According to a PwC report, ecommerce technology, its scalability, its agility and capital investments in IT infrastructure are the top challenges faced by ecommerce companies in India. Find out how small and medium (SME) businesses can overcome these challenges and launch an ecommerce website

1. Launching an ecommerce website? What
are the challenges for Small and Medium
Businesses?
© 2016 Embitel. All Rights Reserved
You have a revolutionary business idea (B2B or B2C) and a passionate team who believes in this
idea. You have identified your target market and are evaluating the most appropriate channel to
help you reach your buyers.
Or
You are a successful offline business that has built a trustworthy brand over years of hard-work,
persistence and adherence to quality. You have built a loyal customer base, mainly through word of
mouth, within a certain locality, city, region or geography.
Your business is now ready for the expansion phase by reaching a wider audience. You
are evaluating the most appropriate channel to achieve the same.

2. Launching an ecommerce website? What
are the challenges for Small and Medium
Businesses?
© 2016 Embitel. All Rights Reserved
In this internet-based economy, it is highly likely that your evaluation would indicate the need
for ‘Launching an ecommerce web-store’ for your business!
Can your web-store be a Flipkart or Amazon from day-1?
Let’s ask ourselves this most difficult question first! And we have a very simple answer to this. It’s ‘N
O !’
Developing an ecommerce web-store is a technology intensive project. It is a store that is accessible
24/7 on internet. Similar to an offline store, your web-store needs to support the front-end and back-
end business operations.
Ecommerce companies need the support of an army of tech teams to manage business operations
with the help of web-based technologies. And hence when the likes of PwC release reports about
the top challenges faced by ecommerce companies, ecommerce technology, its scalability, its agility
and capital investments in infrastructure are a regular feature.
PwC report – eCommerce in India: Drivers and Challenges

3. Launching an ecommerce website? What
are the challenges for Small and Medium
Businesses?
© 2016 Embitel. All Rights Reserved
What approach should my business have
towards ecommerce?
There are companies that take a CAPEX (capital expenditure) intensive route to realize their
ecommerce aspirations. However, for Small and Medium Businesses (SMEs), the incremental
approach which requires minimum CAPEX is more suitable.
The strength of SMEs lies in their ability to serve very niche markets, provide customizations and
customer intimacy instead of serving mass markets (which is the arena ofthe big players, with deep
pockets).
Thus you need an ecommerce solution which helps you play your strengths and doesn’t ask for
deep pockets for technology investment.
Is there a checklist to help me evaluate an ecommerce solution?
When you select an ecommerce solution to take your business online, keeping the following
points in mind will increase your chances of a good outcome:
The ecommerce solution should be ready to launch, so it should include all the essential basic
modules, which have been pre-tested
The ready-to-launch web-store should have been tested for all the cyber security threats

4. Launching an ecommerce website? What
are the challenges for Small and Medium
Businesses?
© 2016 Embitel. All Rights Reserved
The web-store is integrated with highly secure payment gateway and shipping modules
The web-store has the provision for integration with your legacy systems(if any)
UI/UX of the web-store can be customized as per your brand guidelines
It is designed on a cost-effective and enterprise class ecommerce platform

5. Launching an ecommerce website? What
are the challenges for Small and Medium
Businesses?
© 2016 Embitel. All Rights Reserved
There is provision of Post Go-Live maintenance and support
Solution is scalable – it supports incremental development and addition of more advanced features
Now that you have the checklist, it’s time to evaluate the solutions and find the best match for your
business goals.
In the follow-up post, we will evaluate the ‘Magento Go-Live Box’, a rapid deployment solution
for Small and Medium Businesses. Watch this space for more details!
For any queries or to know more details, contact our project team here
What is Magento Commerce platform?
Magento is an ecommerce platform built on open source technology which provides online
merchants with a flexible shopping cart system, as well as control over the look, content and
functionality of their online store. Magento offers powerful marketing, search engine optimization,
and catalog-management tools.
(Source – commonplaces.com)