E-Commerce: A Systems Overview

By Ernie Schell

Until recently, selecting the optimum e-commerce platform for a multichannel business was a race to keep up with evolving technologies. The applications morphed at such blinding speed that the needs and requirements you defined when selecting your system easily could be obsolete by the time that system was up and running.

Today's technology isn't evolving any slower — if anything, the pace of e-commerce change continues to accelerate. But the main differentiators among systems these days are less in the features and functions they support than the services they offer, flexibility, scalability, technical support, and the vendors' approach to charging for licenses or services.

In short, your biggest challenge in selecting a platform may be determining which provider will be your best business partner going forward.

Different Strokes
In determining the optimum e-commerce platform for your business, a lot depends on what you bring to the table. If you've already invested in a significant web commerce staff whose skills and strengths will keep up with the changing e-commerce landscape, you'll want a system vendor to complement its abilities. On the other hand, the less you've invested in-house, the more you'll need your vendor to provide a broad range of support, guidance and even leadership in the  e-commerce field.

No matter where you fall on that spectrum, you'll still want as much control as possible over the constant challenge of updating your website, if not the ability to manipulate its look and feel. The days of the website as a "black box" controlled by a remote vendor are fading fast.

We can't even scratch the surface on related applications such as site search engines, search engine tools, shopping carts, personalization products, content management modules and the plethora of database add-ons such as customer product review platforms that enhance the most customer-friendly e-commerce sites. When making a system selection, determine which of these types of functions the e-commerce platform itself can handle and which will need to be — or you'll want to be — assigned to a separate software vendor or service provider.

Categorizing the Systems
Among the many ways marketers classify e-commerce platforms, two make the most sense: by billing method and by the company they keep.

There are essentially two billing methods: licensed and pay-for- service. Neither has to do with where the system is hosted. If you choose to run the system in-house, a daunting commitment that should only be considered by the largest enterprises, it'll be on a licensed basis. But a system hosted at the vendor site or a contracted third party still can be a licensed solution.

A pay-for-service arrangement is variously classified as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or "cloud computing." There are several ways of charging for it based on the volume of orders either by count or dollar; with or without a flat-rate minimum; and possibly including additional charges based on data storage, pure data volume passed to and from the website, and so on.

Some of the vendors offer the choice of either a licensed or a SaaS implementation. But regardless of the billing method, beware of the propensity of e-commerce platform vendors to charge for a variety of value-added services, ranging from site design, conversion and revisions to back-end integration, maintenance, and troubleshooting. Take time to fully understand these additional fees before selecting your platform or service provider.

In classifying systems by "the company they keep," there are four essential groups:

bundled suites;
enterprise leaders;
niche players; and
highly experienced multichannel partners.

Bundled Suites
Listed below in alphabetical order, these systems are one of the following:

all-in-one applications that support both e-commerce and direct/call-center order management and fulfillment, as well as retail/point-of-sale (POS) functionality in many cases; or
separate e-commerce platforms that are bundled by the direct commerce systems vendor to be sold and maintained by that vendor as an integral part of the same suite  of applications.

In part 2 of this series, we'll look at enterprise leaders, niche players and experienced multi- channel partners.

Abison: comprehensive commerce suite, fully integrated e-commerce and fulfillment software

Aivea: Aivea Commerce Server has integrated e-commerce, CRM and ERP modules

Assist WebStore: part of the Assist Commerce Suite

Avexxis: the Avexxis Commerce Server is fully integrated with the Avexxis .NET e-commerce  solution

CommercialWare/MICROS-Retail: includes the eOne Web Commerce solution

CORESense: all-in-one on- demand e-commerce and retail management solutions

Devix: an all-in-one solution

Direct 500: from Computer Solu- tions, with a totally integrated  ASP.net eStore

Directions: Peppler & Associates uses a single database for web orders, call-center order entry, purchasing and inventory

eCMS: part of NewHaven's commerce management system

Escalate Retail: Escalate e-commerce is built on the Blue Martini customer interaction engine

Jagged Peak: users include LVMH, Nestle, TAG Heuer and Davidoff; Jagged Peak also offers the EDGE OMS and its own fulfillment services

JunctionEOD: a companion to Junction Solutions' multichannel retail module

MACH Software: manages catalog, web and POS operations

MainStreet Commerce: BusinessFlow includes integrated modules for inventory control,  e-commerce, call-center order entry, customer service, CRM, purchasing and fulfillment

M.O.M.: Dydacomp's solution includes the SiteLink e-commerce module

Morse: InOrder Suite includes an e-commerce module

Natural Solutions: Natural Ord- er, Natural Web, Natural Retail

NetSuite: a web-based, all-in-one solution with multinational  capability

Omnica: incorporates the  AspDotNetStorefront module in its Microsoft Dynamics/AX solution, sold through ProSource

OpenMCR: an all-in-one open source solution

ORDER POWER!: the Computer Solutions Inc. suite includes an enhanced web store

Sigma Micro: the SigmaCommerce Suite includes the eStore, plus call-center, warehouse, marketing, merchandising, finance and POS modules

Sterling Commerce: Sterling Multi-Channel Selling includes Sterling web (formerly Comergent) with a single database for web order entry, call-center order entry, purchasing and inventory; Sterling Commerce is an AT&T company

VuePoint: OneVue's cross-channel system has e-commerce, POS, call-center, merchandise management and fulfillment functionality. ROI

Ernie Schell is director of Marketing Systems Analysis (ernie@schell.com).