Seems like we just came back from Meet Magento Netherlands and there’s already another great conference to attend to and it’s definitely an opportunity we won’t miss. Because who would?:)

Launched seven years ago, the Global E-Commerce Summit is the leading international event that focuses on the most important trends and developments in global e-commerce, cross-border trading and omnichannel retail.

There’s probably no better way to meet and talk (not only) about e-business than such event so if your calendar isn’t fully booked yet, just let us know on sales@divante.co.

…and it’s in Barcelona!

Here’s our team:

Tom Karwatka, our CEO

Really worked his way up to Divante. Experienced not only in e-commerce, but also marketing and usability.

Marta Miszczak, Sales Manager

Real fighter in business and life. Experienced in International Sales.

Bogusia Prusik, PR&Marketing Specialist

Believes that marketing and innovation are the core elements of business.

Virtually all retailers integrate or are in the midst of planning to integrate omnichannel strategies in their business. A successful integration is not guaranteed, however. What are some differentiators that set Winners apart from Losers?

Winning retailers see year-to-year sales growth through the use of integrated omnichannel. Losers, or those companies that underachieve, observe no revenue growth attributable to omnichannel. The benchmarks from Retail System Research were published in February 2014.

Omnichannel goals

Transaction growth is a primary concern in omnichannel strategy for most Winners (37%) and Losers (35%) alike. The next top opportunity, however, shows a significant gap in how Winners and Losers perceive digital channels. For over-achieving retailers the second top priority is driving traffic to stores (31%), while less successful companies focus on creating brand awareness (30%). Only 10% of Losers mention driving traffic to stores as a goal, and creating brand awareness is a priority for only 11% of Winners.

In all probability, this striking difference in understanding omni-channel results from where in an organization the digital strategy originates. If created and run by sales departments, the use of omnichannel certainly looks more likely to turn profitable.

Omnichannel value

41% of Winners, even up to four times as many as Losers, focuses on leveraging product knowledge and information assets across channels. For instance, omnichannel can provide on-site store employees with better access to product information. Winners also see providing customers with product information across channels as twice as valuable an asset (47% vs. 22% of Losers).

Key challenges for integration

For Winners, the most significant challenges are, respectively, meeting customer demands (47%), seamless experience across all channels (44%) and exposure to new competition by entering digital environments (41%).

Losers, meanwhile, bemoan exposure to new competition (45%), issues with integrating new processes (40%) and the fact that consumers seem to know more about products and prices than their own store assistants do (40%).

Do you see yourself on the winning side? Let’s talk! 

75% of companies that are implementing omnichannel successfully, have a written strategy.

A good strategy requires a study of the needs of customers, an in-depth marketing research and the ability to generate fresh ideas. Research can be outsourced to an external company, also the presentation of fresh ideas is a good task for an eCommerce Agency.

Thereafter, we get to the workshop where knowledge and ideas are confronted with the resources and capabilities of the company. The result of which is the creation of an eCommerce Strategy and a Plan, a cost estimate and timetable for the implementation.

IT Competence

IT skills are theoretically easy to outsource but in practice this approach rarely works. All of our customers who have an above average success, have at least some IT skills in-house.

You need people, who will be able to predict IT costs to co-create with the IT architecture providers. Even we created a special whitepaper describing how to create a budget for IT – designed for the technical staff of our customers.

A minimum of what you need is a Product Owner to work with the outsourced IT team. A good solution is to create a virtual team with the IT supplier. One or two developers on your side will control the quality, carry out urgent changes and make you feel safe.

HR Competence

HR expertise may seem least obvious but is still very crucial. The construction of the eCommerce department often requires the employment of completely different people than are working so far in the company. Especially in B2B companies. The “New Ones” tend to be younger, have little experience in corporate work, but expect a higher wage and have high requirements when it comes to the quality of management.

The motivation for these people is the opportunity to learn. By creating a virtual team with the eCommerce service provider, you can provide your employees an access to knowledge and mentors. Many of our clients employ people at their company at junior positions and then send them for a mentorship program with Seniors from Divante. This allows our customers to keep a relatively low cost and highly motivated employees,  while creating a flow of knowledge guaranteeing the safety of their business.

Marketing Competence

I’ve seen the confusion of the marketing department of a large company when it came to talking about marketing in eCommerce. The development of RTB technology, reMarketing, Marketing Auto and BigData meant that traditional marketers of branding were unable to cope with the new challenges. Of course, building a brand in eCommerce is extremely important but it’s not enough.

The solution may be employing a consultant, who will lay the foundations of the eCommerce marketing activities and will help recruit the right person.  We’ve had multiple occasions where we served as an Interim Marketing Manager to help companies establish their eCommerce marketing foundations.

Sometimes the solution is also to start a cooperation with an agency on the basis of a success-fee model. In this model, this agency takes on the strategy, allocation of budget and current work – by engaging itself for maximum ROI and being remunerated by financial results.

Logistical Competence

It would seem that logistics is a core-business for eCommerce companies. At the beginning, however, you’re not always ready to take up this challenge. There’re at least several companies on the market, that provide dedicated outsourced logistics for eCommerce.

In this case, you have to think in terms of what’s in the customers’ best interest. If you have concerns about the quality of your own logistics, start from proven logistics solutions and gradually increase your know-how learning from those solutions.

It’s worth remembering that many large companies take a strategic decision on  external logistics process. It definitely reduces the capital intensity of the project. External companies will allow you to keep up with new delivery systems and to ensure an appropriate level of customer service – often including a call center, complaint resolution, warranty, returns, creating images and descriptions of products.

Takeaways

Finding the right competencies for your company can take a lot of time and effort. Then putting all the pieces together to form a successful eCommerce team is often difficult. But if you develop an effective strategy combined with the right IT, HR, marketing and logistic competencies your chances of success in eCommerce increase significantly.

Contact us if you’re interested in learning how Divante helps their clients find the right competencies and how we tackle these problems ourselves.

Past Accomplishments

According to several sources, the most important thing in the recruitment of a person related to the sales sector, is to pay attention to the person’s past successes. Unfortunately, in the case of eCommerce there aren’t too many of such documented successes on the market. Most companies are in the process of a digital transformation. Our search should therefore start from people working in typical Internet companies – the so-called ‘Pure Players’. These companies are usually ahead of the traditional business market by 3-5 years.

A good candidate will also be a person who managed to transform another part of the traditional business into the digital form, in the past. Such individuals can be found in the media and advertising industry.

Ask Your Partners

The lack of an eCommerce Manager often halted the start of our projects. Thus, in Divante we run a up-to-date database of people who are planning to change jobs. Usually we are able to recommend 2-3 interesting candidates for the position. So your other partners are probably good in the market recognition. This is the fastest way.

Legitimate Support from the Board

I know examples of good managers who fell, because the Board did not give them the support they needed, and was somewhat hostile towards change.

Good managers will be very attentive to this aspect. It’s worth noting that fact when starting the first stage of the recruitment process. One practice is to use the account of the CEO of the company on LinkedIn to conduct a pre-recruitment of candidates. The response rate will be much higher if a candidate receives a message on LinkedIn from the CEO or a Board Member.

All successful transformations to eCommerce / Omnichannel have one thing in common – Manager responsible for those reports directly to the Board. It’s worth taking care of that and thus convince the best candidates.

Clear Objectives and Remuneration

The key is to set clear objectives for the project – measurable and objective. Meeting these objectives should be remunerated. The candidate must know that the stakes are high and he’s responsible for the results. This will motivate the best to think creatively and work hard.

The eCommerce / Omnichannel project usually takes 3-5 years so for the Manager to stay motivated he needs to keep the long-term objective in mind and must follow the progress throughout the implementation. This will also allow him to appreciate and celebrate small successes throughout the process.

A while ago one of our clients organized a big party and issued a press release, once online sales exceeded 50% of total sales. That was when the company realized they were transforming into an eCommerce company. It was also an opportunity to appreciate the work of the eCommerce Manager.

Freedom

Very often, the internal IT department is not interested in the eCommerce project as their main focus is maintaining core systems like ERP or CRM. In this case, the implementation of eCommerce can take a very long time. Also hosting implemented by the IT department, aimed at maintaining the ERP application will not work as an environment for an online applications. All of this will sabotage the work of the eCommerce Manager and the results of his work.

A good eCommerce Manager will expect the possibility of building his own team of IT competence. Ultimately, eCommerce departments often have their own strong IT teams, dedicated to online tasks. The same holds for marketing as this aspect also requires online dedicated resources. Restricting the Manager from the start, may cause the hinder the development of the project.

In the case of one of our customers, the entire eCommerce department was based at a different location. This helped them to hire the best people (they did not want to commute to work on the outskirts of the city to the headquarters) and gave a sense of greater freedom.

Another customer created a separate company for the eCommerce sector, which helped to further advance the eCommerce Manager to the Management Board of this company.

Summary

Summarizing, the search for people with successes among allied companies. Show your candidates a clear vision including the direct support of the Management Board, setting clear goals and the freedom in their execution.

Share your thoughts and experience with finding eCommerce Managers, or contact us for advice!

Being a salesperson is once again becoming popular, especially a B2B SaaS salesperson. It is cool to sell, again. We see it by the amount of people who need our services, but also by the amount of content and tools dedicated for those, who work in sales support.

Here at Divante, we have a Sales and Marketing department composed of over a dozen of people. I wanted to share with you some of our know-hows.

Eat that Frog

The immortal book written by Brian Tracy is an absolute basis for every sales rep’s work. Without internal motivation, you will not achieve much in this work.

Mark Twain said that if you eat a live frog every morning, then you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day :). Your frog is your greatest, most important task. The frog is also a task that may have the most beneficial influence on your life and  objective at the given moment.

The key to productivity is to make a habit of performing the most important tasks first thing in the morning. The first rule of eating frogs is: if there are two frogs, swallow the uglier one first – begin with the more difficult and important task.

Numerous studies performed on people who earn more and move up quicker proved, that such persons tend to be focused on action. They do not hesitate to perform their most important tasks and focus on them until they are done.

Restrictions

There is one big obstacle between your current position and your goals. Your task is to identify it. 80% of restrictions – factors that keep you from reaching your goals – come from the inside. They are inside you, in your character, habits, discipline, skills.

Recently, all our salespeople are encouraged to determine the area they want to work on themselves. My role is to directly support them to make this bottleneck wider. Sometimes it can be achieved with a language course, sometimes a certain skill needs to be improved (for instance the ability of networking or contract negotiation skills), sometimes a more complex action is required, such as a strategic advice on the direction of the development.

ReWork

We recommend a book called “ReWork” to every new employee at Divante. Our salespeople often work with big companies, so we started to prescribe “ReWork” as an antidote to corporate stupidity.

The most important conclusions that can be drawn from “ReWork” by a salesperson:

• Do not replace stupidity with hard work. Usually, working extra hours does not get you much. Instead, focus on the important clients and think how to help them. Working extra time and sleep deficiency will only reduce your creativity.
• At the beginning, ignore the details. Develop the axis of your offer and focus on getting your customer’s approval. Do not waste your time on details, until you are sure about your customer’s intention and the power of your offer.
• Decisions are temporary. Don’t know what to do? Make any decision and see what happens. The decision can always be changed.
• Productivity requires time for thought and a “comfort zone”. Do not disturb others at their work and look after your own concentration.
• Meetings are toxic. Avoid meetings. If you must – schedule the time, invite as few people as possible, prepare your agenda and, at the end, specify what needs to be done, who will do it and when it should be done.
• Own your bad news – openly confess your blunders to the customer, apologize honestly and act quickly. Quick reaction changes everything.

Inbox Zero

Each sales rep receives lots of time consuming emails. Over the years, I have developed an effective system that helps you manage your inbox.

I check my email account cyclically, every 30-60 minutes.

I go through all messages in my Inbox, starting from the most recent one – sometimes I find emails related to the same issue below, but they are no longer valid, because the last message closed the subject.

To each message I apply the same simple set of rules:

• If the reply takes several minutes – I do it immediately and archive the message. If the subject is important, before I archive the email, I flag it with a proper label (I have the following labels: sales, educational, administrative, hr and that’s it). I also archive the message if I am in the CC field or if I only forward the email.
• If the reply takes more time – I move the message to the “!-Reply” folder.

Thanks to that, my Inbox is empty in 5 minutes.

The “!-Reply” folder usually contains less than 10 messages that require more time to reply. During holidays or travels this amount may reach 30-50, but I have never had more than 100 emails in there.

All messages can be found quickly, the important things are kept in one place, giving me the feeling of control over everything.

To-Do List

I have one To-Do list for everything. Having only one life, there is no sense to make a complicated division of To-Do lists. Roughly speaking, my list is organized in the following order – important and urgent things at the top with important and not urgent things below them. The rest of the list usually contains my private projects, such as “go to Copenhagen” or “buy the book X”. Tasks that are not important but urgent do not even get to my list, because usually I receive them in emails and handle them immediately when I review my Inbox.

I used to prepare my To-Do list with Notepad, but nowadays I use Evernote, because it makes it possible to make other notes as well. Additionally you can have it on multiple deceives so I have my To-Do list on the go and can add any important notes or To-Do’s whenever necessary.

I begin my day with the To-Do list. Later on, when I have some time, I do not think about what to do next, but I open my list and do the first thing available.

Once a week, I review my list to check if something does not linger there for too long. If so, I can move it up.

Browser

I spend about 80% of my working time using an internet browser, therefore I need to look after its ergonomics. My bookmark bar contains links to applications that I use.

I use plugins extensively, as well.

• Wappalyzer – shows me what kind of technology is used on a given website, very useful during sales talks.
• Send to Kindle – allows me to send any interesting text to my Kindle, to read afterwards
• Buffer – social media management software that makes it easier to publish posts and allows me to maintain a constant flow of content
• Feedly – an RSS channels reader – I have a plugin that automatically adds the RSS channel of the given blog to the reader
• Rapportive – sends ongoing LinkedIn invitations to people I write with
• Sidekick – provides useful information related to particular emails in Gmail and to each website I visit 

Sales Software 

At Divante, we also use specialized sales software, including:

• OroCRM
• LinkedIn Pro and LinkedIn Sales Navigator
• Yesware
• Various databases and specialized software supporting the processes of lead generation, base creation and sales automation

Check out this infographic to find out more about How We Work at Divante! Or contact us to find out more about what we do. 

eCommerce never sleeps! Another week has passed and a lot has happened since our last News segment. This week we’ve seen some more eCommerce progress, with SAP and Google launching new products. Also Electronic payments are in the headlines again with the W3C starting a ‘New Web Payment’ project.

Here are the news you can’t miss this week! Enjoy!

New SAP Tool Aims To Fuse Content and Community With eCommerce

SAP is currently working on a way to improve the customer experience on their eCommerce platform SAPhybris. They’ve introduced a new product called the SAP Jam Communities. The tool is aimed at creating a more coherent link between all of the content related to a product and the product itself. It essentially combines all the content from the company and the community to provide the customers with all the necessary information about products. Let’s see what SAP can come up with, but I’m loving the idea so far!

Check out the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/new-sap-product-aims-to-fuse-content-and-commerce/

Online giants work on gold standard for internet shopping

Digital Wallets are coming! Yes, you heard it right! The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has formed a New Web Payment working group which will – “focus on streamlining online check-out to ensure customers can recognize and use payment platforms across all retailers, websites and devices.” By this they aim to make the customer experience more consistent. Companies like Swift and Worldpay, Google and PayPal have joined into the project. Hopefully, will see the fruits of their work soon!

Check out the full story here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Online-giants-work-on-gold-standard-for-internet-shopping.html

Google woos retailers with Shopping Insights tool for more detailed product search data

Google has just launched a new ad product – Shopping Insights, the tool combines search and mapping data to help brink-and-mortar retailers identify shopping trends. You basically search a product by keyword and filter by location or device. Although eCommerce is booming 92% of goods are still sold in retail stores. Jonathan Alferness, VP of Product Management at Google said that “by better understanding user’s shopping intent online, retailers can make more informed local merchandising and marketing decisions for their stores.” Once again we see how internet giants are trying to innovate the commerce world!

Check out the full story here:  http://venturebeat.com/google-woos-retailers-with-shopping-insights-tool

Web-Shopping Deluge Boxes In Landlords

For the past two weeks we’ve seen a lot about online sales but also the changes in the delivery industry. We’ve seen a rapid development on new deliveries, for example same-day-deliveries. But that has a downside too. Landlords and apartment operators are overloaded with incoming packages. Due to an increase in apartment living and an increase in online shopping there is a pile, a pretty large pile, of packages with no good place to go. We have to said and see how the box situation will be solved.

Check out the full story here: http://www.wsj.com/package-gate-big-landlord-blocks-deliveries

Walmart Has a Strategic Advantage in Ecommerce Fulfillment

Walmart has opened another large-scale ecommerce fulfillment center earlier in October. The next-generation fulfillment center will be in Atlanta and is meant to allow for quicker and more cost efficient shipping. Walmart is creating a network of fulfillment centers around the U.S. to help boost online fulfillment. Once again we see how the eCommerce trend is shaping retail companies.

Check out the full story here: http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y15/m10/i21/

Stay tuned for more News next week! In the meantime check out the services we offer at Divante. 

Hi, Hey, Hello, Howdy! Welcome back to this weeks edition of eCommerce News. News this week feature Amazon… No surprise there, Chinese eCommerce, Revel Systems and more! If you’re reading the news for the first time you might want to check out the previous editions (1, 2, 3).  

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the news! :)

Bezos Leaps the Koch Brothers to Become Third-Richest Person in U.S.

The founder and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos has just become the 3rd richest man in the USA. He ranks only behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Amazon’s shares have surged above $600 in the past week. This just another indicator of Amazon’s immense growth and dominance over the last year. The eCommerce giant is just continuing to grow, and it’s starting to get scary at what rate. 

Check out the full story here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/bezos-leaps-to-third-richest-in-u-s-as-amazon

11 things Amazon shut down without you noticing

While we’re on the topic of Amazon, the retail giant has been getting involved in many different projects. Listing all the industries that Amazon is in would take a while, but you get the idea, they do a lot of different things! Well, how much do you really know about Amazon? Did you know about all these ventures that Amazon started and shut down? Well, I certainly didn’t. It’s interesting to see how Amazon is testing the waters with different ideas such as the Fire Phone (which failed). But did you know about Amazon Destinations, Music Importer, Test Drive or WebPay? Check out the article on The Verge to see a list of some of the project Amazon shut down recently. 

Check out the full story here: http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/25/amazon-shuts-down-a-lot-of-things 

The digital future of consumer-packaged-goods companies

Recently, McKinsey released a great article about the eCommerce future of customer-packaged-goods (CPG). If you are not familiar with the term, CPGs are consumable goods such as food, beverages, footwear, tobacco and cleaning products. The CPG industry hasn’t been investing as much in new technologies, with only a handful of companies front-running the industry in eCommerce. In the article McKinsey claim that the CPG companies are at a eCommerce tipping point. We have to wait and see if their theory is right.

Check out the full story here: http://www.mckinsey.com/the-digital-future-of-cpg

‘In China you have to use it’: How WeChat is powering a mobile commerce boom

You’ve probably heard of WeChat right? The messaging app that’s really big in China. Well, it’s not only a messaging app, WeChat is also eCommerce. WeChat allows users to hail cabs, buy tickets, book doctor appointments, customize and order your own Nike shoes, the list goes on and on. You get the idea, it does A LOT of stuff. With mobile comprising almost 50% of all eCommerce sales in China, and WeChat having over 600,000 monthly active users the company is bound to dominate mCommerce in China and maybe even worldwide. 

Check out the full story here:  http://digiday.com/brands/wechat-mobile-commerce/ 

Point-of-sale system Revel will now build branded mobile apps for merchants

Revel Systems, the point of sale system for iPads company will be launching branded mobile apps. The new app-building service will let merchants create mobile marketplaces. Through the apps, merchants will have deeper insights into their customers. Revel is one of few point-of-sale companies that provide mobile app services, this should put them ahead of their competition.

Check out the full story here: http://venturebeat.com/revel-systems-will-now-build-branded-mobile-apps

Check out our website for awesome eCommerce solutions or contact us at sales@divante.co for info! 

Recently, the multichannel commerce concept has been transformed into omnichannel. Omnichannel guarantees the consistency of the service in every channel – from the land-based stores, through WWW and mobile to call centers.  From the customer’s perspective, there is only a single, technology-enabled channel that brings together all touch-points.

Omnichannel has been a buzzword lately, and we here at Divante won’t miss an opportunity to share our knowledge and expertise on the topic. We know that it is a matter of time before omnichannel will be a norm, it’s the future of retail. But like with all new trends, users must get accustomed to it.

This year Divante is teaming up with Cursor once again and participating in the 2nd edition of the Omnichannel Retailing Forum.

If you’re interested in omnichannel and happen to be in Warsaw on the 24th of November – great! Stop by the National Stadium for the Omnichannel Retailing Forum and tune in for some great speakers, including our own Tom Karwatka, CEO of Divante.

Tom will be talking about Marketing Automation in the Omnichannel Era, with insights into:

• Integrating and processing of multichannel data
• Omnichannel analytics
• Customer mobilization strategy

It’s not to late to register, what are you waiting for? Get your tickets and find out what’s happening in the omnichannel world! 

Divante will be starting 2016 strong with our presence at the Webwinkel Vakdagen, the biggest Dutch eCommerce exhibition. So far more than 200 companies have registered a stand at the event! Stand T36 is a must visit if you’re interested in eBusiness or if you’re looking for help with your eCommerce platform. 

The event takes place on the 20^th and 21^st of January in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The event will cover a wide range of topics including Big Data, mCommerce, omnichannel, payment solutions, logistics and many more. With great speakers sharing their stories and insights about all these different topics. 

Divante will be represented by Laslo van den Broek, who will be presenting about Omnichannel and Marketing Automation for eCommerce.

If you are interested in finding out how implementing an Omnichannel strategy can lead your business to success, then be sure to check out his presentation on Thursday, the 21^st at 12:00. Laslo will also share his insights on the future of B2B, the ROPO effect, CRM, marketing automation and lead nurturing. It’s a ‘Can’t Miss’ presentation if you are a business minded person looking for new opportunities for your company. 

We’re extremely excited to be present at the event! Laslo will be accompanied by a great team of eCommerce experts, sales reps and marketers. It’s an unique opportunity to come meet us and talk about eCommerce. More importantly, it’s an opportunity for us to meet You! We’re looking forward to learning about your company and exchanging  stories and experiences. Make sure you sign up and give us a shout if you’re interested in meeting up!

Webwinkel Vakdagen, being the largest eCommerce exhibition in the Beneulx area, is a great place to grow your network, increase brand awareness and of course generate leads. So be sure not to miss out!

See you all there!

Although B2C eCommece seems to be the more discussed topic, it shouldn’t overshadow the importance of B2B commerce. B2B generates more revenue globally, and significantly more B2B sites are being created. So why haven’t more B2B companies picked up on the trend? Well, one big issue is that many of the decision makers in B2B companies don’t entirely understand eCommerce, and people often are scared to try something they don’t understand.

This is where we come in, we’ve worked with multiple B2B companies in the past years analyzing their successes and failures. We’ve come to multiple conclusions about B2B commerce which we utilized in helping our B2B clients become successful.

“The B2B eCommerce market is estimated to be worth $6.7 Trillion by 2020″ – Forbes

Helping companies understand eCommerce is what we do. That’s why we used our analysis and experience with B2B companies to create a report that covers the most critical B2B success factors. Here are some key findings.

• 50% of B2B buyers begin their purchases by browsing for offers online. Direct phone contact with the company is now the 4th most popular way to make the first contact and to begin a B2B purchase process. Moreover, such an online search is performed by as much as 90% of all buyers.
• In the case of B2B sector, the integration process may turn out to be the most important cost generator.
• Companies that use lead nurturing methods increase their sales conversion rate by 50% on average.
• In the case of a large-scale system, a documentation is a must. Without it, such actions like hiring and introducing a new programmer would take a disproportionate amount of time.
• In order to attract the users, the platform has to facilitate their professional obligations. Price is the first and most basic matter. Individual adjustment is a must. Does it make any sense to use an online solution if we cannot see the costs of our purchase in real time? If the customers are forced to calculate the price on their own, they will simply give up. That is why it is so important to pay much attention to the integration of ERP/CRM systems during an eCommerce implementation process.

Below is a preview of the B2B Report – to get the full report contact us!

B2B eCommerce systems are often a really complicated piece of software. Many stakeholders, complicated integrations between systems and non-standard features – it’s not obvious how to manage development effectively. In the article below, I’ve put together things to consider – based on our experience with B2B projects, using Magento as a base platform.

Continuous Delivery

To maintain effective development of a project we create a dedicated team working in SCRUM Methodology. This gives us the control and quality we need. Iterative in nature, it requires a continuous feedback from the users. That’s why we can react quickly and adjust the project to our Client’s needs. Our SCRUM Team usually consists from 3 to 10 people (depending on a project) plus a Product Owner from Client’s side.

To ensure continuous delivery, we automate the tests and deployment. We use Ansible and Phing for this. This is how we achieve deployment time under 5 min.

Integrations

Integrations are one of the most difficult problems in eCommerce development. We usually have to integrate lots of systems. An interesting issue is creating failbacks for communication problems. So, if one of the systems is down we are able to operate without breaks, and the user doesn’t see any problems. Often we use a dedicated software as a buffer layer.

Remember – in the cases like this one, all the dedicated functions are implemented as extra Magento modules. That way, you are still able to update your Magento.

SLA

Every downtime of the system is a large, measurable loss. We have to be able to react under 1 hour and prepare a workaround for the problem. To maintain such high SLA, Divante uses the “Divante S.W.A.T.” – a specially formed unit of the most experienced developers and administrators working 24/7.

The membership is optional but to sign up every member has to pass the official exam. To provide constant motivation we sign agreements with every new member. Members get special bonuses added to monthly salary.
The group responsibility is applied here, like in the army. If SLA is violated on any website, nobody gets their bonus.
SLA is monitored and feedback is given to the group in weekly and monthly periods. That is how we achieve SLA higher than 99.9%.

Data-Driven Customer Experience

We use data on a large scale to improve User Experience for B2B clients. In Google Analytics, you will find lots of insights to improve your eCommerce too.

To inspire you – TIM Case Study example:

• 90% of customers add products to the cart from the product page,
• 97% of customers prefer one specific view of product list – ‘miniatures’,
• 23% of customers use the ‘next / prev product function’ on the product page.

If you want to know more about developing a Magento-based B2B eCommerce, read our Case Study at TIM SA – it describes a complete process and a Polish electro-technical goods’ distributor that decided for a complete transformation – from offline to online. It was a good decision – it increases its revenue to 130 mln EUR after three years of being online.

You can also meet us on Meet Magento Netherlands 2016 – we will tell a little about this project, qualified for the finals of Imagine Excellence Awards for The Best B2B User Experience.

If eCommerce solutions consisted of only one system, life of eCommerce owners and managers would be like a dream. But the IT landscape has evolved into a highly fragmented ecosystem consisting of numerous structures.

The main goal of an integrated solution is to increase your revenue potential and reduce your operating costs. To achieve the desired objective – increasing customer loyalty and influencing purchase decisions – you don’t only need to implement systems but also integrate them with each other. Simply put, integrations are a positive investment in what matters most, the Customer Experience.

Don’t miss out on opportunities

On the other hand, integrations are difficult and often unnecessarily expensive. The biggest challenge is to integrate already functioning systems with new ones. If the system is integrated improperly, clients may lose many possibilities:

• 71% of customers would like to see the current inventory on the website – including the stationary points. Unfortunately, only 32% of stores provide such information,
• 50% of customers would like to be able to order online – receive offline; less than a third of the stores offer a simplified model of Click & Collect (order online, pick up at the store). Even these stores offer it in the simplest form – shipped from the central warehouse, which doesn’t allow a super fast order processing (which is the highest value of C&C),
• 13% of customers say they will not be able to store offline if they can’t check the online availability of goods.

Why ESB?

According to the standard approach, we must integrate almost every system with every other. ERP system needs to be notified about current orders from the online shop, B2B system, and send the order statuses. These orders must appear in a CRM system and, in case of modification, you need to create an integration that allows sending notifications in return.

It isn’t surprising that as a result, we have a very dense network, as with any new system the number of connections grows exponentially.

In such cases, it’s worth considering to implement an Enterprise Service Bus. It is a software architecture model used for designing and implementing communication between mutually interacting software applications. Very simply, this mechanism enables format unification of the data that is being exchanged between systems and rerouting communication. For example, you only need to send the order information to one central point and the service bus spreads this messages to all the systems.

How it works?

Divante’s Enterprise Service Bus consists of four components:

• API – module based on the description of the data creates a generic API that is used to
  send data to the bus. The module implements the authentication of the sender and carries out basic validation of the data structure.
• Queue – message received by the API is placed in a queue where it waits for free resources. This can control a number of messages which fall into individual systems.
• Workers – each queue is supported by the so-called workers. These are processes which catch the message from the queue and send it to the appropriate systems. In case of an unsuccessful action on the side of the external system, there may be one of the following responses: an attempt resend, an attempt to send a message elsewhere, destroy the message, or postpone the message to serve later.
• Flows – this module allows you to configure the message flow through the system. It provides a simple way to determine how the message should be adopted, with which structure, which workers should handle it, and what their logic should be.

Even though it might sound a bit complicated, the data bus simplifies the integrations. Thanks to this approach, the number of integrations grow linearly, not exponentially. What’s more, adding a new system is very simple – all you need to do is to integrate its tail end.

And it means that after implementing the bus, you can develop your platform faster. What’s more, the platform won’t limit your business goals – integrating new modules is now (almost) as easy as a walk in a park.

Read also: Why should you upgrade Magento 1.x to Magento 2.0?

Since I can remember it was always difficult to convince customers to the advantages of Magento Enterprise. It wasn’t surprising. Versions of both platforms don’t differ too much and only the largest customers want to pay for the extra sense of security.

A lot has been changed since we have Magento 2.0. In this case, the Enterprise Edition brings some extra values and shortens the development time. As a result, the sellers and the customers take more interest in it.

To help you better understand the main differences, we have put together below the main values offered by Magento Enterprise 2.0:

Marketing

• Customer Segmentation, Targeted Promotions & Merchandising
• Customer Attribute Management
• Visual Merchandizer
• Dynamic Rule-Based Product Relations
• Solr Search
• Automated Email Marketing Reminder
• Content Management System
• Google Tag Manager

Customer Support

• Category View and Purchase Permissions per Customer Group (Limited Catalog Access)
• Return Management Authorization (RMA)
• Advanced Permissions
• Support Tool
• Configurable Order Tracking Widget

Loyalty

• Rewards Points
• Store Credits
• Multiple Wish Lists
• Gift Registry
• Gifting Options
• Private Sales

Scalability

• Multiple Master Servers
• Multiple Slave Databases
• MySQL Cluster Support
• Job Queue Mechanism
• Deferred Stock Updates
• Scalable Backend Product Management
• Support for Alternate Media Storage – CDN and Database
• Order Archiving

Processes & Security

• Scheduled Import/Export Functionality
• Logging of Administrator Actions
• Strong Data Encryption, Hashing and Key Management
• Additional Payment Gateways

Mobile

• Magento Mobile Software Development Kit (SDK)

Additionally, Magento Enterprise offers the opportunity to buy the OMS (Order Management System) and POS module.

Today’s consumers are used to being online all the time, engaged in several different channels at once – like watching TV while browsing Facebook on their mobile. That’s why they expect a coherent and comprehensive experience while shopping. You may be surprised how many channels they use in one path to purchase – searching their products offline, ordering online and returning to a stationary shop. Below there is a table showing how many users connect these two main selling channels (online and offline) in one path:

Data from ROPO SOPO report by Divante. Percentage share of buyers who completed the process in an ROPO or SOPO model and the sum of all buyers who combined online&offline.

What you may know

This seamless shopping experience is called omnichannel retailing. It is a consumer-centric approach and it’s considered to evolve. Retailers are in a transitional time where the speed of implementation can be differentiating and brand-building or slow response can be frustrating and damaging. Customers expect omnichannel retailing and become impatient waiting for it to become reality.

It seems to be ease as pie, yet everybody repeats: customers’ needs first. The reality is different:

• 70% of customers would like to check the availability of products on the website (also the availability in stationary shops) while only 35% of shops delivers this information in every selling channel. What’s more – 13% of customers declare, that won’t go to the stationary shops if they can’t check the availability online – to not go in vain.
• 50% of customers would like to order products online and collect them offline. Less than one-third of shops offers the simplified Click&Collect model.

What you don’t know

Though it seems to be true, a great number of touchpoints and adding new features aren’t the base of omnichannel. Surprised? However, it may seem that more points of touch mean better omnichannel experience, it doesn’t. The core is integrations between included systems.

Integrations ensure real-time experience and enable scalability of a business model. They must be able to share data and operate in a unified manner in response to a set of common business requests. According to the standard approach, we must integrate almost every system with every other. ERP system needs to be notified about current orders from the online shop, B2B system, and send the order statuses. These orders must appear in a CRM system and, in case of modification, you need to create an integration that allows sending notifications in return.

It isn’t surprising that as a result, we have a very dense network, as with any new system the number of connections grows exponentially. How to overcome it? Implement an Enterprise Service Bus – a software architecture model used for designing and implementing communication between mutually interacting software applications. It enables format unification of the data that is being exchanged between systems and rerouting communication. For example, you only need to send the order information to one central point and the service bus spreads this messages to all the systems.

Why you need ESB

What are the main advantages of this solution? Having an ESB module in your infrastructure, you can easily integrate any new system. In the same time, you reduce time and costs of such an integration – the number of integrations grows linearly, not exponentially.

As a result, the platform stops limiting your business goals – adding a new system won’t be a nightmare anymore.

If you want to know more about ESB or check the possibility of implementing an ESB into your project, contact us!

Read also: Magento 2 Enterprise vs. Community Edition – where’s the difference?

Recently, Tom has written a great blog post about Magento Community vs. Enterprise differences. I agree with it in 100%.

But I’ll tell you what, today at Magento Live UK 2016 I’ve heard one – smashing argument about Enterprise Edition. It was something like: “Choose it because current version isn’t our final word”.

Paying license fee you are getting access to all new updates free of charge. As with Magento 1, the development roadmap wasn’t somehow unclear and sometimes… surprising – it works completely different in Magento 2.1.

I think it’s one of the reasons why Magento will finally defeat opponents like Hybris. Later this week version 2.1 will be available – as was introduced on Magento Imagine, no month earlier or later. They started keeping to the schedule but what’s most important they started adding really cool features to each edition.

New version not only comes with fixes to all discovered critical issues but also gives you support for Elastic Search, introduces improved Code Migration Tool (to Migrate M1 modules to M2), new PayPal features (like saved credit cards and context Checkout).

With 2.2 there are planned B2B features. I can say that Magento is now one of the fastest (if not the fastest) developing eCommerce platforms. If you combine this core development with new tools added by technology partners you get everything needed even for complex stores.

Events like Magento Live UK shows how active Magento partners  are. I’ve spoken with providers like Bronto, Nosto, Dotmailer, eBizmart POS, Fastly.com… All tools proven by Magento Engineers. The community is as active as never before and Magento team is constantly working to help partners develop professional, enterprise-grade tools. It’s hard to find such active software eco-system in eCommerce

Why choose Enterprise? Because current version is in small part what you will get in the next 12 months.

For me, personally Magento Live UK 2016 was all about Magento 2.0 and why you should stop using 1.x versions, but there was also a lot of talk about the future of technology and online sales. Omnichannel was also big word as always. Apart from that, there are three things that I remember the most:

Era of robots and voice searches

Steve Yankovich (CPO, Magento Commerce) during his opening presentation told that nowadays we have more and more screens i.e. in cars, airplanes, cabs and this number is going to grow. More and more screen means more and more opportunities to sale your products to the potential clients. That is why seamless shopping experience, as well as integrations between all sales channels are so important. The answer “why” is really simple in this case – because clients expect it.
Steve also mentioned that technology is everywhere and in everything we do we expect to use it. That is why in his opinion the next big things that will revolutionize online sales and our lives in general will be robots (over here he showed the interesting case of Moley Robotic Kitchen, a fully functional kitchen robot which is able to make spaghetti – www.moley.com) and voice search queries. The first one will probably change the world of warehouse management and the second one will change the way we use the Internet and do online shopping.

How not to overpay for your eCommerce platform

Our CTO wrote that later this week Magento 2.1 will be released, but ML UK was still most about M2. David Deppner (VP of Information Technology & eCommerce, ClearBags.com) during his presentation about migration from M1.x to M2 said very clearly when you should switch to M2:
“NOW!”. Because “The Longer You Support Magento 1, the More You Will Pay In Development Costs, As Not All Work Can Be Migrated to Magento 2”.
He also answered the question we often hear at Divante “How much will the development cost?” and according to him it is an impossible question because there are too many unknowns and every project is different. That is why in his opinion “Rough estimates are the best” and “Fixed quotes will always be overpriced”.

Don’t divide B2C and B2B buyers expectations

B2B eCommerce was also mentioned few times and the biggest advice to B2B business owners made by Mark Selby (eCommerce Director of MacFarlane Packaging) was that they must start selling online as soon as possible because “Monday morning B2B user was a B2C user Sunday afternoon and he expects the same experience buying his jeans and building materials for his company”. Basing on the B2C best practices you should build your B2B website and customer experience as well – to meet your customer demands.

Read also: Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition and why I’m excited about it?

It seems that generally everyone knows how to implement B2B eCommerce systems. We have over 8 years of experience on this market and we have seen how popular advice and assumptions led many companies astray. Below we have compiled the most common myths, often repeated by IT companies – which are false (at least partially).

Collect the requirements of your business

Gathering business requirements from all departments of the company seems like a good idea. Unfortunately, these people usually don’t know what their customers really need. Thus, they submit any information that comes to mind. About 40% of briefs that are conducted by Divante have contradictory, mutually exclusive requirements. Meanwhile, B2B customers already use online shopping and you can start from proposing them a system that will allow them to order in a familiar way. Start with the implementation of features known from B2C systems. Customers would voluntarily submit their requirements, which in turn you can implement to your system.

Gather customer needs

Asking customers is of course important, but their actions are much more important than their declarations. By asking, you won’t learn whether customers will actually use the system. If you start a project by asking customers about their opinion, you may get stuck on a never-ending design process. It will make the implementation longer and more complicated, increasing the risk of failure. The best solution is to run a ready-made, proven solution and listen carefully to the needs of customers. You can use tools such as online surveys, a/b tests, livechat, user tests. All of them will show you how real customers are using the system and what their needs are. Think about the reversed order – first run, then examine, develop and optimize.

Outsource IT

Typically, B2B companies are not IT companies. They believe that IT is not their core competence, so they to outsource it. However, in our experience all the most successful in B2B eCommerce develop their IT skills. Lack of IT competence disables your long-term planning, utilizing the full potential of technology and synergy. Outsourcing will allow you to create and run the application faster, but need to develop your competence at the same time. Therefore, the choice of Open Source software may be the best option. The first version of the application is built by an external contractor, bringing its know-how and transferring it to your organization. Unfortunately, it is impossible to realize such model with SaaS software, thus it’s not a good choice for companies seriously thinking about B2B eCommerce.

Read also: Why do you choose your eCommerce software wrong?

It is quite simple: time is money. Sometimes B2B eCommerce owners don’t even realize, how much time of their clients they can save implementing the appropriate features in their online store. And saving the clients’ time is saving their money – if you take care of them, they will take care of your sales increase.

Basing on the projects we had a pleasure to work on, we chose and described five of these features:

Company accounts with roles and rights

This feature allows clients to create subaccounts with limited rights regarding orders, documents, data, and payments. As a result, there is some kind of hierarchical structure created, that can fasten the company processes. With this functionality, other employees can have access to the orders history or other necessary data they need. What’s more, the client can use the option of accepting orders – and verifies them before placing. It means that they can save a lot of time delegating some of the responsibilities to low-level employees.

Multiple carts

Imagine the situation – you want to order 200 heaters to montage in a new building. You already knew that you don’t have enough space to store it. Therefore, you’d like to get the first 100 now and the second part in two weeks from now. If an eCommerce store doesn’t have the functionality of multiple carts, you have to order it twice or contact the shop. Having multiple carts you can split your order and choose different dates of delivery. What’s more your customers can place scheduled orders – for example, 10,000 screws, delivered every month for one year. Multiple carts mean also the possibility of grouping products lists, and for one products list – different payment types and places of delivery.

End-customer offers

This module enables clients to create special offers for their end-customers. Having this feature implemented, you provide your customers with a strong weapon. Now, their sales reps can create dedicated offers basing on the relations they have with their end-customers. The customized offer form allows for adding custom products, margin, calculating profit, and the information about montage. The orders are kept in separate carts and then processed automatically – there’s no need to spend more time on these operations.

Credit balance

Basing on a signed contract, a customer can have a credit assigned to his account. It is an even more important feature in the world of omnichannel. These data are also available in case of using a credit by a customer in another sales channels – all credit information are synchronized with external systems. Additionally, all the data are available in your account, so you can check them every time you want. No unnecessary calls or email communication. It’s convenient, isn’t it? What’s more, it increases the customer experience of your e-shop.

Change Cart to Inquiry List

This feature is a must in today’s B2B world. Your clients can register, view the products and add it to the product cart. Then they can change their shopping cart to inquiry list and send it to you to negotiate prize. This helps avoid long calls and littered email boxes.

Read also: Why do eCommerces go bankrupt?

We live in the era of omnichannel – our customers require not only a broad offer but also a comprehensive customer experience in all sales channels. To meet their requirements you need to resign from traditional fulfillment system and change your approach to warehouse management.

The simple truth is that your customers are not interested how big is your warehouse, how complicated is your system architecture or how many sales channels you have. They just want to get what they want, whenever and wherever they want. They expect fast and cheap delivery, free returns and order accuracy.

Building this whole structure you often forget about the roots – efficient warehouse managements. For many years, consumers products have been distributed to stores in bulk. Encompassing receiving, putaway/storage, picking, transport through the distribution center, sortation, value-added services, packing, and shipping – sounds a bit complicated, doesn’t it? But it’s the reality of traditional fulfillment systems functioning in many eCommerces.

Now, we all can feel a wind of changes. From the moment the online order is placed to when it’ picked, packed and shipped, every step must be handled efficiently and cost effectively. Simply delivering the goods is no longer an adequate mission for the fulfillment center—customer satisfaction has to be a critical priority.

Imagine that your customer is ordering a product from your online store and you don’t have this product in your warehouse. If you manage your stocks in a traditional way, there’s a huge possibility that you won’t be able to send it immediately – you need to wait for a delivery from your supplier. Maybe you even have this product in one of your stationary shops but you need to send it to your central warehouse first. One way or another your client has to wait longer for a product they need. It’s a great inconvenience – we’re living in the world when delivery longer than 48 hours is considered as too long.

I bet you thought that maybe a bigger warehouse would solve this problem.The truth is you don’t need a big warehouse to process a lot of orders. In most cases, you don’t need any warehouse at all. At a certain scale of operation, it’s even impossible to have all products in your warehouse. All you need to do is to implement an efficient Order Management System.

Why should you do this?

You probably have a couple of stationary shop in different locations. What’s more you’re obviously already paying for them. Why not to use them in different way? Have you ever thought about stationary points as a system of mini-warehouses? No additional costs, fast delivery and thousands of satisfied customers.

It’s impossible you may say. But it’s even easier than you thought. All you need to do is to implement a system that helps you to manage the stock of your online and stationary shops.

Let’s get back to our example – our customer has ordered a product that it’s not stored in your central warehouse. The system looks for a shop with this product in storage, what’s more, chooses the nearest shop for your customer location. Then, the product is sent directly to the customer. You save time, money and can manage your warehouse in a better way.

Additionally, it’s your main advantage that helps you compete with big players on the market. For example – Amazon – the company doesn’t have small warehouses in the center of big cities. So you can easily beat them in this field – this kind of system gives you a real weapon to fight them.

Sounds a bit like a story about the Holy Grail of warehouse management efficiency, but it’s the reality of innovative eCommerce businesses.

Want to know about warehouse management systems? Just drop us a message!

How to increase the customer experience in your online store? One of the ways is to implement some great B2B features – to make the shopping process even more simple, quick and convenient. Below we created a list of these functionalities – check if you’ve already had them in your eCommerce.

Online catalogue with a search engine

Make sure that your clients find whatever they’re looking for. It’s a good idea to implement a mechanism of suggested searches. It’s a tiny change that can bring a big effect on conversion rates. How about a search engine that finds a product basing on the SKU number? Your clients could create their products list easily and quickly.

Complaints and returns module

Simplify the complaint and return process with a module connected to clients’ order list. This feature allows you to manage these processes more efficiently and your clients get an access to the statuses of these processes and can check them anytime.

Client account – order status and summary

It’s good to have everything in one place, isn’t it? And it’s the same with the client’s order. Making the statuses and summary visible for your users can not only increase your sales rates (because it’s more convenient for the customers to manage the orders) but also reduce the number of unnecessary calls.

Client account – finance statuses

Finance documents, payments, invoices, finance rating and list of transactions – these data are crucial for your client. It’s a good idea to collect them in one place, for example on a dedicated page of the client’s panel. Your customers will be happy if they can check their invoices even in the middle of the night.

End-user offers

Thanks to this feature your clients’ sales reps can easily create a dedicated offer for their customers. Implementing the possibility of creating end-user offers you provide your customers with a great tool simplifying their work.

Subaccounts

Your clients can create separate accounts with limited rights – for their employees. The limitation regards data and documents access and orders (authorisation). This hierarchical structure helps save your clients time.

Dedicated shipping and payments

No more, no less – you can adjust shipment and way of payment depending on a client (and the products they bought). From client’s panel, you can manage the conditions that must be satisfied to use a particular way of shipment or payment.

Trade credits

B2B customers got used to the particular ways of payment. Make sure that you implemented a module enabling to choose trade credit to pay for the order.

Read also: 5 B2B features you forget to implement and lose time (and money)