In the part I, I
had discussed briefly about how most of the small businesses go about selecting
a product, whereas a successful small businessmen would be careful and would
evaluate the product based on various aspects listed below before making a
choice.
I will relist all the important factors, which one should
consider before buying an ecommerce product (www.ritecart.co.uk)
or software for their company.
1. Ease
of configuration
2. Ability
to Scale
3. Useful
latest features
4. Available
marketing tools with the product
5. Ability
to analyze data (analytics, not only google analytics!!)
6. Reports
7. Integration
(with other modules, Like epos with near realtime online/offline
synchronization of data and other packaged application )
8. Customer
Service
9. Technical
Support
10. Technical
Implementation Aspects
11. Build vs Buy
Ease of Configuration-
It is very important
that the product is configurable and suited for one’s current needs and future
needs, Like some of the things one may want to determine that how easy it is to
·
Add products, categories and catalogs. Can this be
dynamically created using administrative tool and dynamically displayed on the
user side? Can it support multiple images with different resolution to be
displayed on the user side?
·
Look and manage all the orders placed by the
administrator? Before placing the order, does it check for inventories? Does it
notify the administrators, if the inventories go below a threshold value? Can
the administrator mix and match the shipment to the customer?
·
Create new sales store and new warehouses for
inventories? Can the store’s inventory be picked up from different warehouses?
·
Define several types of prices for the same product
like list price, default price, component price, sale price etc? Can the price
be dynamically setup using a rules engine?
·
Associate a product with host of features like size,
color, height, width, UOM, density, length etc? Can the product be setup and
shown on the user side on any of the feature mentioned above or any of your new
custom features?
·
Return an order, look at shopping list/wish list,
browse through the items last visited, go to most popular products in store,
discounted product or special product in store, look at promotional products,
place a review on the product, recommend a product or provide a valuable
feedback and look at the products which are most sought by the people who had
brought the same product as the customer in past?
·
Can I select or add a new payment processor easily? I
may want to use PayPAL today but I may need GoogleCheck out tomorrow. How many
Payment engines does the product support?
·
Customize my shipment company or add a new shipping
company? Can I integrate directly with ups, RoyalMail, USPS, Fedex etc?
Ability to Scale
As the company
grows, eCommerce infrastructure should be able to grow with you, supporting
more customers, products, and traffic as needed. Unfortunately, this doesn’t
always occur, which is why scalability is such an important element in any
ecommerce product (www.ritecart.co.uk)
.
It is very
important to know on what technology is the product built upon. Does the vendor
have enough support or knowledge on the product?
This may sound
like a mute point but all these factors do really matter. It may be easy for a
vendor to use an opensource product and provide the required solution but most
of the opensource solutions fail in the kind of support you get and to the kind
of ownership you/vendor have on the product.
It has been my
experience that even with the best of the open source products, when you look
deep into the code, you realize that the pieces of code have been written by
people who really don’t know what the other coders have been writing
introducing lot of overheads in the code and a code which is in no way modular
or object oriented, making it all the more difficult for any vendor company to
provide support.
Important point
is look for a company that treats your online store as an important long-term
investment, and has a product with that track record. These priorities will
keep you and your site up and running—whether your order volume is five a day
or five thousand—without skipping a beat. Remember, an eCommerce company or
product should support the total growth of your business, not limit it.
Useful latest features
Although this may
not sound important or required but this does remain one of the most important
criteria while selecting an online ecommerce solution or product.
The latest
features provide means and ways to improve your marketability and thereby the
sale of your product. To name a few,
·
Products
Last visited by the user
·
Ability to
provide reviews by the user
·
Ability to
list down the product rated higher by user community
·
Create
Composite product and offer discount for composite products
·
Dynamic
pricing of composite products. To price dynamically user created composite
products
More current
features product has, easier it is, for the merchant to rollout new marketing
initiatives. Also it is very important that the product is designed and built
in such a way that it is easier to add/remove features.
Available marketing tools with
the product
Sooner or later
you will want to provide returning customers with a special discount, or use a
coupon as a promotional device. Does your ecommerce product (www.ritecart.co.uk) or solution allow for
that contingency in your checkout? Can you easily generate creative marketing
content and integrate it into the site’s infrastructure? Can you easily
identify your targeted customers based on the data you have by analyzing the
data in hand? and or does the system seem limiting?
Coupons and other
promotions can be key conversion tools, so make sure your ecommerce
product (www.ritecart.co.uk) allows for this kind
of marketing flexibility. Remember, promotions and marketing tools can make a
difference in the crowded online marketplace, and can help set you apart from
others who have their online presence in the market.
Ability to analyze data
Once you have
your ecommerce solution deployed, you will want to find ways and means to
increase the sales of your product. You may want to look at your current
customer base, understand their trends, their demographics, their preference,
and the overall customer behavior. All these helps you to prepare your business
better, find effective marketing tools and eventually get more sales done.
To effectively
achieve this, you would need means to analyze your data. As a product selection
criteria, it is very important that you specifically know that what are the
different analytics, which are provided by the tool
Reports
Reports are
important for the management as it helps them to see the overall picture of the
order and sales in the organization. It is important to know what are the
different reports supported by the ecommerce solution. I would recommend that
one should list all of the reports required for the organization and try to
ensure that those reports are covered or are generated by the ecommerce
solution. It is also necessary to know how easily more reports can be added or
generated by the system.
Other important
aspect of reporting is the support of different formats. The most common
formats are CVS (Microsoft Excel), PDF (Adobe) and Quickbooks.
Integration
Integration is
one of the key non functional requirements; one should look at, before choosing
ecommerce software (www.ritecart.co.uk).
Some of the key questions would be how easy is it to integrate with third party
software? Does the ecommerce provider have the pluggable modules provided like
Epos (Online electronic Point Of Sale) and Accounting package?
Palindrome
Software Labs (www.palindromesoftware.com)
has been very successful in marketing and selling its RiteCart enterprise
product, which has ecommerce, epos, accounting and other pluggable modules.
Major sales in
the RiteCart enterprise have been the epos and ecommerce combination. RiteCart
(www.ritecart.co.uk) has n tier
architecture for its epos module. Epos module has online/offline synchronization
with the order management, warehouse management and ecommerce module
As I said
earlier, ecommerce solution should be the tool for business to enhance its
marketability, sales and in no way should limit it.
Customer Service
Any online
retailer will understand how important customer service is to maintaining the
success of a business. In choosing an eCommerce package, as a consumer,
customer support is all the more important. Make sure that eCommerce software
provider does provide with the elements you need to keep an online business
operating at its peak level at all times. Does the vendor offer notifications
regarding product updates or enhancements, personalized service, and technical
support? Is there an option for an online help with live chat and IP2IP calling
(www.supportnow.biz)? Keep in mind that
the eCommerce solution provider should offer the same individualized service
that one would want to give to his customers.
Technical Support
In the same vein,
one shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get someone to aid you if there is
a problem with your online store—so make sure the service providers have
experienced, reliable technical support and are committed to fixing a coding
error or bug quickly. Quality counts; be assured that your ecommerce service
provider (www.palindromesoftware.com)
has people behind and are equally committed to quality and the customer
experience as you are.
Technical Implementation Aspects
This is one of the most neglected factors
by the ecommerce customer community.
Remember, Ignorance is not always bliss.
it is important to understand that the product development technology plays a
vital role in defining product features, customization, support and ease of
product usage.
It is fairly common these days to use a
scripting language to build products because that is the easiest way to build a
product for the product supplier!!
I encourage customers to ask some specific
questions, to name a few
·
How can I
customize the product behavior? Does it use XML or Property files?
·
How can I
change my query? Can I change without looking into the code?
·
How can I
change the content?
·
Can my Home
page flash dynamically pick up product images, price and other details from my
database
·
What
language is used for development for product? Scripting language like PHP and
others are a huge no, no. Make sure that your product is built using a software
language like Java or .NET (most preferred ones)
·
Can I add more
modules to my product? How simple is it? Is the development Object Oriented
Our product RiteCart (www.ritecart.co.uk) is built using robust
MVC/Struts framework, which is modular, extensible and configurable.
Technologies used in this product are Java, XML, BSH.
Build vs. Buy
Over the period of time, this has become
one of my favorite customer questions. Build or Buy?
I usually answer this by asking a
question- how much ROI do you expect out of your ecommerce investment and
product?
Building is an expensive option (not from
cost point of view but from ROI Point of view).
You can build your solution using one of
these options
1.
Build with a
good reliable vendor onsite (with or without an open source solution)
2.
Build with a
good vendor offshore
3.
Build with a
small vendor onsite/offshore
4.
Go for your
own development with some open source tools
Point 1, 2 &3 are feasible but one
should ask himself the following questions, is the cost feasible? Will the
vendor understand all the functional needs of the ecommerce solution? How long
has the vendor been in the ecommerce solution market? Will the solution be ever
built? Will it work as per expectations? Can the software vendor be relied
upon? How much time will it take? What impact does it have on my business if it
is not delivered to my satisfaction?
Finally for option 4, if you decide to pursue an
open-source application to manage your store, make sure to thoroughly research
and examine your options. Is the project continuously updated, or has it been
stagnant for a long time, with very few updates on the project and very little
news as to where it is headed? Several open-source solutions are released every
year. However, very few have the longevity that you will need to be used as a
foundation for your online store. Examine the programmers behind it, and others
who use the program.
Buying option is a much easier option. One can feel and
see the solution. One can make sure that he has got everything in the product
he needs. Also, he can be rest assured that the company has the required
functional, technical and support expertise to support all of his needs.
Finally, look at the company that’s behind your eCommerce
solution (www.ritecart.co.uk). What
have they done in the past? Are they a growing enterprise, likely to
continually make improvements to their firm, and pass on those benefits to you?
When considering a package, make sure that the company you are dealing with is
credible, with a solid reputation to back up any claims. See where your
customer and technical support will come from. Is it in-house or out-sourced?
Do they have a solid, supportive community in the form of a forum, blog, or
network of satisfied eCommerce businesses (www.ritecart.co.uk)?
Examine the philosophy behind the company. Ask for references or email others,
who’ve used their services in the past, and see what they have to say about the
different aspects of the company you may be working with. These are the people
who are going to help you build your business and make it a success; so choose
wisely.
Ritecart product (www.ritecart.co.uk)
is sold in two flavors (Lite & enterprise). If you are looking for
ecommerce software, Please request for a quotation from our Sales team.
We
have got the right product for you tagged with the right price!!!
Author is working as a Senior
Retail Analyst with Palindrome Software Labs (www.palindromesoftware.com).
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