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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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.

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Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
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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

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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:
  1. Brand Building: in high engagement categories, brands can interact with their customers on topics they are passionate about.
  2. Deals: Facebook can replace email as a way to distribute deals.
  3. As a Platform: we look at Facebook as an emerging platform/operating system that can host online stores with built in traffic.
CS:  Blueport appears to be in a sweet-spot helping merchants in challenging product categories figure out their e-commerce strategies.  Can you talk about the multi-channel environment, how the pace of that shift online may be changing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sure, we segment the market on two dimensions. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
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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


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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.
 


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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.
 

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce



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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.


 

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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.



 

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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
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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

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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

 

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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.



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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.



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Ecommerce Hardware: The Benefits of Ecommerce Outsourcing

Tuesday, March 30, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

Most retailers looking to make the foray into ecommerce are quickly hit with the high capital investment required for ecommerce hardware, network equipment and hosting.

In addition to price, there are security regulations to consider.  The impact of down time on your website and stores can be disastrous.
The entire process is complex, expensive and challenging to maintain. Its especially daunting to a retailer that is just stepping into the ecommerce arena and is already juggling with a multitude of factors to get their online store up and running.

Its easy to see the benefits of ecommerce outsourcing for ecommerce hardware and hosting.  Not only does outsourcing of ecommerce hardware help drive down the operating costs for the retailer, but the right hosting solution will help ensure minimal down time.

Blueport's ecommerce platform is hosted by us.  We buy everything that is required to keep your store live and make the process as easy for you as possible - the ecommerce hardware, operating systems, network equipment, bandwidth.  Our scale drives down prices while the retailer gets worry-free (and cap-ex free) ecommerce hardware.

In addition, we provide ecommerce hardware maintenance, expansion and upgrades as well as operating system upgrades. We also provide 24x7 support, meaning no late night or weekend headaches for the retailer. Leaving you to focus on running the online store from the business side, not the technical one.

That's just one of the ways Blueport Commerce makes ecommerce easy.



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Improving the Big-Ticket Ecommerce Online Shopping Experience

Friday, March 19, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

One of the biggest challenges in big-ticket retail is how to provide an ecommerce online shopping experience that approaches the feel of the in-store shopping experience. This is particularly true when you are selling an item like hardwood flooring online, as our client Flooring America knew all too well.

We were determined to improve the ecommerce online shopping experience for their web site, which features thousands of products all represented by a uniform square image of the flooring.  We turned to our merchandising partner Allurent, whose goal is to create the most compelling online shopping experiences with their product Allurent on Demand.

The solution we came up with is the Flooring Explorer, a 5x3 grid of flooring squares that sits at the top of each category page.  Simply mousing over each image gives you the details of each product, including price, and the ability to add the item to your cart. The ability to quickly look at a half dozen products without scrolling helps bring the store experience of dozens of physical swatches to the ecommerce online shopping experience.  

Once live, the analytics around the online shopping widget proved its success. Visitors who used the Flooring Explorer view 8x as many products and added 2x as many to cart. This is an indicator of a successful ecommerce shopping experience.


Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

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Localization for B2B Ecommerce Solutions

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 by Betsy Miller
If you're running a B2B ecommerce site, you should think about localizing your content. Why? Because just like consumers shopping for clothing or home goods online, your business customer expects the content and promotions displayed online to be consistent with the brick and mortar store near where they are located.

Running this kind of multi channel business is becoming more and more crucial to ecommerce success. The ability to understand and accommodate the complexities of each business and deliver a localized solution that meets a retailer’s needs is at the core of a successful B2B ecommerce solution.

For B2B ecommerce solution providers, the impact of localization likely means displaying local sales contacts, showing local inventory levels, delivery times, availability and pricing based on the customer's location.

Not just for B2C anymore, localization is an important point for B2B ecommerce that should not be overlooked.
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Welcome to the Blueport Big-Ticket Blog

Thursday, February 25, 2010 by Carl Prindle
On behalf of the Blueport Commerce team, I am delighted to announce the launch of our Big-Ticket blog.

Seeing as this is our first blog entry, it’s fitting to look back at Blueport’s evolution and our track record of ecommerce ‘firsts’.  I led the creation of Blueport Commerce with the management team at Furniture.com, which started as one of the first web portals selling furniture and evolved to become the furniture industry's leading ecommerce solution.

Seeing first hand our clients' success online, we firmly believe that big-ticket ecommerce represents the next wave in ecommerce and that we are in a unique position to apply our decade of knowledge, technology and expertise to helping retailers in other markets take advantage of these opportunities. In addition to furniture, we now work with multi channel retailers and manufacturers in other burgeoning online markets such as appliances, flooring, lighting and carpet, to name a few. 

Just as we recognized the opportunity for an ecommerce solution for retailers with complex ecommerce needs, we now see the need for a thought-provoking and insightful discussion on this next wave of ecommerce.  The goal of this blog is to provide a resource for multi channel retailers in this category and to offer a forum for those interested in learning more about this space. 

Our discussions will focus on current industry issues and trends with a strong emphasis on innovation and looking towards ‘what’s next’ for big-ticket online.  Most importantly, we look forward to your feedback, comments and contributions – the two way dialogue that leads to new ideas and solutions. 

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
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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.
 

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E-commerce for franchise retail: Can it be done?

Thursday, February 25, 2010 by Carl Prindle

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

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

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

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