Ecommerce Blog of Blueport Commerce, Big Ticket Ecommerce Solutions Provider

Hyperlocal Beyond Marketing -- Think Localized E-Commerce!

Friday, November 11, 2011 by Carl Prindle

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

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

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

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

Localized E-Commerce

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

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

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

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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:

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.

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

Friday, July 8, 2011 by Carl Prindle

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

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

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

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

Local Commerce Makes Good on Local Advertising

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, May 3, 2011 by Betsy Miller

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

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

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

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

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

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E-commerce 2.0 – The Next Wave

Tuesday, March 22, 2011 by Morgan Woodruff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We’ve seen it work in three ways:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sure, we segment the market on two dimensions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

The Power of Online Product Videos

Friday, November 5, 2010 by Betsy Miller

The November issue of Internet Retailer has a terrific article about the benefits of online video at not only telling a better story about your products, but boosting conversion rates and natural search engine results as well. There is no doubt online video is booming. According to the piece, people watch 2 billion videos each day on YouTube, and 35% of the e-retailers in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide include online video in their e-commerce stores.

What's the Key to an Effective Online Video Strategy?

Unsurprisingly, an effective online video strategy starts with creating compelling content that your customers actually want to watch, and continue watching. This could be anything from behind-the-scenes footage of product development, a visual explanation of your product or even interviews with product designers or staff.

Understanding the technology required to deploy and maintain video is the next step. Quick and seamless streaming of video is essential. Slow loading videos quickly lose their appeal and lead to frustrated and dissatisfied customers.

Finally, by refining video content, retailers can quickly boost natural search engine results. Internet Retailer notes that search engines give more weight to pages with video, because they see video as an indicator of website quality. Forrester Research estimates a company is 50 times more likely to show up on the first page of search engine results if a page has video that is embedded in a search engine-friendly way.

I think online videos can prove to be an especially powerful force in the big-ticket category, where the product decision process is longer and more in-depth. When merchandising these products in your ecommerce catalogs, being able to offer your customer as much information as possible to help them feel comfortable with their purchase is essential. For example, a quick product video (similar to the ones you may see when purchasing a pair of shoes on Zappos.com) can very quickly achieve a level of comfort for the customer that no amount of written product descriptions or images could to help drive a sale. Conversely, a behind-the-scenes look at how a sofa was made can help to create a deeper relationship with that customer, promoting brand loyalty.

I’m curious to hear what role online videos are or will be playing in your Internet retail strategy?

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

Does Your Business Need a Franchise Commerce Solution for the Web?

Wednesday, October 13, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

Ecommerce is an excellent way to bring a new stream of sales revenue to your retail business as well as to gain awareness for your brand. However, if your retail business is composed of franchises, you face a number of unique challenges. That means you need a unique franchise commerce solution for operating on the Web.

The International Franchise Association outlined a number of issues franchise companies may face as they consider ecommerce. Among them:

Who establishes pricing and the terms of purchase with the customer?
What are both the franchise company and the franchisee each responsible for when fulfilling orders? Customer support?
Who gets credit -- and revenue -- from the sale?
Who is responsible for billings and collections?

And because of these concerns, the International Franchise Association suggests that franchise companies looking to try ecommerce “consider adopting ecommerce models that…actively involve franchisees.”

Our Franchise Commerce Solution

Blueport Commerce embraces franchises. In a previous blog post -- “Ecommerce for franchise retail: Can it be done?” -- we discussed how our ecommerce solution specifically works for the franchise model. We are able to help you centralize much of the heavy lifting around merchandising, catalog, marketing and technology with the parent brand, while each independent franchise dealer retains local control of the online store content, pricing, marketing and fulfillment.

More than 900 independently owned and operated dealers use Blueport Commerce to offer their local customers a best in class franchise retail experience online. Find out why.

Bringing Your Retail Strategy Online

Tuesday, October 12, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

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

Defining Your Retail Strategy Today

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, October 12, 2010 by Carl Prindle

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

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

With Big-Ticket Items, Research Is a Bigger Deal

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

Online Research Is Critical for Big-Ticket Purchases

Thursday, September 23, 2010 by Carl Prindle

According to recent data from Compete, the likelihood that a consumer will research a product before making an online purchase dramatically rises with the product's cost.

Naturally, the higher the price point, the more important it is for a customer to feel completely comfortable before clicking to buy the item. Some of the interesting findings highlighted by Compete include:

Dividing online purchases by price, 81% of consumers say they will conduct research before buying a product that costs $100 or more.
Electronics is the most frequently researched online, with about 90% of consumers performing research before spending money.

One of the more interesting aspects of this research is the fact that ecommerce retail sites trump search engines as the top resource for research, with 45% of consumers using them to conduct online research. Search engines (40%) and retailer emails (35%) followed closely behind to round out the top three.

Although this is not the first time we have seen this type of data, it does underscore the importance for big-ticket multichannel retailers to develop a robust ecommerce presence for their merchandise. Whether your customer makes the final purchase online or in-store, your ecommerce store plays a critical role in helping to make that sale happen.

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

RoomStore's Ned Crosby Discusses New Ecommerce Site

Thursday, September 23, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

Blueport Commerce client RoomStore, which has 60 retail locations in the South and Midwest, recently relaunched its online store on our ecommerce platform.

The new ecommerce store delivers a much more interactive online shopping experience, designed to mimic how customers may look at or touch pieces of furniture in-store and envision them in their homes. Consumers can browse products based on collections and room styles, shop images, read consumer reviews and even chat live with RoomStore staff.

Multichannel Merchant senior writer Tim Parry recently interviewed Ned Crosby, RoomStore's chief merchandising and marketing officer about the redesign and why he chose Blueport.

Check out the great article here.

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

Big Ticket E-commerce Playbook, Rule Five: Focus on Your ‘Stuff’

Thursday, April 15, 2010 by Carl Prindle

E-commerce 1.0 = All Store, No Stuff: E-commerce efforts often focus on technology, particularly in selling e-commerce 1.0 categories. Decisions on what text or button goes where or removing a field from a checkout form (the “online store”) can make a difference in convincing someone to purchase a simple, well-understood, impulse item. In selling big ticket categories online, however, obsessing over these areas while ignoring basic online retailing is perilous.

Big Ticket E-commerce = Content, Content, Content: Start with the big questions: Do you have the right products? Richly and accurately merchandised? At the right price? Are you solving a customer’s problem (an installed floor in a week, a sofa in two days, removal of an old refrigerator)? Like you do in your stores, focus on your offering (the stuff) first, then optimize your e-commerce store around your offering. In big ticket e-commerce categories, if you get the “stuff” right, customers will work with you on the store.

Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce

Ecommerce Software Packages: Which one is right for me?

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finding the Path to Easy Ecommerce

Wednesday, March 31, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

Implementing an ecommerce strategy opens possibilities for your business — increased sales online and in stores, more efficient marketing, and direct one-to-one communication with your customers to name a few.

Whether this is the first time you are selling online or you are coming back to give it a second try, Blueport Commerce walks you through this transformation step-by-step to make ecommerce easy.

With more than a decade of experience in helping big-ticket retail make the leap into e-commerce, we not only understand your business and your market, but we also understand the hurdles you will face along the way. Our managed ecommerce solutions help retailers drive their multichannel strategy and make the transition to ecommerce easy, worry-free and profitable.

Ecommerce will impact every aspect of your organization, each in different ways. From IT, to merchandising, to operations and even right down to your in-store staff:

Merchandising: Meticulously presenting your product to its best advantage, we introduce your customers to the breadth of your merchandise without their having to leave home.

Marketing: We understand the complexities of big-ticket retail marketing and will work to make e-commerce an integral, invaluable component of your marketing strategy.

Operations: We share retailers' passion for efficiency and service — in fact, we believe that e-commerce can't succeed in a category like big-ticket without it. We cut our teeth in furniture — arguably the most challenging of fulfillment problems. Our platform and processes are designed to make shipping a sofa — or your product — as easy as calling UPS.

Finance: Incremental e-commerce growth sounds good, but what will it cost? What are the risks? Our business model is designed to answer these questions, making e-commerce a positive ROI effort almost immediately.

Store: We understand that the biggest impact of ecommerce is in your stores and we have implemented technology and services to send you as many educated, easy-to-close customers as possible making e-commerce easy and a positive ROI effort almost immediately.

IT: In our ten years of experience in working with retail chains to deploy e-commerce systems, we've seen it all. We'll work with your existing infrastructure and processes and translate them into an effective e-commerce strategy.

Our goal? Use our infrastructure and experience to take what you've built online, as efficiently and robustly as possible

What the heck is a ROBO?

Monday, March 29, 2010 by Carl Prindle

The term ROBO (Research Online, Buy Offline) was coined by Yahoo! to describe the growing number of consumers who research online, but buy offline. Online ‘pre-shopping’ has become a common activity prior to a variety of purchases. According to Forrester, online research will influence $1 trillion in offline sales by 2012, making it imperative that retailers understand the full impact that their online presence—as well as those of their competitors—may have on consumer in-store behavior.

Understanding Research Online, Buy Offline (ROBO) behavior is particularly important when selling ‘big-ticket’ items - online or in-store. Big-ticket purchases require more research and consideration due to higher price points and their high degree of personalization. Furniture, mattresses, appliances, flooring and home décor are all examples of products that consumers are spending a significant amount of time researching online prior to purchase.

What should multichannel retailers be doing to better understand and meet the needs of ROBOs while they are in this ‘pre-shopping’ mindset? Whether the ultimate purchase is made at ecommerce store or at a local store, a multichannel retailer needs to take the necessary steps to ensure they are providing a seamless cross channel customer experience that ultimately makes a sale. When executed well – and with ROBOs in mind – ecommerce sites can become a critical tool to help stores compete both locally and chain-wide.

By understanding how the ROBO shops, and synchronizing your online presence with your local stores, retailers can provide the seamless cross-channel experience these shoppers seek and capture their business - through whichever channel they ultimately choose to buy.

Put focus on these key areas:

Localize online merchandising to match local stores
Build credibility through rich, synchronized information
Provide accurate, local delivery information
Integrate local in-store and online offers and promotions

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

Overcoming the Barriers to Big-Ticket Ecommerce

Monday, March 15, 2010 by Betsy Miller

Big-ticket retailers face a whole different set of ecommerce challenges than do their mass merchant counterparts. That's because big-ticket ecommerce is fundamentally different than traditional ecommerce, long typified by consumers purchasing inexpensive, simple products online and receiving shipment via parcel service.

Big-ticket retail presents unique ecommerce barriers. It involves more expensive, less well-understood products — furniture, appliances, TVs, flooring, construction materials. Prices are higher and consumer confidence is lower. Inventory is bulky, expensive to move around the country and more expensive to return.

Because of this, big-ticket commerce is fundamentally local. Stores play a critical role. Ecommerce becomes a powerful tool to help stores compete in their local markets rather than a national channel that bypasses them. Online efforts serve to drive store traffic, generate leads and consummate online transactions, cost effectively and measurably.

For these reasons and more, big-ticket retailers often find their foray into the ecommerce space a daunting challenge. How do they successfully overcome these ecommerce barriers to manage the numerous components - merchandise, operations, and IT? Often, big-ticket retailers find that standard ecommerce platforms do not offer the tailored solutions that are required to successfully bring their products online.

At Blueport, our technology is specifically designed to help big-ticket retailers overcome these ecommerce barriers and develop success full online storefront that drive their sales.

We match our technology platform and services to address the unique business needs of big-ticket retailers, not squeeze them into a commodity-focused, inflexible platform that doesn't address the intricacies of your business. We focus on what makes these retailers' business unique, so they can focus on what matters most — growing their business online.

Blueport Commerce Is a Different Kind of E-commerce Company

Sunday, March 14, 2010 by Morgan Woodruff

At Blueport, we pride ourselves on being different from other e-commerce companies. We’re more than simply a back-end system that retailers can plug into. We believe that technology and integration only opens your online store. Expertise in managing that store is what drives results.

Blueport's e-commerce services team ensures you get the benefit of our ten years of experience in big-ticket retail when marketing, merchandising and operating your online store. We know the unique aspects of these considered purchases, from imaging to marketing to customer support, and we'll work with you to develop those programs for your e-commerce efforts.

Our mission is to help you capture the e-commerce opportunity as part of an integrated multi-channel strategy. At Blueport Commerce, we're a turnkey solution specialized for big ticket that ensures your transition to e-commerce is easy, worry-free and profitable. By combining the industry's most advanced technology platform for localized, big-ticket retail, dedicated integration services and personalized service packages, Blueport Commerce can port your unique business to a ready and willing online marketplace.

We like to think we’re the complete e-commerce package. Let's talk.

Content Tips for Big-Ticket Email Marketing:
Part 1

Friday, March 12, 2010 by Betsy Miller

Email marketing can be a big-ticket retailer's best friend. In the first few weeks of the buying cycle, email content that inspires and educates is key. Creating an email marketing sequence that guides a potental customer through the decision-making process, whether they ultimately complete the transaction online or offline, is a valuable ecommerce marketing strategy.

Inspiration: Similar to the way a customer might visit a bricks and mortar store to check out new or seasonal merchandise, use ‘what's new' content in your email marketing to emphasize new products, top sellers or trends that will inspire the customer to make a purchase.

Research: Particularly in the case of ‘big ticket' items, once inspired, customers typically set out to do more research before making the purchase. Use ecommerce email marketing to highlight why your product is better and why the customer should purchase it from you. The email content here should not be saturated with marketing language, but rather be clever, surprising and creative.

Advice: In using email marketing to make the sale, I often see big-ticket retailers forgetting to use this opportunity to educate the customer and establish a deeper relationship. Sending an email offering customers ‘how to' tips might not necessarily translate in to an immediate ecommerce purchase, but it will build a longer term relationship that will no doubt contribute to conversion down the road.

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

Friday, March 5, 2010 by Carl Prindle

There’s no shortage of e-commerce conventional wisdom - sweeping pronouncements that online is growing at a certain rate. That one tactic works, another doesn’t. That a multi-channel strategy is increasingly important.

I love such analysis and opinion – back in the day, as a consultant at McKinsey, I performed and provided my fair share. However, I will point out the need to dig deeper. What is loosely called “e-commerce” is dramatically different in its application depending on what you are selling.

A few things to keep in mind as you digest the latest e-commerce wisdom or evaluate a vendor:

E-commerce expertise correlates with where money has been made to date, not where it will be made.

Well known e-commerce experts, agencies and technology companies become so because they’ve been doing it for a while and have been well paid for their work. As such, their experience tends to be in those categories that went online early and successfully, yielding enthusiastic clients and customers who could pay.

There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you are also in those categories. If not, think about whether what you are being told makes sense for your business.

One example: It’s been said that 65% of e-commerce keyword searches include a manufacture name and/or model number. Most online agencies build keyword strategies around that fact. And, it works well in those categories that have dominated e-commerce in the past.

But, say you’re a furniture retailer.

Most of your prospective customers have no idea who manufactured the sofa they already own, much less the one they are thinking about buying. Model number? Forget it. Conventional wisdom is out the window - how will your agency react to not being able to rely a favorite approach?

Beware sweeping pronouncements and general statistics. Dig for what’s happening in your market.

I’m an e-com stat addict. There are outstanding analysts out there providing the pulse of e-commerce on a regular and accurate basis. That said, it’s important to pull apart e-commerce statistics and trends to find those that apply to what you do.

Some recent examples:

E-Commerce Growth Statistics

Pundits seem to be in general agreement that in 2009, e-commerce grew or shrank by single digit percentage points. In the face of brick and mortar declines, this is touted as strength – ecommerce holding its own despite significant economic headwinds.

All true – but there’s more to the story. Big ticket online took off in 2009.

Big ticket (think things that cost more and can’t ship via UPS…consumer durables like furniture, appliances, flooring) is 45% of the US Retail Economy, $550B in annual retail sales. It’s never done much online – until now.

Consumers are online and big ticket retailers are now meeting them there. Forrester reports customers feeling comfortable buying furniture and appliances online just in the last 18 months. Big ticket players Blueport works with are seeing monstrous comp increases for online sales and even bigger benefits in stores.

If you happen to be in big ticket markets, this is an opportunity you can’t miss…but easily could, if you just look at broader online growth stats.

E-Commerce by Channel Statistics

Similarly, stats show roughly 45% of e-commerce transacted by Web-only players and catalogers (i.e. pure plays), 15% by manufacturers, and 40% by retailers.

Beneath this stat is a dramatic big ticket vs. small ticket schism in who is winning in e-commerce.

For traditional (small ticket) e-commerce, pure plays have tremendous cost advantages. With no store costs, they can price low. Their products are well known, approaching commodity status, and the shipping is fast, cheap and risk free. In categories from books to shoes, pure plays are cleaning up.

Not so in big ticket. Here, consumers know less about the product. They want to touch and feel in a store. They look for trusted brands – not only for the product, but for the retailer who can deliver and service it. And, they are highly focused on delivery times and costs. Here, retail chains, with trusted brands, local stores and fast, cheap local delivery have the upper hand.

Combine these advantages with the growth noted above, and it’s a good time to be going online if you’re a big ticker player. And, if you’re a retailer in these categories, there’s certainly more than 40% of the online marketplace available to you.

The Importance of Cross-Channel Commerce

There’s significant recent buzz about “multi-channel” or “cross-channel” commerce as the next big thing. We couldn’t agree more – with emphasis on the “big”.

For small ticket items, I don’t think cross channel is that important. Anyone think that opening Zappos bricks and mortar stores is on any of the whiteboards at Amazon?

Conversely, in big ticket, cross channel is critical. The key differentiating factors in big ticket online are store based. Big ticket online and offline channels must be synchronized, as consumers move between them constantly.

This is why we’ve architected our platform to be localized. Big ticket commerce comes down to the local relationship between a consumer, a store, and the inventory in her area. If you’re in big ticket and you’re not reflecting this reality online, you’re missing the point.

Balance online conventional wisdom against what you know about your customers.

Ultimately, e-commerce comes down to a combination of persuading and enabling consumers to buy, using the internet.

Here again, how your consumers do this may not be the same as in “traditional” e-commerce categories.

To grossly over simplify traditional e-commerce shopping, it comes down to finding a product and deciding you like it. After that, the assumption is that UPS takes it from there - you will have your product cheaply, quickly, and some nice brown-shirted gentleman will take it back if things go awry.

As such, most e-commerce wisdom is focused on search and merchandising, helping consumers to find and buy (maybe getting a deal).

These areas are critical (and unique) in big ticket as well, but there’s more to the story – specifically, the part of the story that UPS takes care of in traditional, small ticket e-commerce.

With a sofa or a fridge, more goes into the shopping process than features and price. Customers want to touch and feel in a store. They may want to speak to an expert. They want to know how fast they can get something, and that delivery is as cheap as it can be. They may want financing options. They want to be sure the product can be serviced, and that, worst case it can be returned.

If these are questions your consumer is likely to ask, be sure to push beyond UPS-based ecom conventional wisdom. If you’re a retailer, you’ve got some of the best possible answers to these questions – be sure your online presence takes full advantage (see localization above).

* * *

As consumers look to buy more products online, and e-commerce pushes beyond the simple, UPSable products that were the first wave of e-commerce, the importance of disaggregating e-commerce increases. The opportunities online have changed. E-commerce conventional wisdom soon will too.

Merchandise Online Store Blueport.com