Michael Miller – VP of Client Development, FitForCommerce

Finding Your Right Match - Identifying the right partners & solutions to grow your

eCommerce Business

FACT: 60% of eCommerce Marriages END in Divorce

…Most lasting only 18-24 months

Why?

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http://video.aol.com/video-detail/celebrity-family-feud-singles-bars/2130384646

FitForCommerce is a consultancy founded to help online businesses ‘figure out what they need and how/where to find it’

– Team of former multichannel retailers, marketers, technologists and service providers, with hands-on expertise in eCommerce

eCommerce Diligence™ is a philosophy and methodology based on diligent preparation and decision-making to ensure success

– Strategy, Requirements/RFP, Provider Selection, eCommerce Marketing, Implementation Coaching

– Rapid Site Evals are quick 2-day evaluations of ecommerce sites, delivering suggested improvements and prioritization

FitBase™ is the first eCommerce market knowledge base and community, offering

– 1000s of best practices, feature evaluations, expert advice and community content on 300 features, functions and topics

– 1000’s of provider and solution comparative info

Balancing Dual InvestmentseCommerce Marketing

– Customer Acquisition• Branding/Advertising• Outreach: Email marketing• Get found (80% rule!): SEO,

PPC/SEM, Affiliate, SCE• Offline: catalog, direct mail• Cross-channel: e.g. in-store

messaging, package inserts programs (PIP), in-store kiosks, POS programs (POP)

– Customer Retention• Community, content, social• Loyalty programs• Email, direct mail• Cross-channel: PIP

eCommerce Technology– Webstore front-end

– Site Management

– Back-end (Order Mgmt, Reporting, Analytics)

– Data & Integrations

– Security & Compliance

– Fulfillment

– Customer Care

– Design/Creative

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AGENDA

How to Know it’s Time for a Change

How to Prioritize the ‘Must-Have’ and ‘Should-Have’ eCommerce Features

How to Choose the Best-Fit eCommerce Solution

I. HOW TO KNOW IT’S TIME FOR A CHANGE

CASE STUDY: Steve Jones, HomeBistro

Key Indicators • Falling Behind the Competition• Missed Benchmarks & Best Practices• Cannot Overcome Current Deficiencies• Internal Costs are Too High• Strategic or Future Growth is Dependent• Spending 80% of time fixing, 20% dreaming of how

to grow• When your customers tell you.

Falling Behind the Competition

• Determine your competition– Direct competitors – same products or categories– Indirect competitors – same demographic, region, size, maturity

• Find out how and why you are/might lose sales or customers to them

– Analyze your analytics! – Shop your competition following pre-defined ‘use cases’ or ‘customer journeys’– Ask your customers why they chose you– Ask your abandoners why they didn’t

• Competitive Analysis– Methodical: Feature by feature– Try to understand WHY a feature works better– Look for differentiators that you should do – Think up differentiators you can invent (think problem-to-solution)– Hire a consultant or do your own competitive analysis

Missed Benchmarks vs. Best Practices• Determine the Best Practices that are relevant to your

business– Ex. Apparel, Food – visualization– Ex. Technical products – product information, ratings & reviews– Ex. Gifting – multiple ship-to, gift messages

• Learn about universal best practices– Ex. High SKU count with multiple attributes – guided navigation– Ex. Persistent shopping cart and abandonment emails– Ex. Express checkout, 1-2 page checkout– Ex. Quick view product details

• Document your current capabilities so you have a starting point

• Benchmark your site; document the gaps– Hire a consultant– Do your own analysis

• E-tailing Group Ecommerce Gauge (“egeg”)– Your site vs Your Category Leaders vs EG100 Index

Feature or Functionality

MERCHANT Category (17 merchants)

e-tailing 100 4Q07

Feature Present % Penetration % Penetration Search/Shop Keyword Search Yes 88% 98% Advanced Search No 0% 23% View All Yes 82% 59% Search Results Page Merchandised No 0% (15 sites) 22% (98 sites) Landing Page Sorts No 73% (15 sites) 81% (98 sites) Sort relevancy (1-5 5=very relevant) N/A 3.32 (11 sites) 2.85 (98 site) Price High/ Low N/A 91% (11 sites) 81% (79 sites) Price Low/ High N/A 100% (11 sites) 90% (79 sites) Best Sellers/ Top Sellers N/A 27% (11 sites) 56% (79 sites) Brand N/A 20% (11 sites) 28% (76 sites) New Arrivals N/A 64% (11 sites) 42% (79 sites) Ratings N/A 9% (11 sites) 20% (79 sites) Best Match/Relevancy N/A 18% (11 sites) 22% (79 sites) Other N/A 91% (11 sites) N/A Descriptive Phrase Search Womens black

sweater Various Various

Correct Results Found Yes 87% (15 sites) 97% (98 sites) 1st page Relevancy (1-5 5=best) 5.0 4.23 (15 sites) 4.78 (98 sites) Misspelled Phrase Wool balzer Various Various Correct Results Found No 40% (15 sites) 61% (98 sites) 1st page Relevancy (1-5 5=best) 1.0 2.43 (15 sites) 3.31 (98 sites)

(cont.)

Benchmarking• These are generalizations; each case is different,

may depend on maturity of business, margins, staff competency, etc.– Sub-$1m pure-play spending ~$1k-10k/yr– 3-10% of revenue spent on ecommerce technology– $15-50m ~$500k-$1m spend– $50m+ ~$1m spend

• Technology advances so quickly that you should buy for today and next 24 months

• Average turnover of platform is 24-36 months

Hundreds of eCommerce Components to master

• There are 100s of features, functions, topics that an eCommerce manager must plan and execute around

• Cross technical, operational, marketing, merchandising, creative

• Figure out your pain points and your growth opps:

– Storefront features vs post-order process/tools

– Site mgmt– Data/integrations– Fulfillment/Cust Care

• Treat everything like an investment decision

• Seek out ‘market data’ to make your decision– Ask your peers

– Read key reports, blogs• Forrester

• Gartner

• Getelastic blog

– Benchmarking studies • e-tailing group EG100

Gauge (“egeg”)

– Knowledge bases• FitBase

(cont.)

This is real data on the feature: Ratings & Reviews

Cannot Overcome Current Deficiencies

Cannot Overcome Current Deficiencies

• Document the gaps and reasons – technical? data? operational?– Ex. Multiple Ship-To– Ex. Managing promotions, shipping

• Create a plan to overcome those gaps WITH CURRENT CAPABILITIES

• Define other options to overcome those gaps going BEYOND CURRENT CAPABILITIES

• Individually vs Collectively consider the options– Rate each of your options – Must have vs Should have vs Nice to have

• Explore what happens if you don’t address each one• Can they be phased in?• Create a Plan B

– Think collectively about a set or series of options – doing a few at once can be more effective

• Tweaks vs Changes vs Major Changes– Tweaks are low-hanging fruit – do them now!– Changes need to be prioritized by ROI– Major Changes are investment decisions needing ROI with a long term outlook

Internal Costs are Too High• Resource Costs– Inefficiencies: staff time , manual processes, system usage– Ineffectiveness: accuracy, re-entry of data

• Expense $ Costs– Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)– Hard costs – out of pocket– Soft costs – staff time

• Opportunity Cost– What else would you be doing with your time or money?– If don’t invest now, what sales are you missing?– Will you lose potential customers or on lifetime value if you don’t do it?

Strategic or Future Growth is Dependent

• New merchandising strategy– New product types which have new requirements such as technical info, how-to

guides, – New way of romancing the product such as video, product views– Cross/Up-sell opportunities

• New marketing strategy– SEO, PPC, Email, Affiliate, Comparison Shopping, etc– Data and integrations

• Mobile

• International or multi-lingual growth

CASE STUDY: HomeBistro

Deciding whether to replace eCommerce platform

• Security– We had a site with the potential to become unsecure;

• One guy, not staying abreast of complex ecommerce security issues.– Behind the times-- PCI compliance; a non-negotiable.

• Couldn’t upgrade to current software version due to custom mods.• If you can’t state with certainty how and why your site is secure, it isn’t.

• Stability– 85% uptime. Room for improvement

• Sales– On the next slide…

eCommerce Diligence > Time for change > How do you know if it’s time for a change

• Sales– Site was not designed/optimized for ecommerce selling & SEO.

• Site structure, URL structure, Meta data, merchandising• No ratings, reviews, blog, community

– The site wasn’t easily administrable to increase selling without IT intervention, even for basic updates.

• And we had only one IT position in the company

– It couldn’t support our strategic mandate for growth.– Our site was costing us sales.

• Inaction meant chopping down the money tree

– Vs. growing it.

eCommerce Diligence > Time for change > How do you know IF?

• By source– Traffic– Conversion– Average Order

• Hopefully your dashboard metrics include these.– If so, you’re ready to understand your ROI.

– If not, you need to gather them first.

eCommerce Diligence > Time for change > ROI

The ROI: Your Leverage Points• Traffic

– Will a new site drive more?• How much and by what means?

– Paid marketing efforts– Natural search (SEO) and

merchandising improvements

• Conversion– How will a new site result in a

higher conversion rate?• How will it vary by traffic

source?

• AOV– How will it increase your AOV?

Traffic - Visitors by month Base Modeled Improvement Direct 100,000 100,000 0% Search Pd 25,000 30,000 20% Search NonPd 25,000 35,000 40% Affi liate 25,000 25,000 0%

Total 175,000 190,000 9%Conversion rate Direct 10.0% 12.0% 20% Search Pd 2.0% 2.5% 25% Search NonPd 5.0% 6.5% 30% Affi liate 4.0% 5.5% 38%

Total 7.29% 8.63% 18%AOV Direct 125$ 130$ 4% Search Pd 100$ 110$ 10% Search NonPd 120$ 125$ 4% Affi liate 100$ 110$ 10%

Total 122$ 127$ 4%Sales Direct 1,250,000$ 1,560,000$ 25% Search Pd 50,000$ 82,500$ 65% Search NonPd 150,000$ 284,375$ 90% Affi liate 100,000$ 151,250$ 51%

Total 1,550,000$ 2,078,125$ 34%

In this economy, is it better to ride things out,or take action?

• It depends on the ride;– Can your site take you where you need to go?

• i.e. Support the strategy.

– Are you fully PCI compliant and secure?– Is your provider meeting your needs?– What is your website costing you?

• In terms of opportunity? Sales?

– Does your present ride feel like this?

• Home Bistro’s did.

II. HOW TO PRIORITIZE ‘MUST-HAVE’ AND ‘SHOULD-

HAVE’ ECOMMERCE FEATURES

Identifying Wins

Quick wins?

Source: Forrester

III. HOW TO CHOOSE BEST-FIT ECOMMERCE

TECHNOLOGY

III. How to Choose eCommerce Technology

eCommerce Diligence: Ten Steps

• Requirements Diligence 1. Clarify business, operational and organizational drivers2. Conduct competitive and best practice analysis3. Document your starting point4. Determine and prioritize your requirements

• Selection Diligence 5. Decide on the best solution model/type6. Create a long list of 5-10 providers7. Send an RFP and review responses8. Narrow down to a short list9. Final Diligence10. Negotiate with finalists – and SIGN!

Key Integrations (Over-simplified)

Marketing

Webstore

OrderManagement

Fulfillment

ERP

CustomerService

Customers/ordersInventory

Shipping info

Tracking info

SalesTracking info

Inventory Price/Stock Qty.

MerchandisingProductCatalogPricing

Traffic

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Competitive Landscape

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Landscape By Category

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Enterprise Platforms & Tool Kits

Licensed, Custom

Enterprise Platforms & Tool Kits

Licensed, Custom

Mid-MarketPlatforms, SaaS,

Semi-Custom

SMBSolutions, carts,

licensed & OnDemand

Full Outsource3rd party services

Vendor Characteristics

Enterprise Platforms & Tool Kits

Licensed, Custom

Enterprise Platforms & Tool Kits

Licensed, Custom

Mid-MarketPlatforms, SaaS,

Semi-Custom

SMBSolutions, carts,

licensed & OnDemand

Full Outsource3rd party services

• Licensed- On Premise

• Licensed- MSP (3rd party hosting)

•eCommerce - Front end only• End-to-end

• Provider or 3rd party (systems integrator) managed

•Ave Yr 1 - $1M+•Ave Yr 2 - $200K+

• 12 -18 months

•OnDemand- Provider Hosted

•eCommerce - Front end only•eCommerce + Order mgmt

• Provider Managed •Ave Yr 1 - $200K-$500K•Ave Yr 2 - $120- $350K

• 4-8 Months

• On Demand- Provider Hosted• Licensed - MSP

• Shopping Cart•eCommerce - Front end only• Full cycle- end to end solutions

• Merchant Managed (in house)• 3rd Party Managed (systems integrator)

•Ave Yr 1 - $25K- •$100K•Ave Yr 2 - $5K-$75K

• 4-12 weeks

• Provider Managed - Provider Hosted

•Full cycle- end to end solutions (eCommerce, Fulfillment, Customer Care, Warehousing)

Provider Managed •Ave Yr 1 - $300K 1M+•Ave Yr 2 - Typically 30-40% Rev share

• 4-9 months

Deployment Model

Solution Scope

Service Model Pricing Model Deployment Time

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Requirements DiligenceeCommerce Diligence > Requirements Diligence >1. Drivers

• Clarify business, operational and organizational drivers– Assess yourself, take a hard look at your own business – Map out your operations including business flows, system context diagram– List out pain points, points of failures, SWOT– Agree on your business objectives

• Include vision, metrics, competitive advantages– Take the opportunity to re-engineer your business

• Improve your processes• Re-evaluate your products/services• Better define your target customers• Think about a redesign

– Set concrete, measurable objectives for your eCommerce business– Understand your people and your culture– Involve your company’s key stakeholders– Document and socialize!

eCommerce Diligence > Requirements Diligence > 2. Analysis

• Conduct competitive and best practice analyses– Check on the competition

• See what you like and don’t like• Decide what you want to include and want to avoid• Check competition in your category, but also mindshare or budget competition• Think about what’s needed to give you a competitive edge – short-term and long-

term– Learn about “Best Practices”

• Network with peers• Research the industry• Reach out to experts in the field• Read voraciously• “Play” with other great sites• Use quantifiable data as much as you can

A set of Best Practices across 30 different ecommerce topics is available for at www.fitforcommerce.com/fitbase

Requirements DiligenceeCommerce Diligence > Requirements Diligence >3. Starting Point

• Document your starting point– Create a baseline– Don’t assume anything– Be clear on your starting point– Detail your metrics and functionality

• Web analytics• Sales/marketing analysis

– Document your processes– Revisit ‘why’ something is done the way it is– Know the Voice of the Customer - survey

Requirements DiligenceeCommerce Diligence > Requirements Diligence >4. Requirements

• Determine and prioritize your requirements– Define them at a detailed, feature-by-feature level– Create use cases and user personas– Include systems, data and processes your eCommerce system will integrate with– Create workflow designs, screen mockups to show how your site will operate– Include requirements for managing the site

• How products are loaded and manipulated• How pages are changed• How promotions are managed• How orders are managed, fulfilled• How customers are handled

– Prioritize your requirements• Rank them in numerical order• Rate them as nice-to-have and must-have

– Use ‘use cases’ to describe ‘how’ it should work

Selection DiligenceeCommerce Diligence > Selection Diligence > 5. Approach/Model

• Decide on the best solution approach or model– Do a quick overview of different types of providers– List the pros and cons of each– Determine the type of solution you need

• In-house• Consultant• Point solutions• Platform solutions• End-to-end solutions

– Your “long list” of providers should have the same type of solution• An exception is if you want to see the differences between types of solutions and

you need information from vendors in order to get that– Your list might include multiple technologies/providers needed to work together

- On-demand- Licensed- Licensed with hosting- Custom

Selection DiligenceeCommerce Diligence > Selection Diligence > 6. Long List

• Create your “long list” of 5-10 providers– Research your options in FitBase, Guidebooks (IR Buyer’s Guide), trade shows,

relying on peers and consultants, etc.– Send out preliminary email, including (if available):

• Your business objectives• Your annual online or company revenue• Budget range• Project timeframe

– State any unique requirements that might eliminate some providers, e.g.: • multi-sites, multi-language/currency• B2B, purchase order flow• subscriptions/continuity• configurators A set of Key Questions for Providers across 30 different ecommerce topics is available

at www.fitforcommerce.com/keyquestions814

Selection DiligenceeCommerce Diligence > Selection Diligence > 7. RFP / RFQ

• Send an RFP/RFQ and review responses– Create your Request for Proposal/Quote, including:

• Detailed requirements• Workflows• Designs• Business Drivers• Relevant competitive analysis• Relevant best practices

– Set expectations • Your business objectives• Your budget range• Your timeframe

– Offer a Q&A period with a deadline– Give providers 1-3 weeks to respond, depending on the type of product/service– Start a tracking document– Stay in contact with them

Selection DiligenceeCommerce Diligence > Selection Diligence > 8. Short List

• Narrow down to a “short list” of 2 to 5 providers

– Eliminate obvious mismatches– Compare apples to apples

• Create comparison table to put responses side by side• Add your commentary or scoring• Color-code your scoring to denote the rankings and ratings you

created– Factor in costs

• Provider implementation, license fees, upgrades, support• Your overhead - servers, bandwidth, in-house staff, consultants

– Schedule presentations• Be sure they demonstrate live sites• Walk through the administration tool• Understand what limitations exist• Ask for a test account

– Involve all key stakeholders in these evaluations– Come prepared with questions and concerns – ask, ask, ask!– Follow up

Selection DiligenceeCommerce Diligence > Selection Diligence > 9. Finalists

• Final diligence for the final 2 or 3 providers– Select 2 or 3 finalists based on fit– Ask for proof

• Check client references and live site examples• Ask for their client list (or get it from the web) and call them to get their perspective• Get proof points or proofs-of-concept for all their stated capabilities and promises• Have questions prepared for the client references and ask about any limitations they have

encountered (with the product and with the services)

– Meet the team that will be supporting your project• Even if it means interviewing multiple candidates

– Get a look at their “roadmap”• Find out what is in the works and when they expect to have it• If your implementation is dependent on new development, get clarity on what and when

– Get everything in writing!!!!!

Selection DiligenceeCommerce Diligence > Selection Diligence > 10. Decide and sign

• Negotiate, decide and sign– Manage your own expectations; nothing is perfect– Build in time and money for scope creep

• This is where YOU might expand your requirement list– Don’t discount the intangibles

• Take into consideration the fact that you feel a particular provider is a better cultural fit with your organization

– Determine your top 2 contenders and start negotiating; you should be happy to choose either one– Get written documentation– Negotiate with your top 2 until you are comfortable– Ask for help with the agreement or contract– Sign with the one you feel best fits your needs

Breathe a sigh of relief …and then get back to work!

Q&AMichael Miller

VP of Client Development, FitForCommerce

949-218-4308

mmiller@fitforcommerce.com

www.fitforcommerce.com

FitBase www.fitforcommerce.com/fitbaseUse eCommerce Merchants Summit discount code ECMTA

to receive $100 off $795 subscription until 6/20/09

Thank You