The Challenge of Managing eCommerce Platforms

[Ernie Schell]

Half of the multichannel merchants in the US say they plan to replace their e-commerce platform within the next 12 months! Reasons?
* Lack of innovation/flexibility (48%)
* Outgrown the technology (24%)
* Dissatisfaction with support (14%)
* Vendor too slow to upgrade (10%)
* Too expensive (5%)

Of those re-platforming:
36% considering an on-demand solution
21% a licensed solution
14% an open-source solution
7% plan on in-house development
21% uncertain which approach to take

My question: In all but the very largest companies (and maybe even there), management of the eCommerce platform seems to require a lot more collaboration with the system vendor/agency/provider than with other mission-critical applications. Do you agree? And what does that equation (even if I don't have the balance right) mean for the evolution of this space? You've got complexity vs. ease-of-use vs. high expectations, user demands for change vs. cost of ownership, and a bunch of other trade-offs. The churn rate seems to be about 3-4 years for an eCommerce platform -- at least double that of order management systems. Is it just the nature of the evolving beast? Bottom line: what's your experience with this?

[Ernie Schell]

Here's a very different version of this same issue....

[Richard Bradt]

Our eCommerce system is an open-source solution that we have developed the last 6 years. We are happy w/ our solution and have no plans to change it. However, we certainly have our challenges such as security/infrastructure, managing project load, ensuring our order management system matches the website, and capacity planning. In fact, I believe this area is the most difficult to manage for IT since it is public facing and it changes so fast.

[Lee Thompson]

These statistics support our own experiences in the UK market. Whereas back office systems tend to 'settle' over time and requiring less change and development, ecommerce sites are constantly being evolved and certainly require the support of the vendor unless the user is large enough to have internal developer resource. The big challenge for ecommerce software developers such as Exact Abacus is creating an application that is flexible enough to accomodate unknown future requirements. We are also conscious of the dangers of 'mission creep' and have sourced best of breed products in niche areas rather than trying to be 'jack of all trades'. eCommerce is becoming increasingly granular and therefore the new generation of platforms, applications and widgets need to be interoperable to keep up with the pace of web marketing innovation.

[Ernie Schell]

Thanks for the input, Lee. I think you've hit the nail on the head very nicely.

Lee Thompson said:

These statistics support our own experiences in the UK market. Whereas back office systems tend to 'settle' over time and requiring less change and development, ecommerce sites are constantly being evolved and certainly require the support of the vendor unless the user is large enough to have internal developer resource. The big challenge for ecommerce software developers such as Exact Abacus is creating an application that is flexible enough to accomodate unknown future requirements. We are also conscious of the dangers of 'mission creep' and have sourced best of breed products in niche areas rather than trying to be 'jack of all trades'. eCommerce is becoming increasingly granular and therefore the new generation of platforms, applications and widgets need to be interoperable to keep up with the pace of web marketing innovation.

[Ernie Schell]

Does anybody have experience with ChannelAdvisor for marketing and tracking sales on eBay, Amazon, Overstock.com, etc., as well as paid search and comparison shopping sites.? I'd be interested in hearing the upside, the downside, and whatever else. I saw a reference from a consumer complaining about S&H fees being added by CA, but have no verification of that -- and it doesn't seem plausible. It also seems a bit odd that CA's Website lists only some very large merchants as users. How many clients do they have? Anybody know? Their 3Q results included $2.6 million in bookings and 229 new customer additions. They do claim "niche marketers" as users.... If you'd rather share privately, please e-mail me at [e-mail]. Thanks.

[Barney Stone]

I don't know how many clients they have, but I can tell you that they are not all big companies. About 70 Stone Edge Order Manager users use ChannelAdvisor, and they tend to be small-to-medium companies, rather than household names.

Ernie Schell said:

Does anybody have experience with ChannelAdvisor for marketing and tracking sales on eBay, Amazon, Overstock.com, etc., as well as paid search and comparison shopping sites.? I'd be interested in hearing the upside, the downside, and whatever else. I saw a reference from a consumer complaining about S&H fees being added by CA, but have no verification of that -- and it doesn't seem plausible. It also seems a bit odd that CA's Website lists only some very large merchants as users. How many clients do they have? Anybody know? Their 3Q results included $2.6 million in bookings and 229 new customer additions. They do claim "niche marketers" as users.... If you'd rather share privately, please e-mail me at [e-mail]. Thanks.

[Ernie Schell]

Do any of your users use Zoovy for similar purposes? Or something else?

Barney Stone said:

I don't know how many clients they have, but I can tell you that they are not all big companies. About 70 Stone Edge Order Manager users use ChannelAdvisor, and they tend to be small-to-medium companies, rather than household names.

Ernie Schell said:

Does anybody have experience with ChannelAdvisor for marketing and tracking sales on eBay, Amazon, Overstock.com, etc., as well as paid search and comparison shopping sites.? I'd be interested in hearing the upside, the downside, and whatever else. I saw a reference from a consumer complaining about S&H fees being added by CA, but have no verification of that -- and it doesn't seem plausible. It also seems a bit odd that CA's Website lists only some very large merchants as users. How many clients do they have? Anybody know? Their 3Q results included $2.6 million in bookings and 229 new customer additions. They do claim "niche marketers" as users.... If you'd rather share privately, please e-mail me at [e-mail]. Thanks.

[Barney Stone]

We do not currently support integration with Zoovy. However, we do support Infopia, which I believe is a competitor to ChannelAdvisor. We just added Infopia in the last year or so, and we only have eight users on it so far.

Ernie Schell said:

Do any of your users use Zoovy for similar purposes? Or something else?

Barney Stone said:

I don't know how many clients they have, but I can tell you that they are not all big companies. About 70 Stone Edge Order Manager users use ChannelAdvisor, and they tend to be small-to-medium companies, rather than household names.

Ernie Schell said:

Does anybody have experience with ChannelAdvisor for marketing and tracking sales on eBay, Amazon, Overstock.com, etc., as well as paid search and comparison shopping sites.? I'd be interested in hearing the upside, the downside, and whatever else. I saw a reference from a consumer complaining about S&H fees being added by CA, but have no verification of that -- and it doesn't seem plausible. It also seems a bit odd that CA's Website lists only some very large merchants as users. How many clients do they have? Anybody know? Their 3Q results included $2.6 million in bookings and 229 new customer additions. They do claim "niche marketers" as users.... If you'd rather share privately, please e-mail me at [e-mail]. Thanks.

[Ernie Schell]

Here's news about Vodat International's eMerchandising shopping cart incentives management solution for the UK market.

[Richard Bradt]

What is your all's opinion on CRM systems for multichannel companies?

[Rick Dickens]

We're replacing our ecommerce platform at the same time we're replacing our order management/erp, and I sure hope both last, or perhaps evolve together, for 6-8 years or longer. I don't want to do this again! We'll be relying heavily on the technology in the new erp (Dynamics AX/Omnica) combined with our new forecasting/assortment planning tool (SmartForecasts) to drive and measure marketing efforts.

We're in the 21% going with a licenses solution.

[Ernie Schell]

Thanks for the info, Rick. Is your new eComm platform the aspdotnetstorefront module/platform? -- Actually, I just answered the question myself -- YES -- based on your reply to my other question on this site.