The front end of an E-Commerce platform may get all the attention but more often than not, it's the back end that will determine whether you're a successful E-Commerce Case Study or a highlight of 5 Things You Don't Want to Do in 2014. This presentation will help to ensure it's not the latter.

1. Building a Back-End That Sets
You Up For Success
(the first km)

2. Matthew Bertulli
Create / Build
Demac Media
Socialgift.com, triplecheck.io
Community (Ecommerce Toronto Meetup)
Twitter: @mbertulli

3. Where I learn about eCommerce…

4. Let’s talk about…
A. Making Good Decisions (5 Key “Take-Aways”)
A. Common challenges when building the back-end of your eCommerce
business.
1. Mid-Size Business Focus
2. Real World Stuff
B. Components of an eCommerce Back-End (software & process)
A. When & How
Today’s focus is on the eCommerce platform and ERP systems.

5. Why is this even important?
It’s the design that matters!
How you look is only a very small part of building a successful
eCommerce business.
These 2 systems are the hardest to replace. They also have a massive
impact on…
customer experience!

6. Classifying Ecommerce (big ones)
A. Multi-Brand Retail
Nordstroms, Fab.com
B. Single Brand (B2C)
Frank & Oak, Bonobos etc…
C. Private Sale
Gilt Group
D. Marketplace & Auction(2 sided)
etsy, eBay

7. It is the when and how that matters most.
The first km of eCommerce…
Q: When is the right time to implement X system.
Q: How do I choose?
**A lot of the answers to these questions depends on the type of
eCommerce business you’re building.

8. First, a very common example…payments.

9. Yikes!
E-commerce Platforms Personalization
Content Management Systems (CMS) Rich Media
Product Information Management (PIM) Affiliate Marketing
Content Delivery (i.e. CDNs) Search Engine Marketing
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Security Certification
Customer Reviews & Forums Shipping Carriers
Customer Service Software Shopping Comparison Engines
Email Marketing Site Search
Fulfillment Social Media Marketing
Live Chat Web Analytics
Marketplace Management Hosting / Infrastructure
Mobile Commerce Performance Management & Optimization
Order Management Business Intelligence / Data Mining
Payment Security
Payment Systems

10. Yikes! x2
Customer Service Photographers
Community Management Merchandisers
Marketing Purchasers
• Search Marketer And many…many…more…
• Copy Writers
• Affiliate Marketer
• Email Marketer
Creative / Design
Developers
Pickers, Packers, Shippers
Warehouse Management
Business Analysts

11. Order of Importance
When choosing and implementing software, systems or processes.
A. Customer Acquisition
B. Customer Service
C. Customer Fulfillment (Logistics)
It doesn’t matter what kind of eCommerce you are in, this is how it
breaks down.

12. It’s about the tools and the process.
NOT the brand of tool!

13. Approach (All-in-One or Multiple Integrated Systems)
You have no choice but to integrate multiple systems in eCommerce. It is
reality.
How many systems you integrate is what you want to control. Less is
more.
Other
ERP
Ecom.
Platform

14. Incredibly Important!
Much like any human roll / process in an organization,
there needs to be ownership.
Data Ownership
Which system owns which type of data?

15. Important Data Entities (types)
Customer Data
Product Catalog
• Media (images, video)
• Basic Data (sku, name, color/size)
• Complex Data (descriptions, attributes)
• Inventory
• Pricing **
Orders
Non-Product Content

16. Ecommerce Platform
The “Hub” of a great commerce strategy.
– Do this right and get exponential cost savings and efficiency savings in other
applications.
– Do it wrong…and the opposite happens.
- Shopping Cart - Mobile Web
- Content Management - On-Site Search
- Product Management - CRM (basic)
- Order Management (back-end stuff) - Payment Systems / Security
- Customer Service - Personalization & Segmentation
- Basic Shipping (printing labels etc…)
- Returns Management

17. Open Source vs. Closed vs. SaaS
Know your strengths!
How much flexibility do you want?
– No matter what a sales rep tells you, SaaS platforms are less flexible
than open source platforms.
– Flexibility = ability to test more stuff without changing platforms.
How “hands off” do you want to be?
– SaaS will always be faster to get going. Open Source comes with built
in technical debt.

18. Challenge: Product Content & Ingestion
Size of your catalogue matters…
Some businesses get new inventory very frequently. Think fashion (fast).
Quantity and Frequency are critical.
The more technical the product, the more data that needs to be entered.
Manufacturer data is largely garbage. Don’t depend on it!
Tip: If you’re starting out, everyone on your team should know how to get new
products into your system. It is also a great way for non-merchandising people
to learn about your product.

19. Analytics
You can go a very long way with Google Analytics.
You can go even further with applications like KISSmetrics and
mixpanel.
The very biggest will use the Omniture types. $$$

20. Challenge: Customer Data
Big Data is a big problem. Why?
Very few people understand this area. Which results in…
1. We’re all in data overload
1. Even fewer folks knowing how to actually use this data. (actionable)

21. Mobile
• Mobile is part of every good strategy now.
• Not where you start in most eCommerce.
– Seriously…most of the time this isn’t your first move.
• Our Preferred Order
– Web with mobile optimizations made in UX
– Mobile Web (Responsive or Stand Alone)
– Apps

22. Multi-Channel Commerce
Selling on more than one marketplace sounds great right?
• Get your own site right first.
• Multiple selling channels is almost always a good thing.
– Product / Inventory Management critical.
– Order Management very important.
– Watch your margins!
– Systems Integration can be very painful.

23. Assumptions are Dangerous
The resources available in this business are few in #…
Root your assumptions in as much real world data as
possible.

24. Pre-Mature Optimization
Very dangerous!
Lots of talk about scalability…dig deeper. What does that mean to you?
• Visitors
• Transactions
• Feature Adoption
• Concurrent Admin Users
• Data Storage
• Warehouse order processing time?
None of this matters if you don’t have customers. Create some pain, then optimize
it.

25. ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
Q: How much do I need to start?
- Answer depends on how many of the below processes you want to handle in this
system.
- If you’re starting out, start as light/lean as possible as ERP systems are generally
expensive and don’t have top-line impact.
- Accounting - Reporting
- Fulfillment (Pick/Pack/Ship) - Business Intelligence
- Order Management
- Customer Service
- CRM

26. Classifying Fulfillment
You Own the Inventory You Don’t Own Inventory
• Ideal for scaling bigger. • Drop-Ship or JIT
• Heavy capital requirements • Easier to start.
• Fulfillment Options • Almost no capital requirements.
– Run your own warehouse • Fulfillment Options
– Third party logistics
– Combination?
• Really popular among private
sale companies.
• Where everyone wants to go.
• More balls in the air. You can’t
• More profit margin % points to play
control full customer experience.
with.
• You own the full customer
experience.

27. Key Metrics (trigger points)
When do you need to start thinking about automation?
A. Large Order Volume Increases
A. 0 – 20 / day
B. 20 – 100 / day
C. 100 – 1000 / day
B. Customer Service Requests
C. Return Requests
D. Frequent Price Changes
E. Received Product

28. Being Agile (in process)
Being agile is a large contributor to success in eCommerce.
Test, test, test.
• But be careful to test the right things.
• For example, test your picking process to see what works best.
ERP Software is really hard (and expensive) to replace. Probably
not the best place to test a lot…
Agility fights Stability

29. Recap
1. When & How
2. Tools & Process
3. Ownership of Data
4. Assumptions / Premature Optimization
5. Be Agile

30. Questions?
Twitter: @mbertulli