What are some of the biggest frustrations with current eCommerce solutions? What I hear over and over are the following;

1. Flexibility
2. Cost of customizations
3. Hosting Options
4. Feature set
5. Integration

1. Flexibility – Companies today need the flexibility to;

• host where they want,
• take payments how they want,
• add the marketplaces they wish to support and
• sell products on-line that are not yet in their ERP’s inventory

Modern open-source eCommerce solutions allow all of this and more. Most importantly, they allow you to own your eCommerce solution. Companies are no longer tied to a single vendor. Because of the nature of open-source frameworks, there are typically thousands of developers supporting any particular framework. As an example, Magento claims 300,000 certified developers; therefore, if you are not getting what you need from one vendor, it is straightforward to find a replacement.

1. Cost of customization – Many of the eCommerce frameworks that are purpose-built for Sage 300 are not designed to be fully customized. Only the vendor can customize these systems so; they can charge whatever they want for the work, and, as I have seen on multiple occasions, will bump up the cost to dissuade customization.  In this area, open-source platforms can have problems as well. One of the big complaints we hear about Magento is that it often takes as much time to rip out a feature as it does to create the customization and reinstall. You can mitigate this problem by using eCommerce frameworks such as PimCore. PimCore is an open-source eCommerce platform that has basic eCommerce functionality built-in but, you add the specific functionality that you want. Most developers using PimCore say that it takes them less time, and therefore, less cost to build a PimCore solution than to modify a Magento solution.
2. Hosting Options – You should be able to host your web store where ever you want; on-prem, or in a private cloud or as SaaS. Your hosting options should not be dictated to you. Vendors may make recommendations as to drive, RAM size, and server configuration, even suggesting some suppliers, but, in the end, you need to have the freedom to host where you want with whom you want.
3. Feature Set – Most eCommerce platforms that are purpose-built for Sage 300 have a limited install base and an extremely small development community when compared to open-source platforms. The small install base means that they are not getting a broad view of the eCommerce trends that are coming, and the small development community means that even if they see new trends, they do not have the development staff to implement them. I have given this example before, but I think that it bears repeating. A prospect came to me and asked for a custom payment method. They wanted to be able to offer credit financing online. The company I worked for at the time quoted $15,000 and nine months to do the work. It turns out that there were multiple solutions available from the Magento marketplace that did precisely what the customer wanted, including an option from their preferred vendor - Bread. The difference was that the Bread plugin for Magento cost $29.00 and could be installed and up and running in about forty-eight hours.
4. Integration – Most people, including the vendors, believe that, because purpose-built eCommerce systems have purpose-built integration – that is enough. In today's market, it simply is not enough. In all of the purpose-built eCommerce systems for Sage 300, the integration is strictly between the eCommerce platform and the ERP. However, if a company needs to build custom workflows into their solution or to add integration to other platforms such as a POS, CRM, or custom apps or databases; it is not possible. True integration would and should allow for all of these possibilities. Using a purpose-built, highly customizable solution such as Realisable iMan enables you to integrate data from multiple disparate solutions as well as create custom workflows as the data passes between systems.

So, when you are looking for a new eCommerce platform, consider looking outside the purpose built solutions and look at everything the eCommerce world has to offer. You may be surprised at what you find. I you need help wading through the various options available to you PEACS is her to help. feel free to contact me at [email protected] or (519) 851-8515. 

Back in 2008, when I first read about states wanting to tax online sales that were shipped into their state, I predicted that they would eventually win and that they would not stop fighting until they won. In my mind, the reason for this was simple; States were losing billions in tax revenue to online eCommerce.  According to a 2009 report by the University of Tennessee, each year, states were losing $23 billion in state and local revenue to e-commerce sales and that this number would continue to increase annually. This was never about creating or keeping local jobs or balancing the playing field between brick and mortar and eCommerce stores; this was about maintaining State coffers so that they didn’t have to increase other taxes.
As an example, in 2016 according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 84.2% of South Dakota’s total tax revenue came from Sales and gross receipts. Nearby states total sales tax revenues ranged from 40.2% to 46.2%.  Clearly many states, not all but many, rely on Sales Tax to keep their states running. In 2017 South Dakota increased Sales Tax by 0.5 percent, it was anticipated that this change would increase sales tax revenue by 16.9 percent, but in fact, sales tax revenues have gone up only 9.4 percent. Clearly, South Dakota sees this as being a direct result of people moving from in-state brick and mortar purchases to online purchases. I think that the Government of South Dakota realizes that the Supreme Court ruling that allows them to tax sales delivered into their state will not save brick and mortar jobs in their state; it will, however, allow them to maintain and grow their sales tax revenue base.
This new tax burden will also not destroy online sales as small businesses were exempt for the most part, and the level of automation afforded to larger businesses due to e-commerce automation already gives them a cost advantage over brick and mortar. I have had customers tell me that they save $52.00 per order. On 1,200 0rders per month that works out to a savings of about $750,000 per year. Another customer said that, due to e-commerce automation, they were able to handle 2,400 orders per day with a single employee. So, for these companies, a tax service to automate the collection of sales taxes based on the customer’s ship-to address would be a small cost by comparison to the savings they have over a brick and mortar operation. In conclusion;
·         Online sales are not going away.
·         The need of many states for sales tax revenue to balance their budgets is not going away. However,
·         Brick and Mortar businesses are diminishing and will likely continue to diminish.
Therefore, in my opinion, States that rely heavily on Sales Tax for state revenue have little or no choice but to fight for the ability to add sales tax to all sales made within their jurisdiction. However, this brings to the fore a bigger question. What happens when eCommerce companies set up shop outside of the U.S.? Does a State have the right to force a non-U.S. company to collect taxes for sales delivered to their state? This will be the next big legal battle.
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In an issue of McLean’s, one of Canada’s leading weekly news magazines, there is an article titled “Thanks for the tip, I’ll get it on Amazon”. The writer, Brian Bethune, talks about the struggles that independent, brick-and-mortar book stores are having competing with online companies such as Amazon. And while, according to this article, this issue is more acute in the book industry, it is an issue that runs across multiple industries. The article talks about a practice of “Showrooming”, which is when a potential buyer goes to a book store, or any store for that matter, and gets information about a book from the experienced staff, and then goes and buys it much cheaper online.
While there may be some unique issues surrounding the book industry, “showrooming” is not unique to that industry. Nor is the reverse - something we all know and love called “browsing”. In a study I saw last year, 42% of all in-store purchases started with people browsing the internet to research a product and then going to a brick-and-mortar store to make their purchase. The reason for the trip to the store is that we humans are, for the most part, still tactile and want to see and touch something before we buy it. The more expensive the item the more that comes into play. As long as the price difference between brick-and-mortar is reasonable, many people still want to see, touch and have human interaction with someone to gain their firsthand expertise of the products they sell.
The second half of that last sentence is the heart of this blog “…human interaction with someone to gain their firsthand expertise of the products they sell.” Are your sales people and is your web site showing you as an expert in your field? One of the first sales I made after joining Iciniti was to a company that sold products to corner stores. As we closed the deal, the CEO commented “Now I can go back to the office and fire all of the sales staff.” To which I commented “Yes…and next year you can declare bankruptcy.” To say that the CEO was shocked by my comment is an understatement, however, I went on to explain that today he didn’t really have any sales staff; what he had was highly paid order takers. His new online store was going to take care of the order taking, and now his sales staff could do what they were really meant to do… sell product. In his industry, that meant gaining more shelf space for his products, introducing new products to the mix and finding new customers. Sales will always be about relationships and “expert” sales staff are key to that, but as experts, they have to know their product better than the customer, and they need to be able to guide the customer to a buying decision. This builds trust and binds your customers to you. My advice was to get rid of the “order takers” and develop a true sales staff combined with the automated order entry of their new web store, which he did. In an industry that typically sees 2% to 4% growth on a good year, that company grew 32% the next year.
So how does that pertain to online shopping? Your website is where customers come to gain insight into your expertise about your products. The better you are at creating an online trust relationship between your company and your customer, the more successful you will be; provided, of course, your products are reasonably priced compared to your competition. Study after study has shown that your products and services don’t have to be cheaper, there just has to be a perceived value in the knowledge your website and staff put forward.
I have said for years that it was critical for a company’s website to not only be easy to navigate and properly match their brick-and-mortar brand, but to also show that they are experts in their field. So how do you do that? BLOGs are an excellent tool. BLOGs are one of the easiest ways for your company to show their leadership in an industry. Showing your leadership and knowledge is the first step in creating a trust relationship between you and your customers, and this is true for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) interactions. Remember that 42% of all in-store sales start with online research of you, your company and your products. BLOGS allow you and your staff to show both product and industry expertise. This is why it is so critical that your web platform unify the web store and all of the other content on the site such as blogs, forums, news, reviews etc. All of these bits of content go towards showing potential customers that you have industry expertise. Your blogs show your industry knowledge, your forums show your interaction and caring towards customer specific issues, news shows that the world is watching you and reviews show what other customers think about your products and services. And of course, because search engines love current, relevant content, having up-to-date blogs, forums, news and reviews get you a better organic ranking in online searches. Based on industry studies, if you have done a good job here, a good number of people will buy. The percentage varies depending on the price and complexity of the product. Books have a higher number of people purchasing online, while backhoes are more likely to be bought on premise.
This leads to part two. Keeping in mind that 42% of the customers that walk into your brick-and-mortar store will have researched online the product that they came to buy. It is therefore imperative that your sales staff have expertise that extends and enhances the information on the website. Nothing drives me crazier than researching a product online, then going to the store I decide to buy it from and talking to a salesperson that knows less about the product than I do. That is where I start “showrooming”. I show up at my favorite electronic or music store and first try to find a salesperson. If I manage to do that, I want to know their experience with the product I am about to purchase. Often times I have been told “You can just go to the website and look that up.” Well… if I am going to do that, why am I going to purchase it from you and help you get commission? The other thing it tells me is that, as a company, you have decided to compete solely on price - service is clearly not in the equation. So now… your website better be good because you are now forcing me to create a relationship with a virtual person; your website. Your blogs, forums, news, online chat tool and product reviews become your virtual sales staff. If you can’t create a relationship with me using the web tools that you have available to you, the price becomes the only differentiator… and that is a terrible place to be.
Provide your customers with tools that allow them to easily create and manage online relationships by incorporating blogs, forums, news, social media, product reviews and rankings, and cross selling tools such as related items and people who bought this also bought… Of course, you also need to be able to run all of this on virtually any mobile device. 
Today, whether your customers are “showrooming” or “browsing” your website must have the tools you need for creating and managing the online relationships so important to your business.