How To Select An eCommerce Solution?

You see posts everyday on forums and blogs asking the same question, "how do I select an ecommerce solution for my business". If you are looking for an eCommerce solution then check out a few forums and ask a few online store owners what they use. A few forums you can try are:

www.whirlpool.net.au
www.flyingsolo.com.au
www.webhostingtalk.com.au


My recommendation is to try out a few solutions and see what you can handle. There are many levels of non-technical and often you find that some people will find even the simplest solutions difficult to manage and managing what is delivered is critical. Most of the providers will allow free trials for their ecommerce solutions so start a few and make a list of what you like and don't like.

Most of the hosted solutions will come with some pre-built templates where you can easily change banners, colours, navigation areas and items. So you might want to consider starting with a basic design and see how you go first. Your view on site look and feel will change in the first few months. I am not suggesting not getting professional design just leave it for a few months. Design should always follow function.

Functionality is really important and payment and shipping are the 2 key areas that need to fit your business processes. We often hear customers tell us they want to sell worldwide but end up getting 99% of the orders locally so planning is really important. Decisions on payment and shipping should be business decisions and not a technical ones as cost depends on the average value of the order and expected number of orders and your established margin.

The other big issue is what are you selling because that will have an influence on what style of online store you need and functionality (like digital product downloads) and wine as two examples.

When looking at functionality also think about:

• Support for multiple languages (including Asian - UTF8)
• Support for multiple countries and currencies
• Newsletters and coupons
• Cross sell and upsell (manual and auto)
• Product comparison
• Portals – eBay, Getprice, Shopping.com
• How variations are handled (e.g. size, colour etc)
• Define resources and sell services
• Image processing – auto resizing and multiple images
• Handling analytics like Google Analytics
• User account capability (ie login for customers)
• Price lists and discounts (and by customer groups)
• Ability to add attributes to customers, products etc
• Ability to bundle products
• Search
• Import / export for orders, customers, content etc
• SEO capabilities – Titles, Meta tag, Image alt tags etc
• SEM integration – like Google conversion tracking code
• Social networking integration and gadgets
• Shopping cart and functions like gift wrapping
• Security – SSL and PCI
• SLA and support costs – should be 99.5%+ availability
• ability to easily add html, CSS, Flash and JS
• Upgrade path to grow with your business and roadmap features (i.e. new releases etc)
• Cross browser capability IE, Safari, FF, Chrome etc

A plan and budget are essential. Always ask for a complete quote or statement of work, and try to get a fixed price and timeframe for delivery.

You have a choice between Hosted Solutions like eCorner's and Open Source. Many web developers and companies push Open Source as free but according to an article at eCommerce-guide it is not and may end up being more expensive than proprietary hosted solutions. If you are technically capable Open Source can work for you but remember the focus should be on your business not becoming a web developer.

eCommerce Solutions Comparison

Capability	Hosted Solutions (e.g. eCorner)	Open Source	Custom Built
Australian Owned and Hosted	Yes	Unknown	Check
Secure PCI Compliant Data Centre	Yes	Depends on hosting provider	Check
Support in local time	Yes	Depends on hosting	Check
eCommerce Software	ePages	Open Source	Check
Shopping Cart	Integrated	Unknown	Check
WYSIWYG HTML Editor	Yes	Requires web developer	Check
Full eCommerce Content Manager	Yes	Unknown	Check
Customer and Order Manager	Yes	Unknown	Check
Import/Export - Customers, Orders, Products, Category content	Yes	Unknown	Check
Web Design - professional templates	120	Buy templates	Check
Custom Development capability	Yes	Requires web developer	Check
Payment Gateways (Australian, New Zealand and International)	Yes	Unknown	Check
Localised for Australia and New Zealand	Yes	Unknown	Check
Multiple Languages including Chinese and Japanese	Yes	Unknown	Check
Shipping & Logistics includes Australia Post	Yes	Unknown	Check
Stock Management	Yes	Unknown	Check
Newletters	Yes (free)	Unknown	Check
Coupons	Yes	Unknown	Check
Cross Sell	Yes	Unknown	Check
Channels (eBay, Getprice, Shopping.com)	Integrated	Requires web developer	Check
Search Engine Optimised (Titles, Keywords, Meta Tags, Alt on images)	Built in	Requires web developer	Check
Search Engine Marketing (Analytics and tracking code)	Integrated	Requires web developer	Check
Business Reporting	Yes	Unknown	Check
Web Analytics on all pages	Yes	Requires web developer	Check
Internet Data Capacity (depends on package)	1GB - 25GB	Check	Check
Implementation	DIY or custom	Requires web developer	Check
Monthly Package (starts)	$77.00	Depends on hosting	Check