Outsourcing E-commerce
...or, "What to Own When You Don't Want to Own Anything"
If you are already an advanced digital marketer, you can pass this column along to a friend who is looking at starting a business. If you’re “that friend” please take this in and send questions through the magazine. We’re here to help.
At every stage of business - whether you're contemplating selling home-made baby clothes or if you're a part of a multinational selling household-name brands - the idea of outsourcing some or all parts of e-commerce comes up. That's because - as we all know - e-commerce is complex and requires mastery of many steps of an opaque process. It's therefore tempting to hit the "Easy Button" and have someone else do the complex work.
What (you may be asking) is the "Easy Button"? It is an analogy for that service or other support structure that solves a problem. When we hire an external partner to handle the build of a new e-commerce site or replatforming an existing one, we’re hitting the “Easy Button”. Consider this a quick primer of what you as a client should do to make your relationship with your e-commerce outsourced partner as fruitful and profitable as possible. Because, as I have painfully discovered, the Easy Button is only easy if you have done your homework first.
Get Organized, Be Organized, Stay Organized
It is so easy to go shopping. The shopkeeper welcomes you warmly as you peruse the selection, offering to answer questions and maybe even proffering advice as you go. Your mind can be tilted toward options you hadn't even thought about as you contemplate a purchase. Your future as a new owner of (whatever it is) looks great.
Stop. Turn around. Run away as quickly as possible. The last thing you should be doing when considering an outsourced e-commerce partner is shop. I'm being literal here: Shopping is the last step in selecting your partner for outsourcing e-commerce. The steps that come before it are:
Know why you are doing this to being with
Understand your financial end-game including your preferred business model
Know your data - what you have or how you are going to get it
Understand your target audience's shopping behaviors
Be clear on what it will take for you to fire your partner
These steps are generally done in this order but you won't break anything if you do some concurrently or in a different sequence. The point is for you to be able to know as much as possible before you go shopping so, when one of your potential partners offers input that is outside of what you had considered (and if they're any good they should be a few steps ahead of you) it become accretive rather than taking you off course.