Here at Blueport, we’ve been passing around last week’s StorefrontBackTalk blog post “Should CIOs Now Surrender to Marketing?,” and it has sparked some discourse between our own marketing and technology functions. As Director of Integration, do I think CIOs should surrender to marketing? They already have!
Some don’t know it yet and some have walled themselves up in time capsules, and for both those groups, the battle has passed them by. Those CIOs who don’t know it yet lead organizations that just can’t seem to make up lost ground chasing the most profitable new technologies. Those who have walled themselves off behind pretexts of the need for conformity and centralized control have done nothing but stifle and stratify the process of business evolution critical to ongoing competitiveness. IT organizations that encourage and support peer business unit management of specialized, cost effective, outsourced applications have won the day.
When CIOs Let Go, Bigger Opportunities Result
By foregoing complete control of all that has become the technology function, the CIO also realizes benefits and reveals opportunities. No IT organization has excess resources to spend making specialized applications that compete with today’s best-in-class cloud and SaaS solutions. Spinning off responsibility for tools that cater to subject area expertise allows CIOs to focus resources against core projects where their resources thrive as opposed to working a potentially complicated solution in an unfamiliar discipline.
A Real-Life E-Commerce Example
The real opportunities result when, through a collaborative approach to enabling specialized applications, a vision develops of the next generation corporate infrastructure, an infrastructure that enables and supports snap-in specialized solutions and opens the door to the same type of quick, cost-effective solutions for all business units. Collaboration between the company’s business functions leading to a common enabling infrastructure gives the CIO the benefit of steering decisions on critical issues central to modern IT, such as compliance and security. Finally, the specialized applications researched and implemented by business units act like a research and development IT skunk works, exposing the organization to the newest technologies and solution patterns.
A real world example of this is your typical big-ticket retail e-commerce website. Assuming the CIO chooses to develop the e-commerce solution in house, the company first needs to decide on a technology for catalog, order tunnel, fulfillment, and reporting. Then the CIO must hire a development team or train existing staff. While the staff is either hiring or training, none of them are advancing the IT organization’s other core solutions. And, as the new e-commerce team is building the website against the initial technology chosen, they are already falling behind technically. When the in-house solution finally launches, it is already underwhelming to consumers and, more often than not, the effort needs to be set aside immediately to resume work against the ever-present backlog of requests for changes to core business solutions.
All the while, the CIO could have used one of the SaaS solutions that are evolving quickly and constantly setting new user experience paradigms.
Alternately, if the CIO chooses to embrace an SaaS e-commerce solution advanced by the marketing team, the CIO’s team would have input on integration and security, as well as an easy case with management for building enhancements to core infrastructure and systems. The enhancements to the core infrastructure, quickened and focused by working against the new SaaS e-commerce solution, open the door to additional SaaS or cloud solutions as well as new technology core solutions by the in-house team. And don’t forget the finished product: SaaS solutions evolve very quickly and constantly set new user experience paradigms – customers love the new website. The next SaaS integration is very cost-effective, and the CIO is the hero. Best of all, nothing of true importance was actually surrendered to marketing.
Next week: Marketing responds!
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Retail CIOs Should Champion Collaboration Across Departments
Friday, February 3, 2012 by
Scott Williams
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:
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.
SEO Won’t Go Away for E-Commerce, But It Will Evolve
Friday, September 23, 2011 by
Betsy Miller
The title of a recent E-Commerce Times article, “The Coming Irrelevance of SEO,” did its job and got me to click through. (Of course, I found it by searching Google.) The piece says that online retailers should begin preparing for the future and focus less on search engine optimization for driving sales and instead should harness the power of marketplaces. “Thanks to improvements in trust and safety, as well as predictability enhancements that brands like Amazon and eBay have brought to the space, consumers simply aren't turning to Google to purchase products,” writes the author Brian Horakh, who is also the founder of Zoovy, which is an integrated marketplace e-commerce solution, not that he’s biased. It’s unclear how this is an either/or scenario -- you can have a marketplace presence and promote your goods through SEO.
Not to hold onto the past, or even the present, I believe that SEO will continue to be a valuable tool for e-commerce websites. Purchasing is just the last step in the process. When customers research items, search engines are a premier starting point. We also don’t know what leads to that final visit where the purchase was made. Was the click from a friend’s review the first visit or the ninth? Perhaps the review helped close the sale, but the initial visit to the company’s e-commerce site may have come from a pay-per-click ad or from a link in organic search.
Good SEO Is Good Content
What even Internet experts tend to forget is that good SEO does not have to be a daunting task. Think about your business and your audience. What does your target audience want that you can provide? If you provide quality content that consumers want, then the SEO part falls into place. Sure, you can mix things up a bit and use different phrases to say the same thing, but that is also considered to be good writing. For example, if you are writing about a sofa, you might also refer to it as a couch or seating -- that reads better than using “couch” over and over again, and it’s good SEO.
Creating good content will also help you as social networks grow. Consumers want to share good content -- they’ll link to it from Facebook posts or reference it in their own blogs. And appropriately tagging user-generated content on your e-commerce sites, like reviews, for example, will help users and search engines find them.
Link farms and black hat tricks gave SEO a bad name earlier this year. But as the Google algorithm continues to evolve, so will SEO practices. And as long as you are focused on your audience, your e-commerce site will benefit.
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Not to hold onto the past, or even the present, I believe that SEO will continue to be a valuable tool for e-commerce websites. Purchasing is just the last step in the process. When customers research items, search engines are a premier starting point. We also don’t know what leads to that final visit where the purchase was made. Was the click from a friend’s review the first visit or the ninth? Perhaps the review helped close the sale, but the initial visit to the company’s e-commerce site may have come from a pay-per-click ad or from a link in organic search.
Good SEO Is Good Content
What even Internet experts tend to forget is that good SEO does not have to be a daunting task. Think about your business and your audience. What does your target audience want that you can provide? If you provide quality content that consumers want, then the SEO part falls into place. Sure, you can mix things up a bit and use different phrases to say the same thing, but that is also considered to be good writing. For example, if you are writing about a sofa, you might also refer to it as a couch or seating -- that reads better than using “couch” over and over again, and it’s good SEO.
Creating good content will also help you as social networks grow. Consumers want to share good content -- they’ll link to it from Facebook posts or reference it in their own blogs. And appropriately tagging user-generated content on your e-commerce sites, like reviews, for example, will help users and search engines find them.
Link farms and black hat tricks gave SEO a bad name earlier this year. But as the Google algorithm continues to evolve, so will SEO practices. And as long as you are focused on your audience, your e-commerce site will benefit.
Related posts:
- J.C. Penney and Google: A Cautionary Tale of E-Commerce and SEO
- 3 Reasons Why Quality Content Could Be Your Key to E-Commerce Success
- 4 Tips to Boost E-Commerce Site Traffic from Rapper Lil B
- New Insights on How Consumers Research Products and Shop Online
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Scenes from the Summit: Pacific Crest 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011 by
Morgan Woodruff
The Pacific Crest Global Technology Leadership Forum for 2011 was again held in glorious Vail, Colorado. Blueport's third year at this event kicked off on Sunday with an investment-banker-driven, 7-mile run from the town (8,150 ft.) up to nearly the summit (11,428 ft.). What were they thinking? This was followed by a cocktail reception that night for the private and public companies attending. At this early stage in the conference, it was impossible to wrap your head around the event yet: It was a Sunday night and you were working with half the oxygen you’re used to. You spoke with tons of contacts, but there was no mention of the technology, localized e-commerce, social and mobile buzzwords that would be unavoidable in the remaining days.
The sun crested over the mountains at 5:29 a.m. and breakfast began at 6. Pacific Cresters fluttered around, effectively lining up 48 hours of ducks. You had to caffeine it up -- you needed it.
The summit had three modules -- two unique. At most tech summits, you end up in a room with Google or Gilt listening to egos roar as Sergey or Susan talk about how killer things are in ecommerce, search, social commerce and more. At Pacific Crest, these more generic types of corporate briefings were done throughout the two days and you slot them in as best you can. But most of the fun comes from the two more unique tracks of this conference: One portion is the roundtable discussions where industry focus meets opinion. Our CEO, Carl sat on the Internet Digital Media panel this year with Don the Tool King and the CEO of Beyond the Rack. The discussion is led by bankers and analysts who cover the e-commerce space. This year, logistics and inventory (Do you job it out? CAPEX it?) was among the hotter topics. Our market validation vis-a-vis panel discussions with these high-caliber attendees is flattering. When someone who runs a $17 billion fund nods in agreement -- well, nothing is quite like it.
This year, I spent most of my time differently than in the past. I focused on briefing investors interested in e-commerce platforms and, hopefully, Blueport.
Meetings were 25 minutes each (with 5 minutes for travel time to the next meeting lovingly factored in -- very 503, you know 917 wouldn't do that). They’re like those goofy Hollywood junket interviews for movie premieres. I did my best to not pull a Christian Bale, while sitting in a hotel room stripped of its beds (because THAT would be awkward), saying roughly the same thing over and over, changing it slightly for the audience and its reactions. They went something like this:
Them: Are you profitable?
Us: What's your average check size?
Them: Year-over-year growth?
Us: What are you looking for in your next portfolio company?
Them: We typically would invest $25 to $50 million, but we did a round with Facebook at $200.
Us: OK, we want $5. Can we make that work?
Before you can imagine, there's a knock on the door. It's over and on to the next. It's a blast, and it’s exactly what I love about my career; that it's not a job or work per se, but it's fun. I'm insanely lucky. Events like this remind me of that.
Related posts:
The sun crested over the mountains at 5:29 a.m. and breakfast began at 6. Pacific Cresters fluttered around, effectively lining up 48 hours of ducks. You had to caffeine it up -- you needed it.
The summit had three modules -- two unique. At most tech summits, you end up in a room with Google or Gilt listening to egos roar as Sergey or Susan talk about how killer things are in ecommerce, search, social commerce and more. At Pacific Crest, these more generic types of corporate briefings were done throughout the two days and you slot them in as best you can. But most of the fun comes from the two more unique tracks of this conference: One portion is the roundtable discussions where industry focus meets opinion. Our CEO, Carl sat on the Internet Digital Media panel this year with Don the Tool King and the CEO of Beyond the Rack. The discussion is led by bankers and analysts who cover the e-commerce space. This year, logistics and inventory (Do you job it out? CAPEX it?) was among the hotter topics. Our market validation vis-a-vis panel discussions with these high-caliber attendees is flattering. When someone who runs a $17 billion fund nods in agreement -- well, nothing is quite like it.
This year, I spent most of my time differently than in the past. I focused on briefing investors interested in e-commerce platforms and, hopefully, Blueport.
Meetings were 25 minutes each (with 5 minutes for travel time to the next meeting lovingly factored in -- very 503, you know 917 wouldn't do that). They’re like those goofy Hollywood junket interviews for movie premieres. I did my best to not pull a Christian Bale, while sitting in a hotel room stripped of its beds (because THAT would be awkward), saying roughly the same thing over and over, changing it slightly for the audience and its reactions. They went something like this:
Them: Are you profitable?
Us: What's your average check size?
Them: Year-over-year growth?
Us: What are you looking for in your next portfolio company?
Them: We typically would invest $25 to $50 million, but we did a round with Facebook at $200.
Us: OK, we want $5. Can we make that work?
Before you can imagine, there's a knock on the door. It's over and on to the next. It's a blast, and it’s exactly what I love about my career; that it's not a job or work per se, but it's fun. I'm insanely lucky. Events like this remind me of that.
Related posts:
- E-Commerce 2.0 -- the Next Wave
- The Next Big Thing in Big-Ticket E-Commerce
- Does Your Business Need a Franchise Commerce Solution for the Web?
- Creating an Immersive Online Shopping Experience
How Does Your Ecommerce Shopping Software Manage Stock-Outs?
Thursday, April 14, 2011 by
Morgan Woodruff
New research from Oregon State University finds that, in addition to lost revenue, online stock-outs can also cause long-term brand damage due to customer dissatisfaction, a decrease in return visits and negative word-of-mouth.
Consumers' negative reactions were all linked to how B2C ecommerce websites manage stock-outs. Online retailers that do not notify customers until checkout that an item is out of stock are rated significantly worse than stores that let their customers know about avaialbility earlier in the shopping process.
Blueport's B2C Ecommerce Solution for Managing Stock Online
We designed Blueport Commerce's ecommerce shopping software to help big-ticket retailers mitigate this negative reaction to stock-outs. We integrate directly into a store’s inventory system and display updated, real-time product availability information. And we've designed our clients' websites to display important availability information for the consumer right on the product page based on stock, incoming purchase orders or inter-store transfers. Consumers know the local in-store availability and delivery dates before they add an item to their shopping carts.
Customer satisfaction can make or break your business. You need to leverage the right ecommerce CRM software to help keep your customers on your website -- after all, your competitors are only a click away.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Consumers' negative reactions were all linked to how B2C ecommerce websites manage stock-outs. Online retailers that do not notify customers until checkout that an item is out of stock are rated significantly worse than stores that let their customers know about avaialbility earlier in the shopping process.
Blueport's B2C Ecommerce Solution for Managing Stock Online
We designed Blueport Commerce's ecommerce shopping software to help big-ticket retailers mitigate this negative reaction to stock-outs. We integrate directly into a store’s inventory system and display updated, real-time product availability information. And we've designed our clients' websites to display important availability information for the consumer right on the product page based on stock, incoming purchase orders or inter-store transfers. Consumers know the local in-store availability and delivery dates before they add an item to their shopping carts.
Customer satisfaction can make or break your business. You need to leverage the right ecommerce CRM software to help keep your customers on your website -- after all, your competitors are only a click away.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Why eBay's Acquisition of GSI Commerce Is Good for All of Us
Friday, April 1, 2011 by
Morgan Woodruff
Consolidation seems to be the word of the day.
This week’s news of eBay’s purchase of GSI Commerce was the latest in a steady stream of consolidation and acquisitions in the e-commerce retail industry that I am very excited to see. No doubt, the result of this trend has been a tremendous validation across all sectors of retail and e-commerce technology and a boon to all players in this space.
For example, we are seeing a growth amongst enterprise class retail POS solutions such as those run by Oracle, stemming largely from this summer’s ATG purchase. We are also seeing a growing focus on big-ticket retail workforce-warehouse solutions such as those designed by RedPrairie. Their acquisition by Escalate Retail recently only strengthened this trend. Last year’s IBM/Sterling Commerce buyout was also a pivotal turn for the industry, strengthening Big Blue’s position and helping them close the gap on multi channel SaaS offerings. The effects on other platform players like Blueport Commerce, as well as on tertiary vendors and tech providers (the likes of Akamai Technologies) that serve these companies has also been extremely positive from a growth standpoint.
I think the most important thing to note is that the consumer was not left out of these recent shopping sprees from billion dollar publicly traded companies. In fact, this week’s eBay’s acquisition of GSI Commerce proves even a tried and true marketplace leader does not know all and needs to redefine its strategy to meet changing consumer needs. The result of many of these acquisitions is actually a better offering for clients and a better way for them to manage their business.
The next twelve months in our industry will be interesting to say the least.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
This week’s news of eBay’s purchase of GSI Commerce was the latest in a steady stream of consolidation and acquisitions in the e-commerce retail industry that I am very excited to see. No doubt, the result of this trend has been a tremendous validation across all sectors of retail and e-commerce technology and a boon to all players in this space.
For example, we are seeing a growth amongst enterprise class retail POS solutions such as those run by Oracle, stemming largely from this summer’s ATG purchase. We are also seeing a growing focus on big-ticket retail workforce-warehouse solutions such as those designed by RedPrairie. Their acquisition by Escalate Retail recently only strengthened this trend. Last year’s IBM/Sterling Commerce buyout was also a pivotal turn for the industry, strengthening Big Blue’s position and helping them close the gap on multi channel SaaS offerings. The effects on other platform players like Blueport Commerce, as well as on tertiary vendors and tech providers (the likes of Akamai Technologies) that serve these companies has also been extremely positive from a growth standpoint.
I think the most important thing to note is that the consumer was not left out of these recent shopping sprees from billion dollar publicly traded companies. In fact, this week’s eBay’s acquisition of GSI Commerce proves even a tried and true marketplace leader does not know all and needs to redefine its strategy to meet changing consumer needs. The result of many of these acquisitions is actually a better offering for clients and a better way for them to manage their business.
The next twelve months in our industry will be interesting to say the least.
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:
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
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.
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
RedPrairie Acquires Escalate Retail
Wednesday, February 2, 2011 by
Morgan Woodruff
We have seen a wave of retail and ecommerce acquisitions lately, and the latest comes from cross channel vendor Escalate Retail. The company announced today that it has been acquired by Red Prairie, a vendor providing workforce, warehouse and transportation management software solutions. The acquisition is touted by both companies as a move to provide retailers with collective functionality that enhances multi-channel retailing with order capture, POS, store kiosk, call center operations, and more. In essence, it will give Red Prairie the opportunity to extend their supply chain capabilities into the retail space. Read more about the deal here.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Multichannel Retailers Continue to Battle Fraud
Monday, January 31, 2011 by
Morgan Woodruff
One of the ongoing concerns of multichannel retailers remains fraud and customer theft. A new report from CyberSource showed that fraud rates for online retailers in the United States and Canada remained steady at 0.9% in 2010 for the second year in a row.
The good news is that retailers are continuing to get a better grasp on how best to mitigate fraud resulting from their ecommerce site, even during high volume periods like this past holiday shopping season.
CyberSource estimates that online fraud cost retailers an estimated $2.7 billion in 2010, down from $3.3 billion in 2009. This is due to retailers becoming more aggressive about rejecting suspicious orders. According to CyberSource, North American online retailers rejected 2.7% of orders in 2010, up from 2.4% in 2009.
While the threat of fraud will obviously never go away, retailers should continue to invest in solutions to help them manage the risk. At Blueport Commerce, we have developed extensive fraud intercept solutions embedded into our platform. A collaborated effort of our technology and staff monitor each order that comes in through our clients’ ecommerce stores, intercepting fraudulent orders before they are even processed.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
The good news is that retailers are continuing to get a better grasp on how best to mitigate fraud resulting from their ecommerce site, even during high volume periods like this past holiday shopping season.
CyberSource estimates that online fraud cost retailers an estimated $2.7 billion in 2010, down from $3.3 billion in 2009. This is due to retailers becoming more aggressive about rejecting suspicious orders. According to CyberSource, North American online retailers rejected 2.7% of orders in 2010, up from 2.4% in 2009.
While the threat of fraud will obviously never go away, retailers should continue to invest in solutions to help them manage the risk. At Blueport Commerce, we have developed extensive fraud intercept solutions embedded into our platform. A collaborated effort of our technology and staff monitor each order that comes in through our clients’ ecommerce stores, intercepting fraudulent orders before they are even processed.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
What You Should Know About Ecommerce Hosting
Wednesday, October 13, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
When it comes to evaluating your ecommerce hosting site options, you have a lot to consider. And perhaps the most important question to answer is whether you should host your own website or work with a hosting provider. This article from Practical eCommerce goes into the specifics of whether or not you should host your own site, and it makes good points supporting the merits of both options.
When examining ecommerce hosting sites, the point is that you always want your website to be running -- efficiently, quickly and securely. Maintaining your own server in-house can be more inexpensive and gives your business the control to make sure your site is performing as you and your customers demand it to be. On the flip side, using a hosting provider gives you access to people who specialize in servers, so if a problem arises, it will likely be able to be fixed more quickly.
More to Know About Ecommerce Hosting Sites
If you decide to go with a hosting provider, you should be aware of these options so you can decide which would make the most sense for your ecommerce business:
- Shared hosting: This is when your website gets space on a physical server, sharing it with other websites. Keep in mind that with this hosting solution, problems on another site that lives on the server can affect your site.
- Virtual dedicated hosting: This option still has your website living on a server with other sites, but it acts as if it is on its own standalone hardware. If one of the other websites on the server crashes, your site would not be affected.
- Dedicated hosting: Dedicated hosting would give your website and any of its subdomains its own server. Reasons to go with this option would be if you have a highly trafficked site or if your website offers audio and video downloads, which can require a lot of bandwidth.
As you delve deeper into considering Internet hosting providers, you will also want to know about their contingency plans should anything go wrong, as well as how their customer and technical support works.
Blueport Commerce hosts the entire technology platform for its ecommerce clients, including server hardware, maintenance, expansion, upgrades and secure, PCI compliance, leavgiving our customers valuable peace of mind. You can learn more on our Hardware & Secure Hosting solutions page.
Does Your Business Need a Franchise Commerce Solution for the Web?
Wednesday, October 13, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
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.
Bringing Your Retail Strategy Online
Tuesday, October 12, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
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.
Local Inventory Search: The Search Engine Technology Is Not There Yet
Friday, October 8, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
What is the big win in a consumer being able to find a product at local stores that has always been easy to find? Sure, it’s fun to be able to do a local inventory search right from your smartphone. It’s also a lot of fun to update your Twitter and Facebook accounts on-the-go as well.
But this StorefrontBacktalk article points out that the true value of local inventory search is really yet to come, and that most of what could be found is already findable via numerous search engines’ regular search platforms.
“If the consumer already knows the manufacturer’s name -- or a specific model and make -- the manufacturer’s site is generally quite helpful,” reads the piece. “Certainly if the store is already known, that store’s site can deliver those answers. The value -- and extreme value it is -- comes from an engine finding products that simply cannot be found otherwise.”
So if you're a retailer selling unique products or hard-to-find items, running the gamut from private-label furniture to antique radios, local inventory search won’t necessarily help consumers find you. And for the folks looking to buy your product, local inventory search will be that more frustrating.
When Local Inventory Search Works
Here's what does work: at Blueport Commerce, we’ve been providing our customers with fast, accurate local inventory search as part of our core localization strategy since 2001. In our case it works, as the search is specific to the customer's location and is tied right into the retailer's inventory systems. For the customer, and the retailer, that's a very big win indeed.
Learn more about our ecommerce solutions.
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.
Ecommerce and the Dangers of Downtime -- Especially with Holidays Approaching
Monday, October 4, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
Downtime is never good for a website, and for an online retailer it's seriously detrimental. Time is money, and your customers depend on being able to access your site whenever might be convenient for them.
And with the holidays approaching, the impact of downtime dramatically increases. One large warehouse retailer recently experienced three hours of downtime during a Labor Day sale.
So what can you do to prevent a disaster on one of your busiest days?
Talk to your hosted ecommerce software provider now. Do not wait until there is an issue to see how they respond. Your hosted ecommerce software provider should have a contingency plan should anything go wrong. Become familiar with how it would work, who you would need to contact and what the escalation process would be.
Blueport Commerce's hosted ecommerce software solution ensures uptime even during the busiest shopping seasons. We provide around-the-clock support, giving peace of mind to our retailers and their IT staff, and letting them focus on their sales, not damage control.
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
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
IBM Invests in E-Commerce
Monday, May 24, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
This week IBM announced its plans to acquire Sterling Commerce, an e-commerce company and provider of cross-channel fulfillment solutions, for $1.4 billion. While IBM already participates in e-commerce with its WebSphere division, the integration of Sterling Commerce will add collaboration, communication and integration solutions for fulfillment, as well as a stellar client list with more than 18,000 customers worldwide, including 80% of the Fortune 500 list.
From a technology standpoint Craig Hayman, general manager of IBM's WebSphere division noted that the cloud computing model which Sterling employs is attractive to IBM. He also noted that many of IBM’s current customers are looking for easy-to-scale solutions, which make them great candidates for migration into the cloud.
From an industry perspective, it’s great to see giants like IBM expanding their reach into e-commerce as it further validates our fast-growing industry. The move will help IBM to better position itself against the likes of tech giants HP, Cisco, and SAP. It also represents a greater business goal of the company, which is to grow through acquisition. IBM has said that the company plans to spend $20 billion on acquisitions by 2015 and its purchase of Sterling Commerce is certainly a good start.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Offering Your Customers Multiple Ecommerce Payment Solutions
Wednesday, April 28, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
Offering your online customers flexible payment options is a no brainer. This final step in the ecommerce transaction process is critical for the customer who may very quickly abandon their cart if they cannot pay how they want to, or if checkout is not seamless and easy.
Be it credit/debit cards, PayPal, gift cards or loyalty points, providing a multitude of ecommerce payment solutions is the final component of a successful ecommerce shopping experience that drives conversion and minimizes cart abandonment.
But integrating multiple ecommerce payment solutions and checkout options into your site can be a daunting and time consuming task. Finding an ecommerce platform that supports these multiple payment options can be even more difficult.
That's why at Blueport, we make integrating multiple ecommerce payments solutions a one step process for our clients. All of the payment and checkout tools that you need are readily integrated into the Blueport ecommerce platform.
So, when your online store launches, so does a robust and flexible payments and checkout process. It's really that simple.
Be it credit/debit cards, PayPal, gift cards or loyalty points, providing a multitude of ecommerce payment solutions is the final component of a successful ecommerce shopping experience that drives conversion and minimizes cart abandonment.
But integrating multiple ecommerce payment solutions and checkout options into your site can be a daunting and time consuming task. Finding an ecommerce platform that supports these multiple payment options can be even more difficult.
That's why at Blueport, we make integrating multiple ecommerce payments solutions a one step process for our clients. All of the payment and checkout tools that you need are readily integrated into the Blueport ecommerce platform.
So, when your online store launches, so does a robust and flexible payments and checkout process. It's really that simple.
Big Ticket E-commerce Playbook, Rule Four: Localize
Monday, April 12, 2010 by
Carl Prindle
E-commerce 1.0 = World Wide Web (only): Typical e-commerce does not accurately reflect how multi-channel chain retailing is done in-store. Just as “all politics is local,” all big ticket chain store retail is local, too. Through local selection, local prices and local promotions, stores battle local competitors for local customers. Most e-commerce solutions aren’t built for localization – one site offers the same thing to every visitor, regardless of where a customer resides. Retailers who adopt this approach for big ticket e-commerce hamper both their online efforts and their stores.
Big Ticket E-commerce = Localize! Remember that e-commerce supports your overall multichannel retail strategy and your websites should be as localized as your stores. Some big ticket retailers have hundreds of localized, micro-branded sites with content that resonates with local consumers. Others use IP mapping to localize prices, offers and product selection, directing customers to local stores with products on display. All have checkout processes that reflect that delivery times may be 48 hours in one area, two weeks in another. Make sure your e-commerce platform embraces the complexity of local e-commerce – when done correctly it’s a powerful sales tool online and in your stores.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
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