ITQ Solutions Blog

As an SME considering building or replacing an e commerce website, you need to consider what sort of investment you want (and need) to make.  Do you want a cheap ecommerce website?  But that has the danger that you will quickly outgrow it.  Or perhaps something using Magento?

Everything seems to be going well on your ecommerce website but you are not totally happy.

We've found this excellent infographic - from an agency called OverGo Studio - which clearly outlines how their clients have performed over twelve months when some used HubSpot and others didn't.

There is a metric currently used in the cloud software industry to make sure they operate their subscription businesses successfully.  It is an equation and it is:

Of all the business activities, what is the most important thing an e commerce website can do?

Here are the options to choose from: 

1. Have the most organised and cost-effective e-commerce back office systems possible
2. Track the competition and offer better propositions and prices in the vast majority of cases
3. Keep their customers satisfied

http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7709-best-enterprise-ecommerce-software.html

Integrating the Magento e-commerce platform to the back-end ERP system - the SAP Business One, for example - requires a thorough review of goals of the project to make sure the maximum return from such a project.  Refining the goals and getting these right will make everything later on so much easier.

The first question you should ask is: 'to achieve what'?

Inbound marketing - otherwise known as content marketing - is an excellent, cost-effective way of driving more business to websites.  But, in addition to that, it is also good at nurturing known contacts into becoming full blown leads and customers.

Therefore the first thing that you must do when considering inbound marketing is getting your marketing objective right:

• Do you want to drive more website visits?
• Do you want to convert more of these visits into leads?
• Do you want to convert more of these leads into customers?

There are different tactics for each of these.

The biggest challenge B2B e-commerce operations face now is the increasing expectation of their customers when they visit their sites.  The functionality and useability of these sites has not kept pace with B2C e-commerce sites and the customers experience is not sufficiently good.

We think that the Margin Report is the king of e-commerce reports.  Why?  Because it gives an e-commerce retailer the confidence that they are trading profitably and properly.  Any Finance Director will be interested in ensuring that the company is secure in the long term and the Margin Report allows him to set minimum levels of return.  It's then up to the business managers to set the prices and drive the sales volume.  More than that, if the Margin REport is used predictively, then business managers will be able to model how any product will contribute if they adjust the price.