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eCommerce Platform Selection Guide

Speed up the process to build your business case and select your eCommerce solution

  • Selecting and implementing the right eCommerce platform – one that aligns with your requirements – is a significant undertaking.
  • Despite the importance of selecting and implementing the right eCommerce platform, many organizations struggle to define an approach to picking the most appropriate vendor and rolling out the solution in an effective and cost-efficient manner.
  • IT often finds itself in the unenviable position of taking the fall for eCommerce platforms that don’t deliver on the promise of the eCommerce strategy.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • eCommerce platform selection must be driven by your overall customer experience management strategy: link your eCommerce selection to your organization’s CXM framework.
  • Determine what exactly you require from your eCommerce platform; leverage use cases to help guide selection.
  • Ensure strong points of integration between eCommerce and other software, such as CRM and POS. Your eCommerce solution should not live in isolation; it must be part of a wider ecosystem.

Impact and Result

  • A clear, concise, and compelling eCommerce RFP and a detailed requirements picklist.
  • An eCommerce platform that effectively meets business needs and delivers value.
  • Reduced costs during eCommerce selection and faster time to results after implementation.

eCommerce Platform Selection Guide Research & Tools

1. eCommerce Platform Selection Deck – A guide that walks you through the process of building your business case and selecting the proper eCommerce platform.

This blueprint will help you build a business case for selecting the right eCommerce platform, define key requirements, and conduct a thorough analysis and scan of the current state of the ever-evolving eCommerce market space.

2. eCommerce Request for Proposal Template – A best-of-breed template to help you build a clear, concise, and compelling RFP.

Create your own request for proposal (RFP) for your eCommerce solution procurement process by customizing the RFP template created by Info-Tech.


eCommerce Platform Selection Guide

Speed up the process to build your business case and select your eCommerce solution.

Table of Contents

3Analyst Perspective
4Executive Summary
8Executive Brief
17Selection Overview
22Vendor Analysis
48Summary of Accomplishment
49Related Research
50Bibliography

Analyst Perspective

Implementing the proper eCommerce platform is integral to providing your customers with an enhanced purchasing experience.

Modern eCommerce solutions enable businesses to carve out a place for themselves in the ever-expanding and hyper-competitive digital landscape. The market for eCommerce platforms has seen an explosion of growth in recent years as organizations look to accelerate their digital transformation to keep pace with the increased amenability of consumers for online shopping, the expanded adoption of smartphone use, and ultimately, a hyper competitive landscape that sees more and more companies putting a concerted emphasis on digital retailing.

IT needs to be a trusted partner in the selection and implementation of an eCommerce platform, but the business also needs to own the requirements and be involved from the get-go.

The selection of an eCommerce platform must be a multi-step process that involves defining target capabilities, prioritizing requirements across functional categories, determining the architecture model for the eCommerce environment, and developing a comprehensive RFP that can be scored in a weighted fashion.

To succeed with the implementation of an eCommerce solution, create a detailed roadmap that outlines milestones for configuration, security, points of implementation, data migration, training, and ongoing application maintenance.

Photo of Austin Wagar, Research Analyst, Customer Experience & Application Insights, Info-Tech Research Group.

Austin Wagar
Research Analyst, Customer Experience & Application Insights
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

  • eCommerce solutions are becoming an increasingly essential tool – shouldering tasks integral to your organization and being an indispensable part of a holistic strategy for improving your customer’s experience. But selecting the right platform that aligns with your requirements is a significant undertaking.
  • After defining an approach to eCommerce, selection and implementation of the right eCommerce solution is a crucial step in delivering concrete business value.

Common Obstacles

  • Despite the importance of selecting and implementing the right eCommerce platform, many organizations struggle to define an approach to picking the most appropriate vendor and rolling out the solution in an effective and cost-efficient manner.
  • The eCommerce market is rapidly evolving, making it difficult to stay on top of the space.
  • IT often finds itself in the unenviable position of taking the fall for eCommerce platforms that don’t deliver on the promise of the eCommerce strategy.

Info-Tech’s Approach

  • eCommerce platform selection must be driven by your overall customer experience management strategy: link your eCommerce selection to your organization’s CXM framework.
  • Determine what exactly you require from your eCommerce platform; leverage use cases to help guide selection.
  • Ensure strong points of integration between eCommerce and other software, such as CRM and POS. Your eCommerce solution should not live in isolation; it must be part of a wider ecosystem.

Info-Tech Insight

IT must work in unison with other relevant stakeholders throughout the organization, including their counterparts in marketing and sales, to define a unified vision for the eCommerce platform.

Info-Tech’s methodology for selecting the right eCommerce platform

1. Contextualize the eCommerce Landscape2. Select the Right eCommerce Vendor
Phase Steps
  1. Define eCommerce Platforms
  2. Explore eCommerce Trends
  1. Build the Business Case
  2. Streamline Requirements Elicitation for eCommerce
  3. Construct the RFP
Phase Outcomes
  1. Consensus on Scope of eCommerce and Key eCommerce Capabilities
  1. eCommerce Selection Business Case
  2. Top-Level Use Cases and Requirements
  3. Completed eCommerce RFP

Info-Tech Insight

Need help constructing your RFP? Use Info-Tech’s eCommerce RFP Template!

Guided Implementation

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

The eCommerce selection process should be broken into segments:

  1. eCommerce vendor shortlisting with this buyer’s guide
  2. Structured Approach to Selection
  3. Contract review
What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

Phase 1

Phase 2

Call #1: Understand what an eCommerce platform is and discover the “art of the possible” for sales and marketing.

Call #2: Build the business case to select an eCommerce platform.

Call #3:Define your key eCommerce requirements.

Call #4:Build procurement items, such as an RFP.

Call #5: Evaluate the eCommerce solution landscape and shortlist viable options.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

Guided Implementation

Workshop

Consulting

"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.""Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.""We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.""Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

eCommerce Platform Selection Guide

Speed up the process to build your business case and select your eCommerce solution.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

What exactly is an eCommerce platform?

An eCommerce platform is an end-to-end software solution that enables buying and selling over the internet, empowering users to effectively manage their online operations in a single, centralized application.

eCommerce platforms are typically designed to benefit two different types of organizational models: those selling business-to-business (B2B), and those selling business-to-consumer (B2C).

An eCommerce platform offers many key features, including but not limited to:
  • Catalog Management
  • Shopping Cart Management
  • Content Management
  • Order Management
  • Payment Processing
  • Reporting and Analytics
  • Integrated Search
  • Content Localization
  • Guided Selling

Stock image of a tiny shopping cart filled with bags sitting on a laptop keyboard.

Info-Tech Insight

eCommerce platform feature sets are rapidly evolving to keep pace with the accelerated growth of the eCommerce space. Base your eCommerce vendor selection on your requirements and use cases, not on the latest industry trends and developments.

eCommerce Platform Selection Guide

The proliferation and rapid evolution of the eCommerce market makes it difficult to stay on top of the space

A venn diagram of eCommerce platforms, with one circle filled with 'Business-to-business (B2B)' platforms and one filled with 'Business-to-customer (B2C)' platforms. Companies in both include 'Adobe Commerce', 'Big Commerce', 'Oracle Commerce', 'Salesforce Commerce Cloud', and more.

eCommerce Platform Selection Guide preview picture

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Talk to an Analyst

Our analyst calls are focused on helping our members use the research we produce, and our experts will guide you to successful project completion.

Book an Analyst Call on This Topic

You can start as early as tomorrow morning. Our analysts will explain the process during your first call.

Get Advice From a Subject Matter Expert

Each call will focus on explaining the material and helping you to plan your project, interpret and analyze the results of each project step, and set the direction for your next project step.

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Author

Austin Wagar

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