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March 5, 2009 |
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| Online Marketing Channels Commentary |
Shopping Cart Technologies That
Work for You
by Chip Arndt
 Miami, FL (March 5, 2009) – Last week a new friend of MerchantAdvantage called me to ask about shopping cart technologies. He was having issues with an in-house shopping-cart technology that he had been using for over five years and was inquiring about other solutions in the market place because he felt he was falling behind the competition. His main issues revolved around:
- The outside vendor he is using could not keep up with new programming needs to make his online storefront "cutting edge" – this includes design issues, adding new features such as coupons and reviews, and customer relationship email follow up
- The ease of integrating with various marketing channels and Internet applications and solutions that help drive revenue or increase customer satisfaction
- The costs of programming to keep up were burdensome and he was not satisfied with the programmers he was working with, and
- The solution he is using was not as flexible as other shopping cart solutions in the marketplace
MerchantAdvantage is not a shopping-cart technology solution, so why are we writing about them? Well, we work with over 50 shopping-cart technology companies, helping to pull and push product catalog data to over 200 marketing channels, and thus, know a little bit about our new friend’s questions. We also know that our friend asked questions that have many answers with numerous associated opinions and that the debate about the best shopping-cart technology has been going on for years and will never end, because there is no single perfect solution. So, keeping all of this in mind, here is an overview of what we told him; we hope the following general information helps other ecommerce merchants who might be facing the same issues.
Overview
First, ecommerce merchants have hundreds of shopping-cart technology solutions to pick from in the marketplace = good news.
Second, no shopping-cart technology is perfect = bad news.
Third, there are many excellent shopping cart technologies in the marketplace and the one that is right for you is the one that works with you and for you = best news! I don’t want to list all of the shopping-cart technology solutions in the marketplace because I am sure that I will leave many off of that list that might be the right solution for you and I don’t know all of them. So instead, let’s talk about how an ecommerce merchant should approach the process of identifying the right shopping-cart technology solution for you. .
Identifying the “Right” Shopping-Cart Technology Solution
I find this part relatively easy because the answer is dictated by price and need. We all would love to have a site like ProFlowers, REI or LL Bean – some of my favorites – but:
- Can we afford to build a robust site like these examples?
- Does your business require you to have a site like these to be successful?, and
- Do you have the staff and time to support the many features offered by these sites?
MerchantAdvantage works with many small to mid-sized merchants who have $250,000+ in annual sales and most of them are very content with the functionality of their Web storefront, although they realize that they could have a “sexier” site. In these cases, the ecommerce merchant understands the value proposition between what shopping-cart technology they can afford that “still” makes them money versus what they desire. And remember, even the best and largest ecommerce merchants started out small with ecommerce Websites that were basic.
Therefore, it is essential that ecommerce merchants understand the tradeoffs between various shopping-cart technologies, the price point to work with them, the functionality they offer as it relates to the revenues you can generate by using that shopping-cart technology, and what is really necessary.
What is right for ProFlowers or Moose Jaw, two of MerchantAdvantage’s clients with many millions of dollars in sales and complex transactions, may not be right or necessary for Carols Candy Corner, a smaller but effective MerchantAdvantage etailer. And remember, it is okay to start small and work your way up.
However, it is also important to note that every shopping-cart technology should have the following basics in common; even though some companies may perform each function better than another:
- Clear pricing structure for what you are getting and understanding of how much it will cost to “upgrade” and add new functions when needed.
NOTE: This is where most shopping-cart technology companies make most of their money and this is fine, as they are running a business
- It is easy for you to access your data for many future needs, even the possible one of switching to a new shopping-cart technology company
- Excellent Webhosting
- Robust Data backup and recovery applications
- Analytics
- Shipping applications
- Accounting applications
- Billing and receipt applications that integrate with an
easy–to-use accounting package such as QuickBooks
- Order Management applications within the system that properly track and monitor orders when working with marketing channels that sell your product for you
- Various secure payment options for clients
- The ability to work with third-party solutions that may enhance your Webstore functionality faster, better, and more economically than what they offer today. This includes such things as:
- Site design
- Site navigations
- Marketing applications
- Email integrations
- Coupon integration, and
- Reviews
(Although remember that many shopping-cart technology companies will try and keep some of these things in-house, per point #1 above = making money).
- AND….the ability to grow and accommodate new business needs as they come up. Nothing is worse than having an out-of-the-box solution that can’t grow with you.
So here are some quick questions to ask yourself before looking into shopping-cart technology solutions, whether you are new ecommerce merchant or looking to switch to a new shopping-cart technology solution.
- What are the most important functionalities that you need to run YOUR online business? (see above for help)
- What special integrations and offers does a shopping-cart technology solution provide? For instance:
- ProStores WebStores (an eBay company) offers integration with PayPal Payment solution, Google Checkout Payment solution, marketing channels as Shopping.com and others
- Yahoo! Stores offers discounts when buying Yahoo! Adwords on their search engine
- Go Daddy Quick Cart offers special offers from numerous helpful, add-on applications and easy integration to the new Go Daddy Marketplace
- A myriad of shopping-cart technology solutions provide integration to robust email applications and Google and Yahoo! Adwords…you get the point.
- Don’t be too shy to ask: What else do I get besides just a shopping-cart technology solution to help drive revenues to my Web Storefront?
- What is your monthly budget to run your online Webstore now AND what can you afford? [A quick way to find out is to ask the following questions then decide what percentage of revenues you can afford to allocate to your shopping-cart technology – 10%, 25%, 50%].
- What are your revenues today or expected revenues?
- What are your “ALL-IN” margins related to revenues and what percentage, if any, does the shopping-cart technology company you are working with require.
- What is your expected net income after ALL costs?
- Can you afford to work with a shopping-cart technology company that provides more than you need? Do you need to at this stage of your company’s growth?
- Do you need to work with a sophisticated shopping-cart technology company to run your business, as the smaller ones may not be sufficient, and
- What do you expect your shopping-cart technology company to do for you and what do you expect to do for yourself?
The above questions are mostly business/finance related and, while not exciting, nor the only questions you should ask, they are essential to ask yourself as you are running a business to make money. So keep these questions handy when calling on shopping-cart technology companies as they will help guide your conversations and make it a lot easier to identify the right company for you.
What Next? Make the Call…There is No Magic Solution
Probably what most ecommerce merchants want to hear is that there is the perfect shopping-cart technology solution for them and here it is ____________________________.
The point of this newsletter is to guide ecommerce merchants to “possible” solutions because there are many shopping-cart technology solutions from which to choose and not all of them are right for you. In order to make the selection process a little easier, MerchantAdvantage breaks down possible choices in the table below and encourages all ecommerce merchants to do the same.
And, once an ecommerce merchant embraces the methodology below and asks the questions above to choose an appropriate shopping-cart technology solution, may we suggest searching online under the general search term “shopping-cart technology solutions”. You will find hundreds of solutions to investigate and many wonderful commentaries from industry experts that speak to the same topic of this newsletter.
Or alternatively, give us a shout at MerchantAdvantage and we would be glad to assist you as we can.
Shopping-Cart Technology Solutions Overview Analysis
This chart depicts how MerchantAdvantage sees the shopping-cart technology landscape in order to assist ecommerce merchants to make intelligent, cost-effective decisions in identifying the shopping-cart technology that is right for them.
We realize that there are hundreds of other shopping-cart technology solutions in the marketplace, but I did not have enough room for their logos! If you are a shopping-cart technology provider and are reading this newsletter, but have been excluded from the chart below, please excuse us for the omission and call us at MerchantAdvantage, We would love to work with you.
Analysis:
- If you are just starting out in ecommerce, have fewer than 2,500 SKUs, or are looking for a more inexpensive shopping-cart technology solution, check out quadrant 1 (lower left).
- If you are a more experienced etailer that might need some more features and you are really dedicated to planning your future growth as an etailer, check out companies in quadrant 2 (upper left) and top of quadrant 1.
- If you are a really experienced etailer and run a very robust online business with over $5 million in annual sales, you probably know more than we do. We are glad you are reading this newsletter and have many suggestions of excellent shopping-cart technology companies that can help you really scale your business, see quadrant 3 (upper right).
- If you like “high cost” with “low functionality”, quadrant 4 (lower right), you are not running a business! No one ever should be working with these companies and frankly I don’t know of any that fit totally in this quadrant. (see “Special Note #2” below).
Special Notes to Chart above:
- The chart serves as a guide to the landscape of shopping-cart technology solutions and is not meant to “compartmentalize” companies into precise areas. MerchantAdvantage recognizes that each company markets to certain sectors of the ecommerce space: large etailers, small etailers, mid-sized etailers, and new etailers - and, as such, provide products and offerings that cater to the specific needs of those various sectors at varying pricing levels.
- MerchantAdvantage recognizes that no shopping-cart technology solution strives to provide “limited functionality” for a “high-cost” and thus did not intend to list any shopping-cart technology solution in that “quadrant 4” in its entirety.
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| Advice, Tips & Tricks |
Shopping On Your Phone
by B. Thomas Romeo
 Miami, FL (March 5, 2009)— There has recently been a quiet revolution in our industry. Often as technology evolves many online companies begin to "test the waters" to see the marketability of new trends and look to see if there are either revenue or branding opportunities in new areas. We've recently seen the advent of social networking and IP telephony gain attention from the sudden critical mass of users that makes new technologies become mainstream. Right now there is another wave of change occurring and it is in the mobile arena.
Setting the stage for this is, of course, Apple's iPhone. Without focusing on it as the only dynamic, we can pay attention to the advent of what I'll call "smarter" phones (as opposed to just boring, old "smart" phones) where these new phones are reaching a higher level and subsequent critical mass of functionality. This is analogous to the change that occurred between NO phones having a camera and now ALL phones having cameras. Previously you had smart phones that were traditionally thought of as having a keyboard and were probably made by (or copied from) RIM or Palm. Apple has now changed the mobile smart phone concept on two levels: touch screen and a very successful application store.
Blackberries and Palms also could run applications but their interface lacked the key element of, let's say, "cool." Touch screens, although a newer concept, are really just keyboards that generate much more screen space for those very applications that were, let's say, "uncool" when they were too small to easily read and use. So what's this have to do with our industry? Well let's start with of some of the Apple examples and remember that many other vendors now have nice sized, readable touch screens.
Being a techy guy I have already installed some of these applications on the iPhone and I'd like to give a few examples. One of the first CSEs with an iPhone application was Like.com's "Like This". Being a visually driven CSE, Like allows consumers to actually take a photo of a product and perform a search for similar products based on color, style, shape and pattern. Amazon offers a similar feature in their iPhone app that also includes the ability to see your online shopping cart and search Amazon's products from your phone. The last one I tried is from TheFind which has a different twist in that it uses your location to pinpoint nearby stores to find your searched item or, if you choose, web sites that have it. All three create a great way to shop in this new dynamic of mobile shopping.
There are many more relevant applications in Apple's iTunes store that more and more iPhone carrying consumers will be taking advantage of and of course, there will be new applications introduced all the time from many more of the shopping engines. With this phenomenon, you'll also be seeing other phone platforms following suit. I've already seen Nokia's Ovi Store that is announced to debut in May and of course, both Google and Microsoft are gearing up their stores for their Android and Windows Mobile phones, respectively. Blackberry has developers already working on applications for the Blackberry Application Storefront and even many carriers such as Verizon are making shopping content available for consumers.
I would suggest that as a merchant, you will want to be aware of how your products may end up being viewed on someone's new fancy touchscreen phone and learn a little bit about how to get them there. It's a quiet revolution but it's happening now and you'll be seeing much more focus on this as time goes by. As I tell most of the merchants who ask for industry advice, remember always to be a shopper. Shop your own products, use the sites you feed to and always, always remember to think like a consumer. At this moment, this advice justifies going out and buying a cool new phone - which for the geek in us is always a fun thing.
NOTES: From Amazon (11/08), The Find (10/08) and Like.com (8/08) on my iPhone. |
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| Webinars & White Papers |
Webinar:
Getting F.I.T. in 2009 part II-
Best Practices for CSE Marketing & Site Search
(On Demand Webcast)
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Webinar:
Getting F.I.T. in 2009-
Focused Intelligent Targeting for Online Marketing
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10 Crucial Changes to Energize Your Holiday Marketing
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Webinar:
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Webinar:
How to Afford Comparison Shopping Engines
(On Demand Webcast)
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White Paper:
2 Steps to Increase Return on CSE Ad Spend
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| |
| Industry News |
New Online Shopping Website Launched
Performics Selects Mercent Retail Hosted Software to Increase Client ROI
Shop To Earn Online Shopping Portals Offer Grocery and Health Insurance
TheFind Promotes Its Version of Economic Stimulus By Integrating Coupon and Discount Offers Directly Into Product Search Results
Rising to the Challenge of Capturing Customers in 2009
Blue Nile Leads the Way as Online Retail Stocks Outpace the Market |
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| Merchant of the Month |
Boutiquejewels.com
 "MerchantAdvantage has been a real boon to our company. Before we started using MerchantAdvantage, we would spend hours trying to update data files to be uploaded onto the various comparison shopping channels. Now it’s a real breeze, as MerchantAdvantage collects data directly from our website and updates all channels on a daily basis, without any manual input from our side. MerchantAdvantage made doing business online much easier, and we would recommend it highly to any online merchant out there."
Rajiva Agrawal, Boutiquejewels.com
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Best of all, your monthly MerchantAdvantage fee will be waived in the month you are selected and you will receive a complimentary Companion Airline Ticket. Submit your Channel Management success story today to stories@merchantadvantage.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
(Note: MerchantAdvantage reserves the right to use any or all of your story, whether or not your article is selected as the winning entry.) |
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About MerchantAdvantage
MerchantAdvantage (www.MerchantAdvantage.com) is an ecommerce software solutions company committed to championing and helping the small to midsized online merchant address complicated online and mobile commerce issues. MerchantAdvantage takes a systematic, controlled and proactive approach to online product marketing by providing long-term, cost effective, Web-based software tools that enable an online business to grow by reaching the widest audience possible via online, broadband, and wireless devices.
MerchantAdvantage's applications are designed to connect the online retailer to their marketplace partners in a seamless motion of communication, allowing online merchants to take control of their e-Commerce and m-Commerce channels, marketing strategies and IT solutions. MerchantAdvantage currently markets over $3 billion worth of product value daily, representing over 900 online storefronts and is changing the macrocosm of ecommerce by staying ahead of the curve in providing business solutions to the growing online retail marketplace. They are here because your commerce future is online and wireless. For more information, please visit MerchantAdvantage.com, e-mail us at sales@MerchantAdvantage.com or call us at 1.800.550.9466.
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