Prompted by reading Seth Godin’s post on the paradox of promises in the age of word of mouth recently, I have been thinking about the issue of honesty in the selling and delivery of services.

We do an awful lot of eCommerce platform replacement projects.  During the initial pre-sales conversations most of our prospective clients have fixed expectations on go-live dates.  Some of these are overly-optimistic.  We are faced with the dilemma of either telling them the truth (with the risk of losing the work) or saying that the project can be done and finding a way to extend the deadline afterwards.

From the projects we’ve rescued and the stories we have heard, honesty is always best.  Yes, we may lose some work (which is always painful) but I believe that the alternative is worse.  Starting out with dishonesty (in this case an unachievable deadline) only causes a very costly, painful implementation and lack of trust between supplier and customer.

And let’s face it.  These projects are always challenging enough anyway.  They are complex, involve many stakeholders (internal and external), and affect many business process and IT systems.  Customer and supplier are going to be working closely together for extended periods, often under pressure.  The overall chances of success are much, much higher if we are honest with each other right from the start.

As an aside, and on the specific point of timescales, some suppliers may reply that they started out thinking that the overly short time scale was achievable – only to discover after they’ve won the project that it’s not.  My view on this is that these kind of responses should be a warning flag to prospective customers because it demonstrates naivety.  An experienced supplier knows what is likely to go wrong or take longer than envisaged and so only makes promises that they know they can deliver against.  That same experience is what will help ensure the overall success both of any initial projects and the ongoing relationship.

Following on from yesterdays post (where I outlined Sue Pratt’s current mantra ‘eCommerce is Dead – Long Live Commerce‘) I wanted to highlight three macro trends that Sue additionally identified as being key influences in selecting an underlying technology platform. These trends – and the respective value that can be witnessed as a result of embracing these trends – must inform any platform selection process or research project.

But let me cut to the chase immediately.  We say forget about “eCommerce” Platforms.  What’s required today are “Customer Interaction Platform’s”.  And here’s why.

Trend 1 :  Multi Channel Commerce. Multi Channel Commerce is not going away and there is a continued proliferation in the number of channels in which consumers engage.  Nowhere is this shift more obvious than in retail, for whom a physical store portfolio is complimented by the internet, catalogues, a call centre, brand web sites, kiosks, smart phones, price comparison sites, affiliates and social networking sites etc.   Yet, its fair to say it’s not just a ‘one-way’ street.  Businesses that were previously online-only are increasingly offering their customers additional channels to support their shopping behaviours – great examples are pop-up stores (see Lastminute.com’s) and interactive digital magazines (Boden’s Digital Magazine is great).

So what does this tell us? Well bearing in mind consumers are channel hoppers by nature, it is clear that merchants must embrace the fact that customers will shop ‘whenever’ and ‘wherever’ they choose; and this means that the underlying platforms that ‘power’ a merchants business operations need to handle multiple channels seamlessly and effortlessly.  Easy?  Well not if you build a website on an infrastructure that only caters for eCommerce or you think of your commerce strategy in terms of just an eCommerce silo.

Trend 2 : Cross Channel Commerce. You may think that this is just semantics, but for those of us at Salmon the key difference between “Cross Channel” and “Multi Channel” is orientation.  In essence merchants are ‘Multi Channel’ (i.e. they operate across multiple channels) but consumers hop between channels making us ‘Cross Channel’ consumers…..and increasingly so.  And in turn this means that merchants are increasingly focusing on providing seamless customer experiences irrespective of the channel chosen AND irrespective of where in the buying cycle a customer is.

There is no doubt that customers now expect merchants to support their particular shopping preferences; whether they prefer to research online and reserve for in store collection, or order in store for home delivery.  But poor execution in any part of the overall customer experience quickly frustrates even the most loyal customer.  Therefore merchants need to choose a platform that can deliver a seamless customer experience by integrating the respective components of each channel – for instance warehouse inventory with a store collection date.  However, don’t underestimate the effort to do this properly. We have been delivering integrated eCommerce solutions for quite some time  (we announced such a solution for Argos back in 2003) and delivering a holistic cross channel strategy can be like painting the Severn bridge: the job is never complete.  How could it be when new channels are emerging rapidly and consistently?

[n.b. When we were researching for the presentation at Internet Retailing's Jumpstart Event, we estimated that many UK Retailers typically offer >1500 shopping paths when you consider the six various stages of their shopping process (research, select, purchase, receive, service, return) across their typical channels. That's complexity!]

Trend 3 : New Business Models and Technologies.  New business models are continuing to disrupt the retail environment (and others) and represent in many ways a bigger threat than traditional competitors.  Remember when eBay was a new business model back in the mid-nineties?  Well it has moved a long way from its original focus and now over 50% of their sales are fixed-price.  That’s a big threat for most merchants.  And yet eBay’s innovation with disruptive business models doesn’t stop there.  They are developing their own clothing ranges (they have teamed up with US fashion designer Narciso Rodriguez to launch a capsule collection exclusively on the site) and they continue to promote their platform as a online outlet for merchants’ discount sales.  And lets face it, eBay aside, there are plenty of other upstarts wanted their market share – for instance private sales sites like vente-privee….oh and we haven’t even mentioned mobile commerce either….

And business models aside, there are great examples of new technologies being developed and adopted, two of which Sue highlighted in her presentation.  Its clear merchants need to keep up.  First are a group of technologies that play a part in what’s known as the atomisation of data (or the  ‘democratisation of information’ depending on what you read).  By that we mean information that was previously ‘hidden’ in corporations is now ‘available’ to leverage by everyone with a smartphone. For example, an application called Red Laser allows customers to scan a product bar code and find prices via various retailers.  One of our clients calls this ‘digital shoplifting’ – a threat and a huge opportunity depending on your perspective.

The second example of technology innovation are the location based services (such as Cisco’s Mobile Concierge) which use a customer’s wireless smart phone and GPS facility to connect the consumer to the retailer’s customer facing services portal or “Mobile Concierge”.  No doubt those merchants that can open up their platforms to provide electronic coupons, promotional offers, customer loyalty data, product data, product locators and store maps are going to be best placed to make the most sales.

So there you have it.  Three trends that, when combined, tell us that simple tactical eCommerce infrastructures are only half the commerce story.  There is no doubt in my mind that the best merchants will implement strategic Customer Interaction Platform’s to ensure their survival.  What do you think?

[They'll be more about Customer Interaction Platforms in future posts!]

Econsultancy’s newest Buyer’s guide has been released and is aimed at companies who are investigating the e-commerce platforms market. There are profiles of 30 leading UK vendors, including Salmon.

The report also provides details on the various issues and trends affecting this sector, as well as advice about how to select the right platform.

If you are about to conduct an eCommerce Platform replacement project – this really is a must read.  Unless you are a member of Econsultancy it is a paid for report (£150 get you the report, £195 annual membership and access to ALL their reports) but a sample is available (625.8 KB PDF)

Separate to the report, you can also view Salmon’s company profile on the Econsultancy website for a better idea of who we are and what we do.

Webcredible’s 2009 eCommerce usability for high street retailers’ report has been updated.  This latest version updates the highly popular ecommerce usability reports of 2006, 2007 and 2008.

The report evaluates the websites of 20 of the UK’s leading high street retailers. Based on Webcredibles experience of usability testing with over 1000 people on a variety of ecommerce sites, they have devised 20 essential guidelines that all ecommerce websites should adhere to, evaluating each site against these guidelines.

Webcredible’s 2009 eCommerce usability for high street retailers’ report has been updated.  This latest version updates the highly popular ecommerce usability reports of 2006, 2007 and 2008.
The report evaluates the websites of 20 of the UK’s leading high street retailers. Based on Webcredibles experience of usability testing with over 1000 people on a variety of ecommerce sites, they have devised 20 essential guidelines that all ecommerce websites should adhere to, evaluating each site against these guidelines.Retail Systems Blog comments on the “biggest improvement” in 2009 being Boots (you can read about Salmon’s work here), which saw its website usability score increase from 64 per cent to 80 per cent, pushing it up to joint fourth in this year’s report from joint 17th place last year.

Last year’s report saw a drastic improvement in the website usability of top UK High Street retailers with an average score of 67.8 per cent.  Salmon customers’ Argos and Boots scored 73% and 80% respectively.

You can download the report for free.

Today we announced the development of a “Text and Reserve” service for Halfords that extends their multi-channel strategy to mobile phone users. The unique service allows customers to look up products, locate their nearest store with the recommended product in stock and reserve & collect the product; all using their mobile phone’s SMS text messaging service.

Here is how it works.  I am sure you can imagine usage scenarios:

1. Customer texts an appropriate keyword, followed by their vehicle registration number (e.g. “bulb, vfo3yjc”) to Halfords, where the vehicle make, model, engine size and body type of vehicle are established using registration lookup services.
2. An SMS message is returned to the customer saying: “Halfords recommends Halfords Super Brilliance Blue Bulb Single HBU4775BBH7, 802561, £22.99 for your AUDI. Check stock in your nearest store by replying with your postcode.”
3. Upon receipt of a customer reply message the system searches for the nearest store with the required product in stock, and forwards this information to the customer. “From Halfords. Your nearest store with product in stock is Redditch, 2.04 miles away. To reserve the item reply YES to this message.”
4. Having replied ‘yes’ the system processes the request and sends a reservation message to the customer and to the store warehouse systems. e.g. “Halfords reservation ref 8601043751 – Order reserved at Redditch B98 0DE 01527 584488. Check www.halfords.com for store opening hours.”

As I have no idea what bulbs, oil or wiper blades any of my two cars need, I’ll definitely be using this service.  And I doubt I am alone even in our household!  Hey presto, no more having to worry, and no more wasted trips to a store that doesn’t have the items I need in stock!

To give you a little more insight into the solution, the service has been specifically tailored by Salmon to integrate with Halfords existing back-end IT systems that hold vital information on products, vehicles and stock inventory.   The solution benefits from the following integration:

• Itim Zygon Product Information Management System – for identifying vehicles from their registration plate and recommending the right product for each car
• SAP – to provide product and pricing information
• Multimap – to establish the stores nearest to the customer
• BT Expedite Store 6 – to check store stock availability and ultimately accept the customers reservation

Today we announced our partnership with CyberSource Ltd, the UK-based CyberSource subsidiary.  CyberSource is a leading provider of electronic payment and risk management solutions.

Salmon has teamed with CyberSource, integrating its payment and fraud management solutions with SAFE™ – Salmon’s Application Framework for eCommerce.

As a result of the partnership, our eCommerce customers benefit as a result of access to a range of CyberSource solutions, including:

Payment processing – Payments are securely processed across CyberSource’s PCI-certified global payment network. Multiple payment options and over 190 countries and currencies are supported.
Fraud management – CyberSource’s global fraud portal, Decision Manager, includes over 150 fraud detectors, such as device fingerprinting, to control fraud loss and increase sales conversion.
Payer authentication – Provides the payment guarantees offered by Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode.

Our existing customers leveraging CyberSource through SAFE™ include Stylo Barratt Shoes Ltd and The Regatta Group.

Customer feedback is already positive.  Chris Bulmer, Group IT Director at Regatta said, “We strive to keep the customer’s online purchasing process as efficient and safe as possible, in an effort to maximise conversion rates and boost return visits. We believe that Salmon’s integration with CyberSource can help us achieve this.”

In this youtube video, Gartner analyst Gene Alvarez discusses how IT organisations responsible for eCommerce are challenged in 2009 to improve online customer experiences to make up for closed stores, lost personnel; all at a time when IT expenditures need to be cut by 5-25 percent.

Sure it’s no easy feat.  But by levering leading off-the-shelf solutions (as opposed to building everything from scratch), Gene argues that IT organisations can free up vital resources and re-focus in areas that really make a difference to the customer.

Whilst this Build vs. Buy dilemma is not at all new, I think it is worthwhile highlighting this is exactly the approach we have taken to heart in SAFE (The Salmon Application Framework for eCommerce) which allows merchants to leverage best-of-breed eCommerce solutions on top of a robust, scalable eCommerce infrastructure (IBM WebSphere Commerce).  Afetr all what’s the point of spending £’s to re-invent the wheel?

The UK eCommerce community is blooming.  And although I couldn’t be there, I am told you needed no more evidence of this than at Internet Retailing 2008 (IR2008) where networking, buzz & innovation met with ideas, insight and research.  Salmon had three clients presenting in the conference.

The first stream was devoted to discussing the hot topic of providing rich customer experiences – and you can read a session review here. It studied the technical, marketing and operational issues related to rich media.

In this stream, Salmon customer Oliver Bishop, the e-Business Technical Architect from AkzoNobel Decorative Coatings, presented on “Making product choices simpler using RIA technology.”  The latest relaunch of dulux.co.uk has taken advantage of Rich Internet Application (RIA) technology to help customers to choose the colours they love and products that are right for the job.   This is achieved using functionality like Ajax, drag and drop and DHTML extensively within the site to create an interactive scrapbook, moodboard and the ability to upload and decorate photos of their own rooms.  Oliver’s presentation covered how Web 2.0 technologies can enhance the experience for your customers.

Stream two looked at second mover advantage on the web – and focused on the approach taken by retailers who have launched transactional websites only recently; and how they have taken advantage of their second mover position to succeed.

In this 2nd stream, Wendy Derbyshire from Scotts & Stow told delegates how the company had been running nine sites on four different platforms and faced a huge range of legacy issues and a major challenge to consolidate everything into one technical base that could underpin the whole business.  Scotts decided to bite the bullet and embark on a major project (with Salmon and SAFE™ – read the case study) to put in place one infrastructure for the whole business.

And then there was Stream three, which examined the latest trends in multiple channel retailing, i.e. Moving beyond multichannel to true, integrated “cross channel” solutions (is it me or does this makes our 2005 seminar series “eCommere Junkies: Cross Channel Retail” look impressively visionary?).

In this final stream Argos’ presentation looked at “Customer centric multi-channel development“.  There is no doubt Argos is recognised as pioneering new approaches in multi-channel high street retailing, introducing concepts (and delivering them with Salmon’s help) such as in-store reservations via web, phone and text, in-store stock-check and quick-pay kiosks, all tied into the overarching online experience and offline catalogue.

It’s funny.  You can have the biggest booth in the exhibition hall and learn to talk a good game.  But nothing compares to the experience you get from actually living, breathing and delivering state-of-the-art eCommerce.

Hot on the heels of news related to our projects for Novae and Boots.com, we are pleased to be able to draw your attention to an announcement of a successful implementation of a new B2C eCommerce platform – this time supporting Stylo plc – the UK’s second largest independent shoe retailer.  The project – built with SAFE™ (Salmon’s Application Framework for eCommerce) supports Stylo’s multiple brands including, PriceLess, Barratts, Discount Shoe Store, Petitfeet, Big Shoe Boutique and Nineteen Twentyone.

Talking about the project, Ken Platt (E-Commerce Manager at Stylo) said,

SAFE™ was affordable, fast to implement and supported our multiple brands. Its “out of the box” functionality met all of our requirements, supporting our online needs as well as giving us complete control over our eCommerce environment.  We now have a scalable platform in place that meets our customers’ desires now and will cope with increasing levels of traffic and our changing business needs in the future.

As a result of the engagement with Salmon, Stylo will benefit from sophisticated functionality for marketing campaigns, as well as better merchandising, content and order management. Common business processes are re-used across the business and at each point of interaction (store, contact centre, web, etc). The technology behind the eCommerce platform is a single instance of IBM WebSphere Commerce Enterprise Edition.

SAFE™ (Salmon’s Application Framework for eCommerce), is a series of pre-configured, reusable and customisable eCommerce components combined with a mature project delivery methodology.  SAFE™ speeds and simplifies the delivery of very sophisticated eCommerce solutions, significantly lowering the risks traditionally associated with launching a new eCommerce capability, or replacing an existing eCommerce platform.

Salmon has integrated IBM WebSphere Commerce with CyberSource payment gateway, Mercado for optimised search and browse and Coremetrics for online analytics and marketing optimisation.  The eCommerce platform has also been integrated with Stylo’s back office systems including sales, despatch and catalogue requests, so that information can be horizontally shared across the business, resulting in the ability to provide a totally integrated experience for the customer.

The sites will be hosted by Rackspace whilst Salmon are responsible for supporting the databases and application software.