Posted Date: 10/7/2010

Online Solutions Move Well Beyond Basics

By Adam Blair
Retailers rely on their e-commerce platforms to represent them in the online world—not just the products the retailer sells but their brand and image. The platforms are as important to a retailer’s operations as the brick-and-mortar structures housing a retailer’s stores.

Today’s e-commerce platforms must provide the basics: cataloging functions that allow retailers to display some or all of their products online; search functions that allow shoppers to find what they’re seeking; some level of customer support; and shopping cart and transactional functions that allow shoppers to select and securely pay for items.

Many if not most retailers are also seeking much more than these “table stakes” from their e-commerce platforms. Key online commerce functionalities have expanded to include:

• Gift registries and wish lists
• Integration with loyalty programs
• Ability for shoppers to check item availability and shipping costs/times
• Cross-channel functionality, e.g. buy online/pickup in store
• Personalization and targeted marketing capabilities
• Integration with back-end systems such as order management

The newest frontier for e-commerce platforms involves their extension into the realms of mobile commerce and social retailing. Many retailers are adapting their online storefronts for increasingly powerful mobile devices. Others are trying to use the power of social media like Facebook to target their marketing messages and merchandise offerings to “fans and friends” who are already enthusiastic about the retailer and its products.

This month’s Vendor Landscape focuses on e-commerce platforms. RIS lists some of the major vendors and highlights some recent retailer deployments.



Build-A-Bear Re-launches Site
Build-A-Bear Workshop, the interactive entertainment retailer of customized stuffed animals, recently announced that it would re-launch its web site on the ATG Commerce OnDemand platform. The retailer’s goal is to have its site work in tandem with its unique in-store experience, and to attract and engage shoppers in the online channel. ATG will provide Build-A-Bear with advanced personalization capabilities to tailor content for a variety of shoppers, and offer business tools designed for use by merchandisers to make targeted offers to encourage larger order sizes. The retailer will retain real-time control over online merchandising, giving it the ability to adjust marketing tactics in response to customer dynamics.

Updated Platform Enables eBay and Facebook Selling
Small- to mid-size retailers can use the recently released version 6.0 of the BigCommerce e-commerce platform to sell and promote products across multiple channels from one integrated platform. Merchants can now sell on eBay and via popular shopping comparison sites, as well as on mobile devices and on Facebook Platform. With the eBay Sales Integration feature, retailers can make products available for auction or sale on eBay with a few clicks. When the product is auctioned or sold a new order is automatically created in the retailer’s BigCommerce store. The social commerce function allows retailers to promote product to the 400 million-plus consumers on Facebook, and make their own e-commerce sites more social by adding “like” buttons for every product in their store. The new version also offers customizable mobile store templates, including an iPad-specific mobile store.



Nine West Goes Mobile
Nine West Footwear, a division of Jones Apparel Group, recently launched a mobile storefront using Demandware’s mobile commerce application. Nine West leveraged its existing Demandware eCommerce implementation to launch a feature-rich mobile commerce site, providing a unified environment between it and the retailer’s e-commerce site.

The mobile site provides shoppers with access to all the products found within its traditional online retail store and lets them make purchases via their mobile devices. Earlier this year, arts and crafts retailer Michaels Stores re-platformed its web site with the Demandware eCommerce Platform, focusing on a site redesign with emphasis on branding, improved search and navigation, customer reviews and advanced social networking capabilities.

Woolworth’s Australia Puts General Merchandise, Electronics Online
Australia’s largest retailer Woolworth’s recently announced it will continue the development of online stores for its BIG W and Dick Smith brands using the Blue Martini Commerce Suite from Escalate Retail. Escalate completed the e-Commerce rollout for BIG W, which sells general merchandise, in May with its implementation partner Tata Consultancy Services. The solution for BIG W and Dick Smith, which offers electronics, lets the retailer personalize interactions and manage orders, payments and account information across channels. Other recent go-lives for Escalate include Metra and Golden Bison.

New Reporting and Markdown Tools
Gemmar Systems International is releasing three new products this year: Retail-1 Cube, a complete reporting and analytical tool; Retail-1 Reporter, a report integrator to work with customers’ own Excel reports; and Retail-1 Redline, an intuitive markdown module. In addition, Gemmar and The Commercial Group recently announced a joint venture to offer the next generation of e-commerce solutions.

Tennis, Anyone?
The United States Tennis Association (USTA), a not-for-profit organization that promotes and develops the growth of tennis, launched a new membership web site on the Open Commerce Platform from Fry Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of MICROS Systems. The site offers pre-sale support and marketing, memberships for sale, and after-sales service. The hosted solution includes a database that stores transactional and membership information.

Alliance Seeks Social Network Connections
Microsoft, Accenture and Avanade have announced a multi-channel alliance to help retailers provide a shopping experience that connects with customers through social networking and online communities. The alliance provides dedicated resources from each organization and demonstrates real-time integration between the in-store and online shopping experience.

Online Running Gear Store Gets Off on Right Foot
Mizuno USA will sell its full line of running and track and field footwear, apparel and accessories in a new online store powered by Shopatron, which will provide order management, including payment processing, order tracking, global call center support and customer care. The Coex Freedom order exchange will allow orders to be placed on mizunousa.com to be fulfilled by the closest stocking retailer, either by shipment or in-store pickup.

Catalog Business Drives Online Sales
Cotton Traders, which offers apparel, footwear and accessories via catalog, has chosen Venda eCommerce eCosystem to boost sales through its online channel. The platform’s features can be tailored specifically to the company’s catalog-driven and promotion-led e-commerce needs, including complex rules around promotional codes, stacked price discounts and catalog-specific pricing.