I recently published a guest post to ProgrammableWeb about E-Commerce APIs and it got me thinking.  I come from a tech background, so understanding the technology portion of e-commerce comes relatively easy. Keeping up with the rapidly changing tech environment is of course still a bit of a struggle.  But what I really need to ensure I keep up with is the changing business environment of e-commerce. The first book of importance I had in College was titled E-Commerce 2002: A Managerial Perspective.  I remember it was packed with real-world case studies and interesting tidbits.   It is now on its 7th Edition, and for the first time has changed it’s name. The latest revision is titled Electronic Commerce 2012: Managerial and Social Networks Perspectives.  Just from the title change alone, we can see how much Social Networking has impacted E-Commerce.  I think I’ll pick up a copy when it’s released in October and return to my studies

So what has changed in E-Commerce over the last 10 years? A lot. But here are several major changes off the top of my head:

• Evolution of the Web 2.0 / Social Networking / Facebook / F-Commerce
• Shopping Cart solutions have evolved into large, robust E-Commerce platforms such as ElasticPath, Magento, Znode and others.  Plus there are now hundreds of shopping cart solutions, some are only a few lines of JavaScript, making it incredibly easy to get e-commerce setup on your own website.
• eBay has led to the advent of similar e-commerce website concepts for niche and indie sellers. Sites like Etsy, BigCartel, and Storenvy are flourishing with everyone from professionals to hobbyists looking to showcase and sell their stuff online.
• Stock and user-customized on demand product sites like CafePress, Zazzle and SpreadShirt have grown exponentially over the past decade. As of June 2011, CafePress has filed with the SEC to raise up to $80 million in an initial public offering.
• Amazon has always been the cornerstone of E-Commerce, even back in 2001. But today, it has become a global e-commerce monster scaling several verticals. As of July 27, 2011, Amazon’s market cap has passed $100 billion.
• The tremendous impact Google and SEO has had on E-Commerce growth and marketing.  Over the years many tutorials like this one from SEOMoz have been published for E-Commerce SEO best practices.
• The continued rise in both the number of Open Shopping APIs and their complexities.  There are more than 200 E-Commerce APIs spanning several verticals.
• Groupon became the fasted growing company ever as the focus in parts of the E-Commerce space are shifting toward geo-location, local, and consumer-demand driven.

Ten years ago, few people could have dreamed of these enhancements, certainly not my friend’s Mother. We are at an interesting time in the progression of E-Commerce.

Not everyone agrees that e-commerce has moved ahead at a speedy pace to get where we are today (read Josh Kopelman’s thoughts on innovation in eCommerce published last year).  But even these skeptics agree that we are now innovating at accelerated rate – see Josh’s prior post where he stated the following:

“the online shopping paradigm is finally changing.  Indeed, I think we’ve seen more innovation in the last 10 months than in the last 10 years.”

He mentions several areas he believed were ripe for expansion including: Mobile, SNO (Social Network Optimization), User Generated Content, Game Dynamics API’s that allow for syndicated shopping and others.

What do you think?  Was Josh right?  Have these areas of E-Commerce exploded in the last year?

I won’t be joining the crazy people out there on Black Friday this time around. I prefer to stay in the warmth, at a safe distance away from retail stores.  I intend to do my shopping strictly online. This is why… the best I can remember it anyway:

Last year I went to Circuit City mainly for the experience, but also to pick up a Samsung 22 Inch LCD monitor since they had for a really good price (after rebate). I thought maybe I’d pickup a couple other things while I was there too. That idea got shot down about the second I entered the store, but more on that later. So the story begins, I got up early (4:30 AM?) and went to the closest Circuit City. I arrived and found some parking suprisingly. I laughed as I walked by people in tents at the front of the line. I kept walking back to the edge of the store and then I noticed that the line curled around the side of the building a few times. I wasn’t laughing anymore. I found a spot in line, at the end of the last curl. To my surprise it actually went pretty quick once the doors opened. I got inside within an hour of the store opening.  The monitors were towards the back with the computers, so I started to make my way over there

I soon noticed that there were human-created bottlenecks all over the store.  It took some forcing to get through. Once I got to the back of the store, there was a long line for the computer related items. Circuit City had set it up so that anyone looking for a computer item had to ask a store rep and then the rep had to key it into the computer. Someone else then had to go into the back and look for it. Meanwhile, everyone else had to wait for the one person. It was the worst setup I have ever seen, seriously, ever. I waited for a while and people started to get unruly. I’ll leave out the boring in-between details. After about an hour and half of not moving at all I got out of my spot, and pulled a rep over. As it turns out, they were having computer difficulties in that section to boot. I left the store a little while later with nothing but frustration.

I ended up getting the monitor (sitting on my desk now) online later that day (shortly before taking a nap). I ended getting it cheaper online because I had a gotten a gift certificate or coupon code off eBay! All that trouble for nothing!

Here is what I learned and some tips:

• It is an experience, and the idea of it is really fun. Once you get into the store the fun ends. A crowd of hungry consumers pack into the store, making any size store look miniature. Pushing and shoving begins, and fights over short-supply items. Remember to maintain composure and your end goal.
• Many of the same deals are posted online later in the day or on the following Monday (Cyber Monday). A word of warning though, many of the extremely hot or hard to get items are likely to sell out.
• Know what you want to get before you get into the store. Have a priority list and know when to cut your losses. Remember, you can probably get some of the items online later.

I should mention that the majority of this write-up contains personal notes, but hopefully they are helpful to those interested (as I did do a fair amount of research). Again, the first two solutions I looked at are currently FREE and open source. The third costs $500 (Standard version), which comes with the full source code upon purchase, but isn’t open source.

Getting Started

Here are the solutions I looked at:

dashCommerce is the successor to Commerce Starter Kit, and is freely available on CodePlex. This is great for those ASP.NET developers used to working with it that wish to contribute. However, it seems to be a one man show right now as far as development. We’ll see if it can indeed keep pace with the market.

Magento Commerce is an open source PHP e-commerce solution led by Los Angelos based E-Commerce firm Varien. The solution stakes claim to unprecedented flexibility and control. You can jump into learning right away as they have a bunch of tutorial screencasts on their site.

Znode Storefront is an ASP.NET 2.0 solution that “specializes in secure, scalable e-commerce solutions driven by customer needs.”

Below are my notes on some parts I was most interested in. I have provided additional information in a tabular grid below as well.

Development Status

• Magento was recently launched in Beta and it is not recommended to use in a production environment. A functional version is in the works and Varien is shooting for Q1 2008.
• dashCommerce has just released version 2.2 and has sites in a product environment. Major changes are in order for the next version (3.0) which is slated tentatively for December 2007 / Q1 2008.
• Znode Storefront has sites and can be used in the production environment.

Community Following

• Magento seems to have the largest community following of the three. They have a Wiki section and allow the community to contribute. Continued development is by Varien.
• dashCommerce has a decent community following, but it currently seems somewhat disorganized. Community can contribute via CodePlex. Continued development is by Chris Cevyas.
• Znode, not being open source like the others, does not appear to have much of an active community. However, they seem to be dedicated to continued improvement of their product (see roadmap).

User Interface / CSS

• Magento. I’m a sucker for good lucks and that’s exactly what Magento is: Good Looking! Utilizing Scriptlicious, AJAX, and tagging it has Web 2.0 written all over it. It comes with a wide array of features “out of the box.”
• Znode has a structured CSS and Master Page system setup that seems ideal for customization. The admin area allows editing of CSS via a form Textbox similar to working in the popular WordPress blogging software. It boasts further AJAX UI in future versions.
• dashCommerce seems to be the most messy to tailor via CSS. This should be changing in their next release, version 3.0.

SEO

• Metadata – Magento and Znode both allow webmasters to edit metadata.
• Url Optimization – This is also an important factor in SEO and in human readability. Magento had the best SEO Url out of the bunch. Here are some sample product urls you could expect to see:

dashCommerce Url
/product/894c4c71-9776-4331-b1d4-c675f525beeba.aspx

Magento Url
/product/view/s/olympus-stylus-750-7-1mp-digital-camera/id/46/category/12/

Znode Url
/storeproduct302.aspx

I also noticed in Znode that Store Categories were referred to in two separate manners. I’m not sure the reasoning, but I know that isn’t a good idea for search engines and duplicate content. Example for category “81” (Exotic Fruit) in the demo site:

/category.aspx?cid=81

/storecategory81.aspx

Couponing System

• Magento has the most advanced coupon system. Aside from percentage off or dollars off coupons, it also allows for conditional based coupons to be created. Very nice.
• Znode Storefront allows for dollars off or percentage off coupons.
• dashCommerce currently only has dollars off coupons. However, the code allows developers to add their own promotional classes, but documentation is slim to none.

The Comparison Grid

Final Words

Znode Storefront

At 500 bucks for the Standard version this is the solution I ended up choosing for the project. I felt the most comfortable (maybe because I was paying for it!) with the software. Here are some key reasons:

• I needed the Admin area to be easy enough to teach the client.
• The template it comes with is nice enough where not a lot of customization is needed.
• The images are automatically resized for the Admin.

David was excellent in giving me responses to all the questions I had. I’ll likely be following up with some of the Q&A he provided for me. (Note: If you are looking to get Znode Storefront and need web hosting, DiscountASP.net has plans and you get 20% off your Znode Storefront purchase.)
What’s the catch?

Installation was fairly straight forward, however it did require me to open up SQL Server and run a SQL script to do the installation. This should be changing in the future releases.

Magento Commerce

Magento seems to be very easy to build on. They’ve got a good comunity and lots of documentation already. Although they only have a few payment systems, they got a nice writeup on creating new Payment Modules. Through this process I did the least amount of testing with Magento, so I can’t say too much more about it. This was because it is PHP based and since it isn’t available for production environments yet it wasn’t a likely choice to begin with. However, I would definitely keep an eye on this going into 2008. It looked pretty enough on the outside to make me consider moving from ASP.NET to PHP for the project. If this project was six months down the road I may have chosen this solution. If I was a competitor I would look at all the things they are doing right and take notes.

What’s the catch?

I can’t say much as I didn’t go through the install process. I will say that it is confusing as you can download the software, yet it’s mentioned only a few places that you should not run the software in a “production environment.” See the forums for more information.

dashCommerce

After switching from Commerce Starter Kit to dashCommerce I did see some improvements. However, both the backend and the front-end would require too much time to clean up and customize. I felt better off waiting to see what comes of future versions.

What’s the catch?

Installation was generally pretty smooth, but it gets buggy if you enter the wrong information for SQL Server and try to go to previous. At one point it would just bring me back to the first page of the install. I had to switch browsers and start the install over. Later, I realized I just had to clear cookies to get it to stop looping.

During the retailer forum session at Search Engine Strategies NYC a member of the audience said “I have a store that I just started up. Right now we are in the $0 dollars sales area. What are some tips for getting started with an E-Commerce store?”

A great summary response from the panel covered a majority of the avenues for building from the ground up.

• Build links and SEO – Long term initiative, no shortcuts.
• Advertise on Search Engines (SEM) – Instant results; Testing and basic analytics is important.
• Utilize Available Services in the Shopping Vertical

• List on Google Base / Froogle – Results dependant on product being sold. 
• Sell on auction sites, specifically eBay and link back to your e-commerce store in the description – Short term
• Sell on marketplaces like Amazon zShops, or Ebay Express
• Use Yahoo! Merchant Solutions (free setup) to power the site

• Easier/Cheaper to get listed in Yahoo! Shopping search engine

• Datafeed Optimization (DFO) – Be found for more search terms.  Shorter term initiative.  (See SingleFeed for a good solution).

I’d also suggest that new merchants should try to announce some initial promotions and get free exposure through deal or coupon sites. And don’t forget getting friends and family to help spread the word.

[Entry related to the Retailer Forum session held at Search Engine Strategies 2007 NYC.]