday, August 6, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

Forrester’s e-commerce analyst Brian Walker recently featured a great interview with GSI Commerce founder and CEO Michael Rubin on his blog. Rubin discussed how GSI is evolving and what some of the main areas of focus will be for the company in the near future.

One of the most interesting things that stood out for me from their conversation was Rubin’s identification of localization as one of the next key e-commerce trends to watch in the near future. Consumers are increasingly demanding more personal, relevant and local products and services from their online shopping experience. Consequently, retailers will need to invest in technologies that cater to these local preferences to capitalize on the consumer need.

Part and parcel to a localized e-commerce experience is the expectation of rapid and lower cost delivery and return of products. In order to deliver on this promise, Rubin points out that multichannel retailers will need to leverage their stores and distribution centers to get consumers the products they want as quickly and cheaply as possible. This is an area where GSI is investing a great deal of time to provide innovation.

We have been focusing on e-commerce localization at Blueport Commerce for the last decade. Like GSI, we believe this is at the heart of the next generation of e-commerce, or rather, the next generation of cross-channel retailing. Whether they are shopping for a new piece of clothing or a new piece of furniture for their home, consumers want their retail experience to be local. They want the comfort of knowing they can connect with retailers in their area, who can answer questions about the product, or handle exchanges or returns quickly and easily.

In order to deliver this kind of experience, retailers need to stop thinking of e-commerce as an isolated ‘island’ within their operations and begin to construct a truly coordinated, cross-channel strategy. E-commerce teams need to be aligned with bricks-and-mortar stores as well as fulfillment and warehouse facilities. When all of these components are working as one holistic retailing effort, localization is inherent and e-commerce becomes a driver of multi-channel retail sales.

This approach is at the heart of Blueport’s e-commerce package and I am intrigued to see the innovations from GSI in this area as well.

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

Ecommerce Software Packages: Which one is right for me?

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

Any retailer setting up an ecommerce store or considering replatforming their current offering, knows the choices in ecommerce shopping software are endless. The landscape is wide, with numerous vendors offering ecommerce software packages.

The big-ticket retailer often finds their ecommerce shopping software choices to be even more complex. This is because their needs are inherently different. They go beyond setting up a basic online shop, to require more sophisticated merchandising capabilities and fulfillment, and an ability to understand their unique business models. Performing an ecommerce software comparison seems an impossible task.

So where do you start in your decision making process? Here are two initial points to consider:

1. Start by evaluating your current ecommerce shopping software or the retail systems you use to run your business. Many big-ticket retailers find their systems are not ecommerce ready, and that they may pose a barrier to going online. Make sure the ecommerce software packages you are considering are able to seamlessly integrate with your current systems. At its best, your online ecommerce solution should be able to extract the data found in your current systems, augment for e-commerce, then return completed ecommerce transactions to you that are indistinguishable from orders placed in your stores.

2. Make your ecommerce store an extension of your bricks and mortar store, not an island in itself. Look for an ecommerce software package that treats your SKUs, prices and your product information exactly like store orders from a fulfillment and service perspective. This is a fundamental difference between ecommerce shopping software for mass merchants, and that which is geared towards big-ticket retailers. The result is less work, higher customer satisfaction and a reduced need to develop separate staff or procedures for online sales. E-commerce becomes another store, seamlessly integrated with your strategy, operations and reporting.

Finding an ecommerce service provider that meets these inital criteria is the first step in setting up your ecommerce store and capitalizing on the advantages of e-commerce.

Approaching E-Commerce Applications With The Wisdom of Maturity

Monday, March 8, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

Blueport Commerce approaches technology with the wisdom of maturity. The Blueport technology team has experience in the e-commerce space dating back to the 1990s and has experienced firsthand the full panoply of technology hype from that era and since. With this experience we conservatively maintain loyalty to cost effective e-commerce applications while aggressively adopting proven new technologies.

Our core infrastructure is based on products from Microsoft, Adobe, HP, Cisco, F5, and Akamai. We utilize Microsoft’s .Net software development platform and SQL Server database engine as the foundation for our proprietary e-commerce platform. Visually engaging client side e-commerce applications are built with Adobe Flash. We implement secure connectivity with a range of Cisco IOS products. Our server farms are principally made up of HP servers running Microsoft Windows. We manage demand for our client web portals with F5 load balancers. Akamai provides us with geographic edge caching of content. None of these technology partners were born after Y2K but all are excellent with proven staying power.

Our e-commerce platform, shared by all of our clients, represents 10 years of evolution shaped by the unique requirements of “big ticket” e-commerce - from local branding, regional product availability, regional pricing and sale events, coupons, consumer financing, variable lead times, and the CRM and CMS systems to support them. With this library of processes and functionalities available to us, we can focus on the unique requirements of our clients rather than reinventing these complex processes or trying to repurpose an “off the shelf” e-commerce platform designed for simpler transactions.

Our custom platform can also adapt easily to partner systems. The long service technologies making up our core have naturally evolved integration pathways with most other competitive products. We leverage these to work freely with partner systems rooted in Oracle, IBM, and other, less well known companies.

Big Ticket vs. Small Ticket:
Why disaggregating e-commerce matters.

Friday, March 5, 2010 by Carl Prindle

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.

The Next Wave of E-Commerce - Big Ticket Retail

Thursday, February 25, 2010 by Carl Prindle

What’s the next wave of e-commerce? Here’s a hint –it represents the 45% of retail that doesn’t fit in a UPS box. We call it “big ticket retail” and it includes large purchases that often require more consideration than traditional online purchases.

For these reasons and more, big-ticket retail is fundamentally local. Stores play a critical role. E-commerce becomes a powerful tool to help stores compete in their local markets rather than a national channel that bypasses them - essentially making it local e-commerce. Online efforts serve to drive store traffic, generate leads and consummate online transactions, cost effectively and measurably, creating a true multichannel retail supply chain.

Many e-commerce providers shy away from selling these types of items, as big ticket retail presents unique challenges. It involves more expensive, less well-understood products — furniture, appliances, TVs, flooring, construction materials, etc. Prices are higher and consumer confidence is lower. Inventory is bulky, expensive to move around the country and more expensive to return.

If you are a retailer who thinks your business is too complex for e-commerce transactions, there are solutions available to help you reach your big-ticket retail goals. Fundamental to these technologies and the services is the understanding that enabling big-ticket purchases online is different than traditional e-commerce, long typified by consumers purchasing inexpensive, simple products online and receiving shipment via parcel service.

Overcoming Ecommerce Challenges

Thursday, February 25, 2010 by Carl Prindle

Many retailers face challenges when developing or purchasing online ecommerce software solutions. Such challenges include:

Products that are challenging to sell online because they are expensive, unbranded, not well understood or highly customizable
Products that have complex delivery requirements that can't be met by standard parcel services
Franchise or co-op models where brand, product offering and distribution is controlled locally by independent dealers

If you face these challenges, it’s important to look for an ecommerce solution provider that specializes in your area of business. When selecting an ecommerce software provider, ask how they can address your specific challenges.

Also, be sure that the vendor you select combines its ecommerce technology platform with relevant experience and real advice, consultation and support. This will help you enable a seamless ecommerce business solution and a true multichannel strategy which will in turn allow you to better focus on your core business, drive results and create e-commerce growth. Contact us to see how we’ve solved your challenges for the largest of big-ticket retailers.

Fulfillment: Closing the Loop on E-Commerce

Wednesday, February 24, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

Fulfillment and customer service should be a priority for every e-commerce transaction – however all ecommerce solutions are not created equal. Fulfillment becomes even more complicated for big ticket retail, or those retailers whose products do not easily fit into a UPS box.

E-commerce can't succeed in a category like big-ticket retail without a specialized technology provider. One with an e-commerce platform that’s able to process your product from order to delivery — and make it as easy as calling UPS.

How is an online order fulfilled?

Ecommerce solutions should make the process a closed loop that begins and ends with your existing systems. A platform should be able to extract your SKUs from your system, and return orders to your system in a format identical to an order written in your stores. Whether you have a home grown system or a major commercial package, the end result should be that e-commerce orders that are no different to fulfill than store orders.

Additionally, it’s important to ensure that your website only features products you can fulfill, and provides accurate local delivery dates. Dropped or discontinued products should be removed from your site automatically. Customers should be shown the same delivery dates they would get in a store, based on local stock, purchase orders or inter-store transfers.

The result is e-commerce volume that, from a service and fulfillment standpoint, is the same as store orders. Your team will know how to fulfill an e-commerce order from day one — just like a store order.

Ecommerce Service Provider Blueport.com