Vetting a new e-commerce vendor doesn’t necessarily require months of time-consuming legwork and research. But it does require asking the right questions.
Internet Retailer spoke with online retail executives, consultants and technology providers about their technology challenges and goals. They shared how they evaluate vendors, including how they come up with a checklist of questions to ask and details to consider before signing a new e-commerce technology contract.
For example, many retailers place a high priority on easy (or at least fairly easy) integrations with existing software and data when implementing new e-commerce services. In an early-2017 Internet Retailer survey of about 80 online retailers, 59% of merchants listed ease of integration with existing software as a top priority in a new e-commerce platform.
Merchants often think they have to start from scratch when moving to a new e-commerce platform, replacing all their back-end legacy systems, but that’s not true, says Peter Lukomskyj, vice president of products, at e-commerce platform provider Elastic Path. “Companies with substantial investments in content management, product information management and order management systems should ask if the platform can easily integrate with existing systems,” Lukomskyj says.
When it comes to launching and managing an e-commerce site in particular, time is also critical. In the Internet Retailer survey of online merchants, 48% listed fast implementation as an important priority when selecting an e-commerce platform. But technology projects often take longer than expected. 47% of e-retailers said the last platform they implemented took “somewhat longer than expected” to finish and 33% said it took “a great deal longer.” Only 16% said the last e-retail site they worked on was finished on time.
The e-commerce technology world moves fast and if a retailer takes years to select, design and implement a new technology, the once-shiny new Cadillac will quickly rust into a 1998 Ford Taurus, says Peter Sheldon, vice president of strategy at open source e-commerce platform Magento Commerce. “I’ve seen it take two, three and four years to launch,” Sheldon says. “The vendor selection process shouldn’t take longer than two months, and many companies take nine to 12 months.” Implementation should also take a matter of months, not years, he says.
Easy add-ons and customizations also should be a top consideration for merchants when they select services from a vendor. In the Internet Retailer survey, 53% of retailers listed the availability of many prebuilt integrations with other e-commerce software as a top priority when selecting an e-commerce platform.
E-commerce platforms like Magento Commerce and Shopify offer what they call app stores or marketplaces that enable retailers to easily customize their e-commerce sites. For example, Shopify offers many add-ons in the Shopify app store.
Magento, similar to Shopify, operates an extension marketplace that aims to help retailers quickly and inexpensively add a range of features to their e-commerce sites. Magento in April launched Marketplace, where Magento merchants can access e-retail services from vendors that Magento vetted.
Marketplace offers about 1,000 features and functions such as social media plug-ins, personalization tools and payments services that merchants can add to their Magento sites without having to code from scratch. Developers that list their products and services in the Magento Marketplace pay a 30% commission from each sale to Magento. Some extensions are free, and in those cases developers pay nothing.
85% of online retailers said they will spend more on e-commerce technology this year, according to the Internet Retailer survey. And half intend to buy technology from a vendor rather than develop it themselves. With the growing preference to buy versus build, vendors are out in full force touting their offerings. Be sure to read the May edition of Internet Retailer magazine for a more in-depth look at how to vet potential vendors.
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