Omni Commerce Platform

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Things to consider before tying the knot with an Omni Commerce Platform6

With stupendous growth in eCommerce the number of available plat-forms, the choices present are vast and exible. There are cases where, short-sightedness while choosing an eCommerce platform or path taken has resulted in challenges especially in areas of scalability. For example, Marks & Spencer faced many consequences for not choosing the right cloud server to host their website. They realized about the problem when the data could not be moved to their in-house website design and management. This resulted in increase in-house website design and management. This resulted in increase of the time-to-market of their refurbished website.

To avoid situations like these, MartJack Enterprise has collated an es-sential list of considerations to keep in mind while making your deci-sion. Additionally, related FAQs are also answered which will help you in making the decision wiser.

A perfect business solution should be future ready, cost-eective and which lets you choose whats best for your business and not paying a premium for features which are not essential for your business. Choosing an online platform is like getting into a long-term relation-ship. Aspects such as scalability, compatibility, dependability, reliabili-ty and business understanding are priority things to consider.The below guide will assist in making the decision about the platform and also focuses on the concerns & question that should be looked into before making your investment.

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Technology: Lets get the core values strong

2007-2014 MartJack. All Rights Reserved.

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Secure - The platform should provide the best security standards such as PCI DSS, ISO 27001 (certications that assure you about high security and condentiality of your website)

Reliable and available - For the anytime, anywhere consumer, the availability of online sale channels is very critical and technology should be robust enough to pro-vide a world-class standard. The ability of your website to load needs to be high.

Technology is the nucleus of the platform, around which it is built. From a technology standpoint, an eCommece platform should be:

As demand being driven by consumers and various external as-pects, the platform should have capabilities to scale up (in peak demand cycle) and scale down (in bleak demand cycle) based on the volatile business requirement.

Scalable -

QUESTIONS TO ASK

Is scaling up or down according to needs automated?

Does the platform meet security standards?

What is the percentage of availability of your website?

ISO 27001

The platform should have the ability to handle marketing, selling and servicing in an integrated manner across multiple channels such as online, mobile, social etc. The spread of smartphones and tablets is seen as a phenomenon and about 70% of the growth in the Indian internet users is mobile only. Having a good user experience on devices that most matter today Smartphones and tablets, is a need. It is imperative to make sure your vendor is in pace with the developments in the technology world. Digital avenues and trends emerge overnight, hence, you need to choose a platform that is agile enough to adapt. Not just on the outwardly front, the whole platform should be integrated on an internal level as well. enough to adapt. Not just on the outwardly front, the whole platform should be integrated on an internal level as well. Order management, marketing management, engagement and design capability are all areas that need to be scrutinized.

Which channels all available to make sales?

Order management: How detailed dierent stages of the order management system are? Is the demonstration of the workow clear?

Does the platform have clear use cases for returns and refunds? ( to streamline refunds and returns) Is partial returns and refunds capability present?

Marketing management: Are there end-to-end SEO capabilities for on-page optimization and internal linking

Is there a coupon management feature?Is there a coupon management feature?

Are there extensive options and use cases for promotions, bundling and ash sales?

Are social media integration and widgets available?

Design capabilities: Is complete customization of the layout and design of the website possible? Is the WSIWYG(What You See Is What You Get) capability present? (The ability to see immediate results of changes)

Are there rich options and customization capabilities for landing, product and category pages?

QUESTIONS TO ASK

Omni-channel Capability: Your store is not just a point of sale


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Imagine walking into a store with no proper category signs and jumbled up order of products. This automatically makes you sceptic about the store, however, you still walk in looking to buy a toothbrush. You are able to locate toothpaste, but a tooth-brush is nowhere near in sight. Unable to nd the product you were looking for, you leave the store. The stores toothbrush stock next to the shampoos serves little purpose as the custom-er has left due to faulty categorization and reduced searchabili-ty.

Product Catalogue

You want customers to nd what they are looking for as eciently as possible, just as you would in a physical store. Customers will not to meticulously search for the products they are looking for. An inexible, irrelevant product catalogue with dupli-cate entries, non-descriptive product descriptions and substandard pictures are an immediate turn o for customers.

Additionally, it is dicult to predict what you would be selling in the future. Hence, Additionally, it is dicult to predict what you would be selling in the future. Hence, your company needs to be agile in adapting to any kind of oers, sales or promo-tions as eCommerce is an on-going model of change. Simplied and integrated one point data management system will drastically save on the eort and budget re-quired to maintain inventory listing and streamline processes within your organiza-tion.

Will I be able to manage my catalogue across various channels through one entry point?

Can I customise the way my platform is showcased through dierent channels?

Can I conduct bulk operations through the platform?

In what depth can the catalogue be customized to suit my needs?

Is master data management available (customisable templates for particular categories)?

QUESTIONS TO ASK


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QUESTIONS TO ASK

How does the platform log data?

How easy is it to monitor business metrics, eg is: order sizes, etc.?

How easy is it to create reports on specic behavioural aspects across the channels? Are the reports adequate to provide

quick answers to questions you might have about specic behaviours?

Are there dedicated applications for data analysis and insights on the website? How eective are they to extract business

intelligence from the data?

Is it easy to track specic consumer behaviour on a daily basis? Is it easy to track specic consumer behaviour on a daily basis?

Report and analyse: Without data! You're just another person with opinion

Your eCommerce site is a mine of data you need to get valuable insights out of. The required tools for this activity are the reporting and data analysis capabili-ties of your platform. Your platform should be able to track customer behaviour and log all available data from various channels used, as you never know when you might need insights on behaviour you are not tracking. You may choose to run your campaigns on non-conventional trends or specic behaviours, and hence, collection and analysis of data is an important factor you would want to look into. look into.

Your business exists to serve the customer; the more you know about them, the better. Customer insights help in the continual improvement of your website as well as products. For a truly customer centric approach to busi-ness, you need to grow on the data you collect.


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Extensibility get along with all kind of systems.

Retailers should look for a platform that comes pre-integrated with a wide array of third party solutions. The best platforms also provide robust and OPEN APIs for integrating with other in-house systems. These capabilities allow the retailer to stream-line internal business processes and achieve a ONE inventory and ONE customer view for all employees. This way, there will be no time wasted in logging in inventory on two dierent systems; your existing inventory management can be integrated with the online inventory management system for automatic, seamless updates. APIs greatly extend the possibilities on your plat-form and give you the ability to build new applications through third party integration.

You might choose to change your platform or move all hosting and website management in-house sometime in the future. Hence, your data on the plat-form or server should support easy migration of data to another platform. If you want a divorce from your platform, you should be able to get it!

QUESTIONS TO ASK


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Are there capabilities or facilities to integrate your existing systems ( POI, CRM, ERP) on your platform?

Is it possible to integrate third party applications on the platform?

Is it possible to build new applications to facilitate 3rd party integration?

QUESTIONS TO ASK

Can you shift out of the platform at any given point? How easy is it to do so?


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License for a complete suite of Multichannel Com-merce Platform

One time Implementation cost on material and time basis. Including three stages - plan, build, deploy

Infrastructure (Hardware)

Software Licensing such as server, rewalls etc

Infrastructure monitoring and maintenance

Incremental Costs for implementation and Mainte-nance on material and time basis

Additional costs for new modules as per the requirement

Monthly Fees

One time Implementation cost on material and time basis. Including three stages - plan, build, deploy

Infrastructure monitoring and maintenance

Incremental Costs for implementation and MainteIncremental Costs for implementation and Mainte-nance on material and time basis (Very Limited

License Based

Help ascertain whether one can recover the investment for the new platform in a reasonable time horizon.

Guide in assessing the ripple eect of implementing a new platform.

It may help streamline the companys IT infrastructure by optimizing the need for other systems. Or, it may de-crease or increase stang needs in other departments.

THIS TABLE WILL:

Monthly SaaS

A platform may look reasonable given the current require-ments of your website; however, it might cost you a lot more down the line, with add-on and indirect costs. To make the cal-culation of this number easier, the below table lists the costs you need to consider under licensing and Saas platforms.

Its important to consider total cost of ownership - the sum total of direct and in-direct costs

Total Cost of Ownership

Are manual integration and approval as well as automated integration and approval (based on the existing inventory) of order processes available?

Is it possible to control authentication and authorization to personnel according to their role? (Limited access for sta members)

What aspects/ areas of the website can be monitored easily?


Timing is as important as your oering to your customers. Your winter collection release in summer will not interest anyone. In most retail organizations, IT resources are scarce. It is vital for an Omni-channel platform to provide control for business users to interact with the system with-out continual support from IT. In a digital economy time-to-market is critical, business users need to make quick changes and update websites to stay ahead of the quick changes and update websites to stay ahead of the competition.

When end-users are dependent on IT, bottlenecks can de-velop that slow down the companys response to competi-tors and changing market dynamics. Running back and forth with the IT technicians to make small changes on the website is exhausting and time-consuming. Your managers should be able to manage daily updates, oers, promotions and sales on the website with minimal eort from the IT team. Moreover, capabilities to moderate changes on your website should be available on smartphones and tablets as well, so that things go even when the decision maker is travelling or on the move. The ability to provide limited access to the control panel is important for security and monitoring of the website. Eg: The order processing sta should be given permission to access only the order pro-cessing front of a platforms control panel.

QUESTIONS TO ASK

Time to market and User Control

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Your company can potentially save a lot of money by selection of the right eCommerce platform and shorter time-to-market. Below are the steps to get you to your eCommerce platform in less than half the time the selection process would normally take:

Dene your goals and strategies right at the be-ginning. Build your online roadmap with clear aims and objectives. This will help you know your expectations and requirements from an eCommerce platform

Make your online goal clearGo through the portfolios of available eCom-merce platforms in the market. Start narrowing by looking at companies which provide com-plete solutions with minimal added integration expenses.

Narrow down your options

It is important to remember that: Integrated and seamless commerce via all channels (omni-channel) is a priority in todays world, even for companies that are just starting o. With the lines blurring between online and oine retail, retailers need to be cautious of their online footprint. Hence, your eCommerce platform should be able to keep up your brand reputation.

By now, you should have 2-3 choices you are looking at. Start scrutinizing your choices through the considerations given above. Also, get answers to the questions in the guide above from the eCommerce platforms.

Get down to your shortlist

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Present the blueprints to your decision making committee and go ahead with the one which suits your brand the best.

Discuss with your board

Have a look at how developed their Omni-chan-nel capabilities are. Do their mobile, social and oine capabilities stand ground?

Have a look at their expertise

Ask the ones who have come through to this step to develop the basic prototype or concept of the website with your custom requirements.

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Conclusion Key Steps to Choosing your eCommerce Platform

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About MartJack Enterprise

MartJack is an Enterprise Class Omni-Channel Commerce platform built for Retailers, Brands and Entrepre-neurs. The platform oers comprehensive features and the exibility to build and manage Omni-Channel business based on unique needs of retailers.

With MartJack Enterprise, retailers are empowered to execute multi channel merchandising and marketing; manage operations locally and globally; and develop unique capabilities that dierentiate their brand and shopping experiences across web, mobile, social, and store.

MartJack Enterprise is trusted by 350+ Enterprise Retailers and Global Brands. The client list includes:

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Documents

Omni Commerce Platform