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
Data Center Issues Are Part of E-Commerce -- But They Can Be Mitigated
Friday, January 13, 2012 by
Fotios Magoufis
For e-commerce sites, both on the web and mobile, there’s a lot you can control about your site, for instance, what products are featured, site promotions, the shopping cart and more. But when it comes to site performance, some issues are out of the retailer’s hands.
For example, last month Toolfetch.com’s mobile commerce site experienced availability issues. While load time remained a quick 5.30 seconds, the site was unavailable for nearly 10% of customers who tried to load it. The culprit? Service interruption at the data center.
Toolfetch.com had likely created a multi-homed network connecting their data center to two independent carriers – it’s like running Comcast and RCN for your home Internet connection and using them both at the same time. Many e-commerce sites conduct such practices, and it’s almost required to ensure adequate uptime these days. Running this type of connection adds complexity and multiple additional layers that must be monitored and managed properly. From our perspective here at Blueport, running this multi-homed network alone isn’t enough to guarantee better performance and uptime.
In addition to implementing a multi-homed network with independent carriers, we also use edge caching via Akamai for all of our clients’ e-commerce sites. Akamai copies our websites and stores the pages across thousands of nodes all over the US and Canada. When a user hits one of our clients’ websites, 85% of the time the data they see is loaded via a node located geographically close to the user’s computer. If Akamai does not have already have a copy of the page, the service determines the fastest path to loading the page for the user and fetches the information from our data center to display it as quickly as possible.
By taking additional precautions, we are able to further reduce the risk of the unexpected and improve site performance for our clients.
Related posts:
For example, last month Toolfetch.com’s mobile commerce site experienced availability issues. While load time remained a quick 5.30 seconds, the site was unavailable for nearly 10% of customers who tried to load it. The culprit? Service interruption at the data center.
Toolfetch.com had likely created a multi-homed network connecting their data center to two independent carriers – it’s like running Comcast and RCN for your home Internet connection and using them both at the same time. Many e-commerce sites conduct such practices, and it’s almost required to ensure adequate uptime these days. Running this type of connection adds complexity and multiple additional layers that must be monitored and managed properly. From our perspective here at Blueport, running this multi-homed network alone isn’t enough to guarantee better performance and uptime.
In addition to implementing a multi-homed network with independent carriers, we also use edge caching via Akamai for all of our clients’ e-commerce sites. Akamai copies our websites and stores the pages across thousands of nodes all over the US and Canada. When a user hits one of our clients’ websites, 85% of the time the data they see is loaded via a node located geographically close to the user’s computer. If Akamai does not have already have a copy of the page, the service determines the fastest path to loading the page for the user and fetches the information from our data center to display it as quickly as possible.
By taking additional precautions, we are able to further reduce the risk of the unexpected and improve site performance for our clients.
Related posts:
- Keep Your E-Commerce Site on Target and Avoid Outages
- Get Your E-Commerce Website Ready for Daily Deals
- E-Commerce and the Dangers of Downtime
5 Tips for Handling Inventory Stock Information on E-Commerce Sites
Friday, September 30, 2011 by
Carl Prindle
“I always remember that it costs a lot to get people in a store…and takes very little to convince them not to come back.”
This quote was from a recent Practical Ecommerce article about inventory stock status on e-commerce websites. The consumer who is quoted had a very bad experience shopping online. He tried to purchase the discontinued HP TouchPad once it went on sale for $99 (originally $399).
Like him, many other shoppers went online to make the same purchase, and, like him, many were successful – at least in placing an order and having their credit cards charged. Unfortunately, the stores oversold, and instead of getting their new tablets, these consumers received emails apologizing for unexpected demand and saying that their orders would be cancelled.
It’s remarkable that the massive players mentioned in the article still have this issue, especially selling a fairly simple item that, if in stock, is easy to fulfill. The resulting outrage points to how high consumers’ expectations have become in the area of fulfillment.
Blueport’s focus is meeting these high expectations, even in the toughest logistical categories. When you’re browsing our sites, you’re seeing real-time local inventory. If you order a sofa, you know it’s in stock and when you’ll get it – often as soon as tomorrow and for a very low delivery price. What Amazon has done for UPSable items, we’re doing for sofas, appliances, large electrics and more.
Regardless of what you’re selling online, the article concludes with a few excellent suggestions:
The overarching theme here is to be straightforward with your customers about the merchandise you have on your website. You could potentially miss a sale or two today, but the long-lasting result of creating a trusting relationship between customers and your e-commerce site can be priceless, especially in categories that are difficult to fulfill.
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
This quote was from a recent Practical Ecommerce article about inventory stock status on e-commerce websites. The consumer who is quoted had a very bad experience shopping online. He tried to purchase the discontinued HP TouchPad once it went on sale for $99 (originally $399).
Like him, many other shoppers went online to make the same purchase, and, like him, many were successful – at least in placing an order and having their credit cards charged. Unfortunately, the stores oversold, and instead of getting their new tablets, these consumers received emails apologizing for unexpected demand and saying that their orders would be cancelled.
It’s remarkable that the massive players mentioned in the article still have this issue, especially selling a fairly simple item that, if in stock, is easy to fulfill. The resulting outrage points to how high consumers’ expectations have become in the area of fulfillment.
Blueport’s focus is meeting these high expectations, even in the toughest logistical categories. When you’re browsing our sites, you’re seeing real-time local inventory. If you order a sofa, you know it’s in stock and when you’ll get it – often as soon as tomorrow and for a very low delivery price. What Amazon has done for UPSable items, we’re doing for sofas, appliances, large electrics and more.
Regardless of what you’re selling online, the article concludes with a few excellent suggestions:
- Be up-front about product availability.
- Communicate when inventory is low – it might even help you sell the item.
- Be clear about any stock disclosure policies you have in place to protect yourself.
- Explain who is fulfilling the orders for your product.
- And should you a sell a customer an item that is no longer stock, take care of the problem: Let the customer know you are sorry, explain what happened, and then offer a discount toward a future purchase. Do not automatically add the customer to your email list for marketing promotions.
The overarching theme here is to be straightforward with your customers about the merchandise you have on your website. You could potentially miss a sale or two today, but the long-lasting result of creating a trusting relationship between customers and your e-commerce site can be priceless, especially in categories that are difficult to fulfill.
Related posts:
- Keep Your E-Commerce Site on Target and Avoid Outages
- How Does Your E-Commerce Shopping Software Manage Stock-Outs?
- Shopper Know-How and the Retail Renaissance
- Online Expectations, Offline Experience
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Keep Your E-Commerce Site on Target and Avoid Outages
Friday, September 16, 2011 by
Betsy Miller
When a retailer launches a new line, media coverage is usually more than welcome. But in the case of Target’s new Missoni line, the more than 200 headlines found literally around the world could have had a better message. These reports all focused on how the large retailer’s e-commerce site, which recently switched from an Amazon back-end to one that’s proprietary, crashed under the heavy traffic.
Target was not prepared for the customer demand for this limited-edition designer line, and the e-commerce site was down for approximately 12 hours. The line’s launch – and the site’s crash – was preceded by amped up publicity for the line, leading to starlets discussing their interest in specific items on Twitter before the line was available. Of course, unhappy Target.com shoppers went to Twitter as well when they couldn’t access the website once these items were for sale.
While Target says this specific demand was unprecedented, dwarfing the traffic they get even on Black Friday, it is important for e-commerce websites to be prepared. Knowing the marketing push behind the Missoni line and the interest it was generating in social networks, Target should have taken steps to ensure the website would work as if it were any other day.
At Blueport, when we know one of our clients’ e-commerce sites will be getting extra traffic due to an incredible sale or promotion, we take steps in advance to be sure the websites can handle the onslaught of traffic. For example, when one of our clients ran a Living Social daily deal, our IT Operations department took action so the user experience was not affected in any way.
When your company plans a spectacular event, make sure that the event is as spectacular online as it is offline. And this becomes even more important as the holiday shopping season approaches. Online retailers should take the steps now to be sure their websites will be able to do what they need them to do this holiday season – and that’s selling merchandise.
Related posts:
- Get Your E-Commerce Website Ready for Daily Deals
- E-Commerce and the Dangers of Downtime -- Especially with the Holidays Approaching
- How Does Your E-Commerce Shopping Software Manage Stock-Outs?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Online Advertising: Now Delivering Local
Shoppers -- Is Your Website Ready for Them?
Friday, July 8, 2011 by
Carl Prindle
According to a recent eMarketer article, 90% of national ad agencies have clients asking for geographically targeted online ad campaigns. Daily deal sites, like Groupon, and mobile check-in sites, like foursquare, are hot because they can deliver local shoppers.
Seventy-five percent of survey respondents said location was key in helping national brands reach their target audiences, and more than 50% said the ROI on geographically targeted ads is higher. It makes sense -- if you’re looking to buy a new sofa in Chicago, would you be drawn to an ad about stylish sofas or one about stylish sofas in Chicago?
Local advertising brings what the consumer is looking for that much closer. Local means you can see it in a store; maybe get a local deal; and get it quickly and cheaply (and even get service if you have to).
But is your ecommerce platform ready for local shopping? Very few are.
Local Commerce Makes Good on Local Advertising
Remember the early days of ecommerce, which promised to “Amazon” everything? Stores were to become obsolete, and as a result, most ecommerce platforms were built as national channels, designed to bypass local stores entirely.
That’s a real problem for most bricks-and-mortar retailers. The promise of a local ad falls flat when a customer clicks to a homogenized, national website.
To monetize local ads, you need to provide your customers a complete location-based experience that delivers on the ad’s local promise. A landing page isn’t enough -- you need to deliver local online shopping.
At Blueport Commerce, we enable local online shopping experiences for our clients. Blueport’s clients present localized content to their shoppers based on location, including merchandise trends, selection and availability, in-store inventory and pick up, local pricing and deals, fast, cheap local delivery, and even “About Us” pages, managed by stores, and that can speak to a local store’s place in a community.
It’s seamless cross-channel shopping between online and a local store, and it dramatically improves the already impressive ROI of local online advertising.
Your customers are ready for a complete local commerce experience -- are you?
Related posts:Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Seventy-five percent of survey respondents said location was key in helping national brands reach their target audiences, and more than 50% said the ROI on geographically targeted ads is higher. It makes sense -- if you’re looking to buy a new sofa in Chicago, would you be drawn to an ad about stylish sofas or one about stylish sofas in Chicago?
Local advertising brings what the consumer is looking for that much closer. Local means you can see it in a store; maybe get a local deal; and get it quickly and cheaply (and even get service if you have to).
But is your ecommerce platform ready for local shopping? Very few are.
Local Commerce Makes Good on Local Advertising
Remember the early days of ecommerce, which promised to “Amazon” everything? Stores were to become obsolete, and as a result, most ecommerce platforms were built as national channels, designed to bypass local stores entirely.
That’s a real problem for most bricks-and-mortar retailers. The promise of a local ad falls flat when a customer clicks to a homogenized, national website.
To monetize local ads, you need to provide your customers a complete location-based experience that delivers on the ad’s local promise. A landing page isn’t enough -- you need to deliver local online shopping.
At Blueport Commerce, we enable local online shopping experiences for our clients. Blueport’s clients present localized content to their shoppers based on location, including merchandise trends, selection and availability, in-store inventory and pick up, local pricing and deals, fast, cheap local delivery, and even “About Us” pages, managed by stores, and that can speak to a local store’s place in a community.
It’s seamless cross-channel shopping between online and a local store, and it dramatically improves the already impressive ROI of local online advertising.
Your customers are ready for a complete local commerce experience -- are you?
Related posts:Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Consistency Is Key in This Multichannel Retail World
Friday, July 1, 2011 by
Betsy Miller
We’ve all read the news – most likely on a tablet or e-reader of choice – that brick-and-mortar bookstores are closing left and right as their electronic counterparts comparably flourish. But recently, I needed a book.
As do many shoppers, I began with online research. I went straight to a major book retailers’ website and located the title. I was disappointed that I could no longer order the book online for in-store pickup or even find out if my local store had the book in stock. But I could locate the closest store, which took some doing in light of the above-mentioned closings.
In-store, the item was priced 30% more than on the retailer’s website. The manager explained it was for the convenience of coming into the store, and no, it’s not confusing, because the company gets the money either way. I left unlikely to buy from the store or the e-commerce site again.
A Seamless Experience Between Online and In-Store
Of all the retail categories to know the right way to sell in a multichannel retail environment, you would expect books to have it mastered. After all, e-commerce began with bookselling.
Seeing where the book retailer got it wrong, while we here at Blueport are able to get it right as we help our retailers sell big-ticket items online, reminded me of just how new e-commerce and getting different retail channels to work together is.
But consumers are ready, and delivering a consistent experience between all of your retail channels is a must, particularly for considered purchases like furniture and appliances. This is why we tie into our retailers’ existing systems to show their customers consistent local pricing, real-time availability and a way to see the items in a store or to order online. We allow our retailers to give their customers control, so they can get the information they need, whenever and however they want it.
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
As do many shoppers, I began with online research. I went straight to a major book retailers’ website and located the title. I was disappointed that I could no longer order the book online for in-store pickup or even find out if my local store had the book in stock. But I could locate the closest store, which took some doing in light of the above-mentioned closings.
In-store, the item was priced 30% more than on the retailer’s website. The manager explained it was for the convenience of coming into the store, and no, it’s not confusing, because the company gets the money either way. I left unlikely to buy from the store or the e-commerce site again.
A Seamless Experience Between Online and In-Store
Of all the retail categories to know the right way to sell in a multichannel retail environment, you would expect books to have it mastered. After all, e-commerce began with bookselling.
Seeing where the book retailer got it wrong, while we here at Blueport are able to get it right as we help our retailers sell big-ticket items online, reminded me of just how new e-commerce and getting different retail channels to work together is.
But consumers are ready, and delivering a consistent experience between all of your retail channels is a must, particularly for considered purchases like furniture and appliances. This is why we tie into our retailers’ existing systems to show their customers consistent local pricing, real-time availability and a way to see the items in a store or to order online. We allow our retailers to give their customers control, so they can get the information they need, whenever and however they want it.
Related posts:
- 5 Ideas to Help Multichannel Retailers Beat Big Internet Discount Sites
- Cross Channel Commerce: How The Home Depot Gets It
- E-Commerce CRM Becomes More Meaningful in a Multichannel, Social World
- Multichannel Communication: A Marketer's Dream or Nightmare?
- E-Commerce Marketing: Multichannel Analysis Is a Must!
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Get Your E-Commerce Website Ready for Daily Deals
Friday, June 17, 2011 by
Betsy Miller
Groupon has more than 83 million subscribers; LivingSocial more than 28 million. According to Bloomberg, 480 companies are competing in the daily deals space – including everyone from Google and Facebook, which have recently tossed their hats in the ring, to niche sites like the socially conscious Roozt.com or the kosher-inclined Jewpon.com.
With the potential traffic that could come from offering a daily deal, retailers that are considering teaming up with one of these sites need to be sure their own e-commerce websites can handle the load.
A Daily Deal Case Study
Our client The RoomPlace offered a daily deal through LivingSocial: $150 worth of furniture at 50% off. The site activity the day the deal ran was considerable:
Our operations team closely monitored live site usage throughout the day the deal went out – just in case. Thanks to the precautions taken, the additional traffic had no effect on site speed, nor was there any downtime.
“Planning ahead, both from a technical and a business perspective was essential,” says Kathryn Kerrigan, e-commerce manager for The RoomPlace. “Thanks to forethought and site stability, we were able to accommodate and convert numerous new customers.”
No matter what kind of business you run, a daily deal offer will drive a lot of new customers to your website. These new customers want to know what their getting whether or not they plan to use the deal online. Beyond the window dressing, be sure your website is technically ready so new customers will get a great first impression and come back for more.
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
With the potential traffic that could come from offering a daily deal, retailers that are considering teaming up with one of these sites need to be sure their own e-commerce websites can handle the load.
A Daily Deal Case Study
Our client The RoomPlace offered a daily deal through LivingSocial: $150 worth of furniture at 50% off. The site activity the day the deal ran was considerable:
- 67% increase in website traffic
- 65% increase in bandwidth used
- 75% increase in calls for content.
Our operations team closely monitored live site usage throughout the day the deal went out – just in case. Thanks to the precautions taken, the additional traffic had no effect on site speed, nor was there any downtime.
“Planning ahead, both from a technical and a business perspective was essential,” says Kathryn Kerrigan, e-commerce manager for The RoomPlace. “Thanks to forethought and site stability, we were able to accommodate and convert numerous new customers.”
No matter what kind of business you run, a daily deal offer will drive a lot of new customers to your website. These new customers want to know what their getting whether or not they plan to use the deal online. Beyond the window dressing, be sure your website is technically ready so new customers will get a great first impression and come back for more.
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
3 Reasons Why Quality Content Could Be Your Key to E-Commerce Success
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 by
Betsy Miller
Back in the early days of the web, when many of us pioneered this business, there was the notion of sticky content. Sticky content was all about putting content on your website to encourage visitors to linger and come back to your site. This was back when business plans were thin, eyeballs were all the rage and no one talked about conversions. But then the dotcom bubble burst, and content creation was deemed an unnecessary task as website teams trimmed down and struggled to keep their Internet businesses afloat.
Fast-forward to now: Content has made a comeback. Google, blogs and social sharing have made offering unique, quality content in some form to your customers a must for any website and a competitive advantage for e-commerce sites. Here are 3 of the top reasons why.
#1 Your Customers
Remember: E-commerce site content takes the place of welcoming sales associates at a brick-and-mortar store. From calls to action to your About Us page, what is the impression you want to make? Also, e-commerce retailers ask their customers to buy items with limited senses. Well-crafted product descriptions can fill the void for customers who wonder what an item really feels like in person. Buying guides and other advice can lead customers through the process of purchasing online and specifically via your website.
Tip: As an e-commerce website, you are a content publisher. Define your target audience and who you are as a retailer. Be sure your content’s voice and tone live up to and reinforce the promises you want to make. Style guides are not just for logos and fonts.
#2 Your Brand
The content you publish on your e-commerce site is an extension of your business. It allows you to give your company a voice and to set yourself up as an advocate, trendsetter, thought leader, or whatever best sets your specific e-commerce business apart. And thanks to social sites, if the web content you create is engaging, sharing it is easier than ever. Good, interesting content can spread like wildfire – are you creating any? If you deliver content that is truly helpful and unique, your customers will blog about it, share it on Facebook, Tweet it and more. Quality content allows others to be your brand ambassadors.
Tip: You can start getting the word out yourself! Share your site’s content via a corporate blog, Twitter account, StumbleUpon, etc.
#3 Search Engine Optimization
Anyone who knows their SEO stuff will tell you: When it comes to search engine optimization, nothing beats fresh, original content. While link baiting and creating directory pages on your own site will help with your organic search rankings, it should supplement your real content offering. Just look at how well blog posts rank on Google. By nature, well-written content is full of keywords, whether on a product page or in an article related to the types of product you sell online. A fresh content offering gives spiders something new to crawl, and nothing beats a quality offering to encourage people to read and link to what you’ve written. And with Google Panda, being sure your product descriptions are truly unique will only benefit your e-commerce store.
Tip: A corporate blog is a great way for an e-commerce site to get into the content arena. You don’t have to worry about integrating a content management system into your platform, and you can use a blog to introduce new products, offer tips and share relevant news about your online retail business.
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Fast-forward to now: Content has made a comeback. Google, blogs and social sharing have made offering unique, quality content in some form to your customers a must for any website and a competitive advantage for e-commerce sites. Here are 3 of the top reasons why.
#1 Your Customers
Remember: E-commerce site content takes the place of welcoming sales associates at a brick-and-mortar store. From calls to action to your About Us page, what is the impression you want to make? Also, e-commerce retailers ask their customers to buy items with limited senses. Well-crafted product descriptions can fill the void for customers who wonder what an item really feels like in person. Buying guides and other advice can lead customers through the process of purchasing online and specifically via your website.
Tip: As an e-commerce website, you are a content publisher. Define your target audience and who you are as a retailer. Be sure your content’s voice and tone live up to and reinforce the promises you want to make. Style guides are not just for logos and fonts.
#2 Your Brand
The content you publish on your e-commerce site is an extension of your business. It allows you to give your company a voice and to set yourself up as an advocate, trendsetter, thought leader, or whatever best sets your specific e-commerce business apart. And thanks to social sites, if the web content you create is engaging, sharing it is easier than ever. Good, interesting content can spread like wildfire – are you creating any? If you deliver content that is truly helpful and unique, your customers will blog about it, share it on Facebook, Tweet it and more. Quality content allows others to be your brand ambassadors.
Tip: You can start getting the word out yourself! Share your site’s content via a corporate blog, Twitter account, StumbleUpon, etc.
#3 Search Engine Optimization
Anyone who knows their SEO stuff will tell you: When it comes to search engine optimization, nothing beats fresh, original content. While link baiting and creating directory pages on your own site will help with your organic search rankings, it should supplement your real content offering. Just look at how well blog posts rank on Google. By nature, well-written content is full of keywords, whether on a product page or in an article related to the types of product you sell online. A fresh content offering gives spiders something new to crawl, and nothing beats a quality offering to encourage people to read and link to what you’ve written. And with Google Panda, being sure your product descriptions are truly unique will only benefit your e-commerce store.
Tip: A corporate blog is a great way for an e-commerce site to get into the content arena. You don’t have to worry about integrating a content management system into your platform, and you can use a blog to introduce new products, offer tips and share relevant news about your online retail business.
Related posts:
- J.C. Penney and Google: A Cautionary Tale of Ecommerce and SEO
- Best Buy Brings Online Content to Brick-and-Mortar Stores
- The Power of Online Product Videos
- Content Tips for Big-Ticket Email Marketing, Part 1
- Content Tips for Big-Ticket Email Marketing, Part 2
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Is CSN Stores the Amazon of Home?
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 by
Morgan Woodruff
I just read a great article on our friends at CSN Stores and their plans to continue to dominate the home goods segment of B2C e-commerce.
While they aspire to be the Amazon of home, co-founder Niraj Shah is 'careful to point out the differences between the companies—a key one being CSN’s focus on home products and its “specialized supply chain” for items like furniture. By shipping directly from manufacturers, CSN has managed to offer a large selection without having to stock its own warehouses (at least up to now).'
From our perspective as fellow big-ticket retailers, CSN is doing a few more things right that should help them leapfrog over Amazon in this space.
First, CSN recognizes that buying items for your home, especially large pieces of furniture, can be quite different then buying a book. So in additional to providing more detailed product information, they have customer support available via chat and phone to assist potential customers .
Second, they also know that because they aren't always putting a package into the hands of UPS but rather with various freight companies, their centralized support is there during and after the delivery process to make sure every customer is happy.
We welcome companies like CSN Stores that continue to help break down the ecommerce barriers and show that there's more than one way to become one of the world's biggest retailers.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
While they aspire to be the Amazon of home, co-founder Niraj Shah is 'careful to point out the differences between the companies—a key one being CSN’s focus on home products and its “specialized supply chain” for items like furniture. By shipping directly from manufacturers, CSN has managed to offer a large selection without having to stock its own warehouses (at least up to now).'
From our perspective as fellow big-ticket retailers, CSN is doing a few more things right that should help them leapfrog over Amazon in this space.
First, CSN recognizes that buying items for your home, especially large pieces of furniture, can be quite different then buying a book. So in additional to providing more detailed product information, they have customer support available via chat and phone to assist potential customers .
Second, they also know that because they aren't always putting a package into the hands of UPS but rather with various freight companies, their centralized support is there during and after the delivery process to make sure every customer is happy.
We welcome companies like CSN Stores that continue to help break down the ecommerce barriers and show that there's more than one way to become one of the world's biggest retailers.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
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
Cross Channel Commerce:
How The Home Depot 'Gets It'
Friday, February 18, 2011 by
Morgan Woodruff
Providing a seamless cross channel experience, with physical stores and ecommerce retail sites working towards a coordinated selling effort, has always been at the heart of our strategy at Blueport Commerce. We get the importance of this approach in driving sales for big ticket items in particular, and so do our multichannel retail clients.
The Home Depot is another retailer that ‘gets it’.
Hal Lawton, president of Home Depot Online, recently gave a presentation at the Internet Retailer Web Design & Usability Conference 2011, focusing on The Home Depot’s successful integration of online and offline stores. At the heart of this is the understanding that Home Depot customers want to shop, browse or do research through their channel of choice – and they want that experience to be consistent, whether it is online or in-store.
Since 45% of Home Depot customers visit the retailer’s site first, providing a localized e-commerce experience is essential to making sure customers get the most accurate pricing and inventory information for their area. So the price and product selection customers see online is what they will see in store. This is a fundamental approach to the sites we build for clients like Carpet One and RoomStore.
One of the most interesting points of Home Depot’s cross-channel strategy is the fact that associates are responsible for sales in both channels. For example, a store manager’s compensation is based partly on in-store sales and also on online deliveries to the local area. This represents a seismic shift in the siloed approach we still see many retailers take towards their e-commerce site and store network, but it’s a powerful motivator in making sure all your teams are truly working together towards an end goal: the sale.
What are your thoughts on Home Depot’s strategy?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
The Home Depot is another retailer that ‘gets it’.
Hal Lawton, president of Home Depot Online, recently gave a presentation at the Internet Retailer Web Design & Usability Conference 2011, focusing on The Home Depot’s successful integration of online and offline stores. At the heart of this is the understanding that Home Depot customers want to shop, browse or do research through their channel of choice – and they want that experience to be consistent, whether it is online or in-store.
Since 45% of Home Depot customers visit the retailer’s site first, providing a localized e-commerce experience is essential to making sure customers get the most accurate pricing and inventory information for their area. So the price and product selection customers see online is what they will see in store. This is a fundamental approach to the sites we build for clients like Carpet One and RoomStore.
One of the most interesting points of Home Depot’s cross-channel strategy is the fact that associates are responsible for sales in both channels. For example, a store manager’s compensation is based partly on in-store sales and also on online deliveries to the local area. This represents a seismic shift in the siloed approach we still see many retailers take towards their e-commerce site and store network, but it’s a powerful motivator in making sure all your teams are truly working together towards an end goal: the sale.
What are your thoughts on Home Depot’s strategy?
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
Google Shopping Goes Local
Friday, November 19, 2010 by
Carl Prindle
This week Google launched several new features to Google Shopping, most notably localized product search – which we first discussed here back in March.
Google users will now see two new links accompanying product search results, including the location of local retail stores and an indication if a product is in stock, in limited quantities or out of stock in their area. A click on an individual product will also return a list of nearby stores that carry that product with an embedded Google Map for obtaining directions.
70 large retailers are on board for the initial launch, including Macy's, Pottery Barn, and Best Buy. Google has also struck deals with retail industry software giants JDA, Epicor, and Oracle to integrate the Google Shopping upload process into the inventory management systems of those retailers.
Google understands that most consumers (especially those looking to make big ticket purchases that require consideration and research) go online to compare specs, prices and features before heading to their local store for in-person research and to buy. This local, cross-channel, big ticket experience is, without question, the next wave of online commerce.
But, say you’re a big ticket retailer not named Pottery Barn.
You probably aren’t running your inventory on Oracle or JDA. Most likely, you probably haven’t been able to make local inventory information available on your own website, much less Google’s. So how can you take advantage of this explosive trend?
This is where we come in. Blueport has been building localized e-commerce systems for big-ticket retailers for over a decade. Leveraging our localized platform, your Blueport website perfectly reflects your local store offerings, regardless of what systems you are running in your stores.
With that infrastructure in place, it’s simple to take advantage of the latest in localized online advertising – like Google’s new local product search. Better yet, when consumers come to your Blueport site, you’ll have enabled the type of seamless, local, cross-channel shopping experience that makes Google Local a powerful idea.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Google users will now see two new links accompanying product search results, including the location of local retail stores and an indication if a product is in stock, in limited quantities or out of stock in their area. A click on an individual product will also return a list of nearby stores that carry that product with an embedded Google Map for obtaining directions.
70 large retailers are on board for the initial launch, including Macy's, Pottery Barn, and Best Buy. Google has also struck deals with retail industry software giants JDA, Epicor, and Oracle to integrate the Google Shopping upload process into the inventory management systems of those retailers.
Google understands that most consumers (especially those looking to make big ticket purchases that require consideration and research) go online to compare specs, prices and features before heading to their local store for in-person research and to buy. This local, cross-channel, big ticket experience is, without question, the next wave of online commerce.
But, say you’re a big ticket retailer not named Pottery Barn.
You probably aren’t running your inventory on Oracle or JDA. Most likely, you probably haven’t been able to make local inventory information available on your own website, much less Google’s. So how can you take advantage of this explosive trend?
This is where we come in. Blueport has been building localized e-commerce systems for big-ticket retailers for over a decade. Leveraging our localized platform, your Blueport website perfectly reflects your local store offerings, regardless of what systems you are running in your stores.
With that infrastructure in place, it’s simple to take advantage of the latest in localized online advertising – like Google’s new local product search. Better yet, when consumers come to your Blueport site, you’ll have enabled the type of seamless, local, cross-channel shopping experience that makes Google Local a powerful idea.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Ecommerce CRM Becomes More Meaningful in a Multichannel, Social World
Wednesday, October 20, 2010 by
Betsy Miller
If you are an ecommerce marketing professional today, you're pretty lucky. Social media allows us to reach out to our customers -- and prospects -- in ways we never could before. We can join in on our customers’ playground (aka, social networks), and in many cases, they’re welcoming us with open arms. The ways in which we can interact with customers and market to them based on how they use and access social networking sites allows for a deeper level of ecommerce CRM than ever before.
Thanks to technology, we have so many ways to reach out to our customers: email, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Groupon and more. And our customers have more ways to access the content we push out. They no longer need to be near a computer or mailbox to receive our latest messages. And based on their interactions with us and their networks, we know more about our customers and can market to them as such. There’s a lot more for ecommerce marketers to manage when it comes to customer relationship management.
The Most Exciting Aspect of Ecommerce CRM
As a marketing veteran, I think the most exciting innovations in ecommerce CRM form around being able to join in the conversation. We can easily tap into what customers are saying about our companies. We can thank for them the good and reach out to remedy the bad. Ecommerce CRM is more about relationships with give and take now than ever before.
ECRM Guide offers 10 tips for using social media to improve CRM. Here are a few of my favorites from the list:
- Use tools like TweetDeck to monitor what is being said about your company on Twitter.
- Respond to customers on Facebook, Twitter and your blog in a timely manner.
- Use social media to include your customers in product decisions, like finding out which sales offer they’d prefer.
How Sears Is Growing Socially
Wednesday, October 13, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
RetailWire recently featured an interesting interview with Eui Chung, divisional VP and general manager for social commerce at Sears Holdings about how the multichannel retailer is growing socially in an effort to engage itscustomers. Consistently ranked as one of the top ecommerce sites, Sears continues to expand the social commerce and interactive features of its online retail store -- from the launch of the My Sears Community back in 2009 to the retailer’s system for responding to customers, whether the feedback comes from Facebook, Twitter, blogs or any of its websites. One of the most interesting features, in my opinion is the ability for customers to interact directly with Sears staff: Whenever a customer logs in to Sears.com, they have the ability to chat with a personal shopper representative.
The goal is to improve the shopping experience for the customer, but the result is also a deeper relationship between the retailer and its shoppers, and consequently greater brand loyalty. These tools enable Sears to communicate more often and in-real time with its customers, be it responding to their questions or walking them through a sale on the site. In the big ticket retail category, where making a customer feel comfortable with clicking to purchase is imperative, this type of one-on-one and immediate interaction can be invaluable. Effectively, it’s the in-store shopping experience transported into the digital space.
Many retailers are exploring these types of functionalities on their sites, but I think the potential is particularly interesting for big ticket retailers whose customers are often looking for as much product information as possible during their online shopping experience. I'm interested in hearing how other folks out there are looking to incorporate social commerce into their online retail sites. How are these types of tools affecting your customers' experiences or your organization's multichannel communication?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
The goal is to improve the shopping experience for the customer, but the result is also a deeper relationship between the retailer and its shoppers, and consequently greater brand loyalty. These tools enable Sears to communicate more often and in-real time with its customers, be it responding to their questions or walking them through a sale on the site. In the big ticket retail category, where making a customer feel comfortable with clicking to purchase is imperative, this type of one-on-one and immediate interaction can be invaluable. Effectively, it’s the in-store shopping experience transported into the digital space.
Many retailers are exploring these types of functionalities on their sites, but I think the potential is particularly interesting for big ticket retailers whose customers are often looking for as much product information as possible during their online shopping experience. I'm interested in hearing how other folks out there are looking to incorporate social commerce into their online retail sites. How are these types of tools affecting your customers' experiences or your organization's multichannel communication?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
13 Ways to Compare Ecommerce Website Software Providers
Wednesday, October 6, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
If you are looking to add an ecommerce component to your business, you need to conduct an ecommerce software comparison. With so many ecommerce software providers out there, this may seem like a daunting task.
Mighty Merchant offers 13 techniques for evaluating which companies might be right for you and your unique business needs. Here is a quick look to help you get started with your ecommerce website software comparison:
1. Look at and use real websites powered by the ecommerce software you are considering.
2. Note the visual design of these sites, including whether they all use the same template or if there is customization.
3. Does adding items to cart require creating an account?
4. Check the sites’ Google PageRank.
5. Look for the sites using major search engines.
6. Evaluate which features come with the base package and which are add-ons.
7. Carefully examine what is included in the setup costs.
8. What merchandising tools are available?
9. What are the administration tools like?
10. How easy or hard is it to add additional pages and make site changes?
11. Is this solution hosted by the provider, or do you need to manage that?
12. Get references on the ecommerce website software provider.
13. Call the provider to gauge customer service and support.
At Blueport Commerce, we create ecommerce website software solutions that specifically meet the unique needs of big-ticket retailers. You can learn more about our solutions here.
Forrester's Brian Walker Outlines the Fundamental Shifts Taking Place in E-Commerce Technology
Friday, September 10, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
Forrester’s Brian Walker recently coined the term Splinternet to describe how consumers are beginning to interact with e-commerce companies in numerous ways, including mobile phones, social networks and in-store displays. This e-commerce transformation naturally requires significant new technology investments and fundamental changes in how retailers approach e-commerce. Internet Retailer covered Walker’s new report, "What every exec needs to know about the future of e-commerce technology," which addresses the shifts taking place in the e-commerce space.
Some key takeaways from the report:
How is your e-commerce strategy changing in light of this shift?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Some key takeaways from the report:
- As the influence of the online retail channel on consumers continues to grow, retailers will need to shift spending to this channel -- or risk losing sales.
- Consumers' interactions with retailers will move beyond just the website to include mobile phones, iPads and other innovations. According to Walker, many of these innovations will be built on proprietary technology requiring that retailers "develop systems that can easily integrate and support these existingm -- and emerging -- customer experiences in order to compete and capitalize on changing customer expectations."
- Consistency of information, policies and fulfillment across channels will be a must for retailers as they expand their touchpoints with consumers
How is your e-commerce strategy changing in light of this shift?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
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