Operations / Technology
E-Commerce Platforms: Building Your Online Retail Foundation
- 31st March
- Nirosha Methananda 275
Power Retail’s E-Commerce Platforms Special Report provides insights, expert opinion, best practice advice and a comprehensive overview of available solutions.
Fundamental to any e-commerce website is the platform upon which it’s built. This not only forms the basis of an online business, allowing online transactions to occur, but in the rapidly evolving world of multichannel retailing it may be the solution through which to drive your business into the future.
Though the basic definition of an e-commerce platform is ‘a software that enables transaction via the internet’, these platforms have quickly developed into comprehensive, all encompassing online retail solutions. Allowing retailers to target, capture, engage and retain customers, through not just the traditional web store, but also via offline, mobile and social media channels.
Download the FREE Power Retail E-Commerce Platforms Special Report here.
In the Power Retail E-Commerce Platforms Special Report, we discuss the complex, yet intriguing world of e-commerce platforms, while providing insights and best practice advice about the solutions available to online and multichannel retailers.
Investment into an e-commerce platform is usually consummate to the size and maturity of a business. With the current attention given to the growth of online retail within the Australian market, more and more retailers (if they are not already) are undoubtedly feeling the pressure to transact online.
Yet more often than not this results in unplanned and rushed transactional websites – enter the addition to the Australian online retail landscape of established heavyweight David Jones. The company’s e-commerce site was met with criticism from industry peers and experts, which had David Jones’ CEO Paul Zahra recently admitting that the site is “certainly not best practice”. While unfortunate for David Jones, investing in a solution that was less than par, this is a good learning for other retailers, that there are important considerations to make when selecting and implementing e-commerce solutions.
“You need to sit down and have a well thought out plan – without this, you are flying by the seat of your pants,” advises Luke Hilton, Online Retail Specialist, Playhouse Digital.
“Often the platform is too technical and businesses struggle to maintain the backend, cannot add products easily, manage stock levels, etc,” adds John Debrincat, CEO, eCorner. “A lot of it’s to do with user training and knowledge. We’ve found that giving retailers good training capabilities, forums, FAQ’s, interacting with other retailers, guides and videos, makes their use of the platform much simpler and more straightforward. Training is a vital part of making the whole thing work.”
“Retailers need to define their business goals and objective and this comes back to doing internal analysis in order to establish and make these decisions,” recommends Paul Wilson, Managing Director, White Labelled.
“The key is making sure the strategy is supported business wide and establishing the budget associated with the project – this will often determine which platforms a retailer is able to implement,” says Wilson. “If working with an agency, make sure the agency has proven e-commerce experience and can make independent platform recommendations to meet the business needs, rather than going with a familiar solution that may not necessarily fit the business requirements.”
Download the full Power Retail E-Commerce Platforms Special Report for more insights and best practice advice.
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You’ve certainly hit the nail on the head with your observations. I would extend further and simply say that in retail, whether Bricks & Mortar or Online only, Best Practice in fullfilment needs to carefully consider basic supply chain fundamentals. I think the cost of fulfillment is often left as something ‘we’ll get to’ but can be the cause for unprofitability in many cases.
We’ve found there is enormous demand for an ecommerce platform that combines product publishing and transactional capabilities with email marketing, web analytics and business intelligence tools. Most ecommerce platforms overlook mission critical components of a successful online business and surprisingly few systems have much in the way of sophisticated publishing tools. After 10 years in the business, I would like to think our home-grown platform has evolved to being a potential contender in the global marketplace.