Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Try www.monstercommerce.com.

Take a look at NetSuite. I believe it covers a large number of your requirements.

I'm not sure it has a direct interface to QuickBooks, but I'd be surprised if it isn't already on their development plate.

Good luck I'm also interested in the best suites to satisfy these needs. I have two clients needing similar solutions with a twist that we do provide: social networking platform.

Paul Gothier
RTP Designs., LLc

When I'm evaluating ecommerce platforms for clients I usually ask some preliminary questions to get started. Here are some off the top of my head:

1. What is your budget? If you have $500 to spend my recommendations will be different than if you had $5,000, $50,000, or $500,000 to implement a system.

2. If the budget is small, do you wish to utilize open source, commercial open source, or commercial applications?

3. Do you have multi-channel requirements? If you have a web site, retail store(s), ebay seller needs, etc, you may wish to consolidate the product database to reduce inventory and data entry/management costs.

4. Do you sell through one web site or multiple sites?

5. If you sell across multiple sites do you sell all or a number of your products on more than one site?

6. What are your workflow/back office requirements? Do you wish to manage inventory, purchasing, etc. How efficiently do your fulfillment operations need to be?

7. Are you inventorying products, drop-shipping, or do you do both?

8. What shipping and payment options do you require? What payment gateway to you wish to utilize?

I could go on and on but it might be best to know some of your client's requirements before making a recommendation.

Regards,

Greg Hill
Trinity Search Engine Marketing

Most of my questions were budget independent or covered in my original question. However, if it will help get closer to a solution...

1. Budget is roughtly $20,000 per month PPC.

2. We do not have extra time or resources to adapt open-source solutions. Perfer shrinkwrap package (PinnacleCart; QuickCart Pro; X-Cart) but we're also open to ASP solution. (Volution looks promising)

3. No, the site is strictly B2C online with no physical or ebay channels. (See above: heavy CSE users.)

4. Currently they're selling via a single site; one of the discussion points is to create multiple sites based on to-be-determined segmentation.

5. Multiple sites will have a reduced, focused inventory. Total inventory across all sites will involve some duplication.

6. Back office is QB Enterprise. In addition to shopping cart, we would also like some e-mail campaign functionality, some CSE feed parse/uploading, perhaps some affiliate marketing. Beyond that I doubt any shopping cart would get involved in the heavy-duty ops issues like inventory or accounting.

7. 80% drop ship; 20% from inventory.

8. Not really a relevant concern.

Ad budget isn't relevant. Shopping cart implementation budget would be helpful.

I am closing this question. While I appreciate the comments and suggestions, I was looking primarily for some thoughts about strategy and a way to structure a campaig, not merely recommendations about shopping cart vendors.

Thank you, all. Perhaps next time.

I'm looking to recommend the best architecture (or system strategy) for an e-commerce client to accelerate their on-line marketing efforts. The are a heavy user of CSE and wish to leverage a considerable e-mail database. The also need seamless integration into QuickBooks Enterprise edition. Ideally the solution would have an automated CSE feed parser/uploader and be SEO savvy (with flat URLs). Hot, sexy skins is a must, of course.

The ideal "magic bullet" is some type of DNIS management system where a consumer could shift to a phone call to the order center yet the operator could salvage the session ID from the abandoned shopping cart and complete the order, thereby preserving the connection between click and action.

Questions:

1) Does this scheme exist in a single package?
2) Is it wise to even try to look for a single packge solution?
3) Volution seems to come closest, but I'm not sure about the on-line/off-line handoff. Any other ideas about how to handle this all-too-common phenomenon of on-line click and off-line fulfilment?

Hi David,

I'm sorry the answers didn't meet your expectations. I think that part of the problem is that your question very specifically mentions features, specific platforms, and a feature wish list. It gives the impression that you are seeking platform recommendations. It's very difficult to do this if we don't know the budget the client has to implement it.

Since this is not the intent of your question, then perhaps consider rephrasing it to reflect your true wishes. We're here to help.

Best Regards,

Greg

Greg:

Thanks for setting me straight.

Dave