Monthly Archives: July 2015

4 key points to consider before outsourcing ecommerce project

You’ve decided it’s time to give that big push to business growth by connecting with your target audience and delivering one complete brand experience through a B2C/B2B omnichannel ecommerce platform. And so your search for the ideal technology partner to help you embark this journey begins!

Ecommerce services companies are a dime a dozen, so how do you make the best choice? Here are some key pointers that will facilitate your decision making and ensure that the match is indeed made in heaven

Your technology partner should understand your business and design the right solutions

All ecommerce tech partners will make one big claim —rapid delivery. In this bid to race each other, they give the client what he/she needs, but not necessarily what is best for his/her business. Find an ecommerce services provider with an adept consultancy service that will study your business and spend time to elicit and define your requirements. Then, delving into his deep domain knowledge, preferably across various channels, he will present a solution with unique features best suited to help your business maximize its potential.

The service provider should be the champion of Agility

When you set out to create a B2C or B2B ecommerce platform, you begin a long journey filled with various aspects that must be managed to create a smooth and optimum user experience. On this path you will find that as your strategy develops and evolves, your requirements will keep changing. Anybody promising you a quick and one-time solution is only offering a temporary fix. On the other hand, a tech partner who understands and employs agile development methods will be able to adapt and provide specifically for your business’s needs, instead of simply predicting solutions.

The tech partner is responsive to Ramp-up and Ramp-down when needed

As you roll out your plans towards integration of channels phase by phase, the tech partner should be with you, ramping-up or down as required, and taking ownership of all the aspects of tech support while setting up your web-store and online operations. Whether it is scaling up engineering talent from within the tech partner company, or sourcing third party vendors, you, the client, shouldn’t have to worry about that.

The tech partner has a process-oriented approach

In a long-term collaboration that involves so many elements and tasks, there are many things that can go wrong and plans can go astray. So choosing a technology partner that has a strong process-based approach is of utmost importance. Adopting a leading process model such as the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) improves productivity and quality. The right tech partner will be able to meet your expectations of functionality, delivery schedule, and even cost, by having process-oriented operations.

Does Embitel tick all these boxes as an ecommerce services provider? Read our next post to find out what makes Embitel your ideal choice.

About Embitel Technologies, Bangalore, India – Embitel is an ecommerce technology services company offering hybris and Magento implementations for B2B and B2C customers. We provide end-to-end services, right from business consulting, systems and UI design and development, to managed IT services. With over 8 years of extensive experience backed by our passion for quality in delivery, we have partnered with global businesses to enhance their ROI through speed-to-market technology solutions. Collaborate with us for a hybris or magento powered web store customized for your unique business needs.

For business queries, connect with us at sales@embitel.com

Definition of Ecommerce Business?

E-commerce (electronic commerce or EC) is the buying and selling of goods and services, or the transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network, primarily the Internet. These business transactions occur either business-to-business, business-to-consumer, consumer-to-consumer or consumer-to-business. The terms e-commerceand e-business are often used interchangeably. The term e-tail is also sometimes used in reference to transactional processes around online retail.

Source – Search CIO

Ecommerce is not enough; your business needs an Omnichannel strategy

“Getting into data, analytics, or mobile isn’t even a decision anymore, so we should stop calling it e-commerce and call it just commerce.”
– Chris Fletcher, Research Director at tech research company Gartner, Inc.
 

In this age of multiple touch-points, the consumer no longer differentiates between online and brick-and-mortar stores, and so it’s up to the business to offer an integrated brand experience. Is it any wonder then more and more retailers are drawing up an omnichannel strategy? Research too reiterates the need for integration across platforms. Read on to know why an omnicommerce strategy is the need of the hour for your retail business.

Omnipresence

According to a Google report, for much of the 2014 Christmas and New Year festival season, mobile shopping clicks exceeded those on the desktop as shoppers made their purchase decisions on the go.It’s simple: make yourself available whenever and wherever the time-pressed, spoilt-for-choice customer is shopping. If you don’t, someone else will.

Increase in revenue

Three out of four shoppers who find local retail information online are more likely to step into the store, reveals a Google study. And research by market intelligence company IDC has found that shoppers who buy both online and in-store have 30% higher lifetime value than those who stick to one channel. In another study Aberdeen Inc. found that companies with a strong omnichannel strategy retained 89% of their customers as compared to the 33% retained by those with a weak strategy. There’s no arguing with this: an omnichannel strategy is a worthy investment.

More efficiency, lower costs

Omnichannel retail calls for integration of information of all resources. While businesses have so far managed each channel separately, consumers now want access to products irrespective of which store or warehouse they may be in. Making this available call for integration which, when used effectively, can reduce costs, make available specific products and offers, and lead to higher customer satisfaction.

Forrester Research predicts that annual online sales will touch $370 billion by 2017, thus outpacing sales in physical stores. “Besides the significant advantages omnichannel retail offers, it comes down to this: if a business wants to stay relevant, it will have to adopt an omnichannel strategy,” concludes Arun Kumar, Head of Ecommerce practice at Embitel Technologies.

Embark on an omnichannel strategy with SAP hybris, agile software and a market leader in commerce solutions. Embitel provides customized omnichannel hybris implementation for your business. For more details, write to sales@embitel.com

For more such interesting updates, join us on LinkedIn:

• Embitel LinkedIn page
• hybris showcase page

hybris omnichannel commerce – why the retailers are investing

American fashion retailer Nordstorm has nearly 1 million followers who can shop via Instagram, and Macy’s, a competitor, is scaling down brick-and-mortar stores and increasing its digital features to raise its already-growing online sales. These brands have become the early starters in the development of the omnichannel experience.

The need for investment

Omnichannel retail means offering the same benefits, value and experience to the customer across various formats-physical stores, websites, kiosks, social media, mobile phones etc.offering a seamless shopping experience across all these platforms. “Shoppers do not see the world as online versus in-store. It is fully integrated in their minds and lives,” says Kit Yarrow, professor of marketing and psychology at San Francisco’s Golden Gate University. “But until very recently, most businesses were set up with an online division that often competed with their brick-and-mortar division. Omnichannel retailers need to get out of silo thinking and integrate various functions.”

The omnichannel impact

To develop their omnichannel retail, many businesses, including Future Group and Shoppers Stop, have turned to SAP hybris, a proven robust and adaptive ecommerce solution. A case in point is UK’s leading toy retailer The Entertainer, which has seen a jump in online sales by 32% after modernization of its online store with hybris. “The possibility to build-up and adjust hybris platform to our individual needs has…enabled us to implement our order processing services,”says Duncan Grant, the omnichannel manager at The Entertainer. Recently, the market research company Forrester named SAP hybris among those B2C commerce vendors who represent the best of the best. In its report, it said that hybris software has “strong or robust capabilities for order management, product information management, or experience management as a native capability of their core commerce management products.”

Looking for an ecommerce technology partner to develop and integrate hybris omnichannel retail for your business? Contact us at sales@embitel.com

For more such interesting updates, join us on LinkedIn:

• Embitel LinkedIn page
• hybris showcase page

References:

http://www.business-standard.com

http://www.livemint.com

http://www.omnichannelretailingforum.com