The Cornerstone to eCommerce Project Succes
Jul 1st, 2009 by admin
This post is a recap of todays webinar Requirements Diligence: The Cornerstone to eCommerce Project Succes, presented by Bernardine Wu of FitForCommerce, dubbed the eHarmony of eCommerce. FitForCommerce is a consultancy founded to help online businesses work through ecommerce strategy, requirements/RFP, vendor selection, ecommerce marketing and implementation coaching.
Picture of Requirements Diligence: The Cornerstone to eCommerce Project Succes [source:getelastic.com]
FitForCommerce has also recently launched FitBase, the first ecommerce market knowledge base and community. Bernardine is offering friends of Elastic Path (thats you) a 10% discount off your FitBase subscription using the promo code EPWEB10.
If you were choosing a stock or career, youd do your homework, right? Ditto for ecommerce.
No one will argue the better you plan, the better your build, test, launch and support phases will go. And planning is really an equation of Requirements + Use Cases + Workflow + Creative Design + Timeline:
Define success. Spell out your desired, measurable objectives. Reinforce brand? Improve customer experience? Reduce costs? Increase profit margins? Increase conversion rates? Increase sales? Gain market share? Gain back market share? Know and agree (amongst stakeholders) why are you changing/re-designing/re-platforming Current site is out-dated? Inflexible? Needs better features or customer experience? New branding / imaging / product line strategy? Adding new businesses or product lines? Going global?
Specifying why youre actually making these changes is important in knowing whats going to drive these requirements.
Define who are you designing it for Who are your customers and what do they want? Why do they come back? Are there different messages for different audiences? Primary and secondary? Align your organization to support the objectives Who are the stake-holders vs. decision-makers? Who is going to do the work? Who is going to review the work? Do you have enough of the right expertise or resources in-house? Right expertise: Technical, e-marketing, e-merchandising, creative design, IA/content design, customer support, fulfillment, etc. Are external or on-demand resources available? Have you allocated enough time? Are there conflicting projects or objectives? Assign and allocate the project team Is everyone clear on roles and responsibilities, time commitments? Who is the project lead and do they have the right authority and accountability? Do you need to look outside your organization to fill resource gaps? (We dont always have all the talent/resources in-house).
Dont forget to document it and socialize it. Write things down and document what you agree upon, so that everyone clearly understands expectations and deliverables.
Socializing needs to happen to get buy in from folks that have to live with it, implement it or use it. Have more discussions about it, circulate a memo/diagram, do an in-house training/webinar on it, etc.
Research Best Practices at the feature/function level Research the industry Network with peers to find out what worked and didnt work for them Reach out to experts in the field including consultants and providers Read whitepapers, research reports, forums, blogs Be careful of analysis paralysis Play with other great sites Shop competitor (same products OR same demographic target) and non-competitor sites Experiment with leading edge and non-leading edge features
Dont just do things because theyre cool or other people are using them.
Use quantifiable market data and benchmark as much as you can FitBase E-tailing Group
Conduct competitive analysis See what you like and dont like Decide what you want to include and want to avoid Check competition in your category, but also mindshare or budget competition Think about whats needed to give you a competitive edge short-term and long-term
Budget competition: in this economy, youre not just competing against industry competitors, but against other goods and services the customer is considering. For example, apparel is competing with electronics, in a way.
Compare specific features to non-competitors, too, to understand what your customers expect What sites and features are setting a new bar? What capabilities or interactions are your customers being trained to expect? Compare use of key features
Review each and every potential feature/function There are 100s of features, functions, topics that an eCommerce manager must plan and execute around Consider requirements impact on all elements of running an eCommerce business including content management, promotions, back-end processing, analytics, reporting etc. Use surveys, feedback forms (from customers and other retailers, if possible) Treat everything like an investment decision Document your current capabilities Pinpoint what features or areas of the site or content drive sales (or, conversely, trigger abandonment or service calls) Dont assume they are obvious Review every page, data set, content Never assume your new site will have all the features and functionality you currently have, unless you plan or confirm that it will Limitations or Impact Factors Technical processes or limitations, such as integrations with legacy systems Budget considerations Organizational considerations, such as strong/weak skills
Metrics documents are good to have, its something you can hand to your vendor or in-house team that logs your average site traffic, peak times, etc. because you have to plan business processes around these factors.
Prioritization Know that you cant always get what you want when you want it Rate them Must Have = Cannot re-launch without it / Is a critical capability Should Have = Should not launch without it / Is important Nice to Have = Can launch without it / Try to include / Can be phased in Stack rank requirements top 40 in order
Ranking things always forces people to put things in order, whereas rating them is less clear. If you cant stack-rank, at least put them into blocks (most important 10, next important 10 etc).
Phasing And when do you need it by? What are your timelines? What drives your timelines? Is project phasing an option? Is some throw-away work acceptable?
Content management system: promotion flexibility, template changes, manage graphics, shipping options Merchandising tools – categories Auto merchandising Navigation/taxonomy Site search integration SEO unique meta/title tags Analytics integration and page tagging Cart/checkout functionality [source:getelastic.com]
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