Recommended reports
How to Run a Successful E-commerce ITT
Econsultancy’s How to Run a Successful E-commerce ITT best practice guide is absolutely essential reading for organizations considering a new e-commerce platform or upgrading their existing systems. The comprehensive 95-page report is aimed at helping in-company e-commerce managers to understand the skills and techniques required to manage the Invitation to Tender process in a professional and expedient manner.
E-commerce: A Beginner's Guide
The E-commerce Beginner's Guide is a starting point for those who want to learn more about e-commerce and understand how it can make a difference for their business. It is free to Bronze members and higher.
Director at Red 360 Limited
25 January 2006 14:14pm
Does anyone have any suggestions about how you can evaluate potential suppliers for new web design/development projects? I need to get an e-commerce site built from scratch and being a bit of a novice to this I am wondering if there are any tricks to identifying the right company/companies to work with? There are obviously a lot of web development companies claiming to be the best but how do I pick a good one? If anyone has any guidance on this subject it would be much appreciated.
Business Development Director at Iconography
25 January 2006 17:04pm
Track record, case studies and client testimonials. Invite three companies to discuss the project and develop a consistent approach to how you conduct each meeting.
Be clear in terms of how you want them to structure a proposal and devise a score card for evaluating the responses to score and weight the proposals accurately.
Retired at Retired
25 January 2006 18:41pm
Don't just go on price - see my little cautionary tale ot earlier today.
The thing with an e-commerce site is that the devil and most of your budget is in the detail. You can get an e-commerce package for $50 that will do 95% of what you want. Catalogue, shopping cart, credit card payment, no problem. And you can get a half-decent techie who will install it for a few hundred pounds.
The rest of your budget (between £8k and £50k and the rest) is in the remaining 5%.. So don't expect to go out to tender with a two-page brief and get sensible responses.
There is a lot to think about,
The list is endless. We are working with a client now who has two suppliers (currently) and both suppliers are shipping to a company who will pack and dispatch orders. So the suppliers need a daily picking list and the shipping company needs to be able to print out dispatch notes corresponding exactly to the good that are being sent to them that day. The $50 package won't do that.
On the other hand I recently talked to a very nice person who has a site based on a $50 package (literally) put in by a fairly cheap freelancer. She didn't have too much money so that worked fine. Now the concept has been proven she is looking for something better.
So the supplier you need depends on where you are and what you want. If you have millions of some VC's money and a complex business model then:
On the other hand if you have a bright idea but not much money then look for a cheap ecommerce package and someone to set it up for you. If it is a success you can move forward. You still want to see what the person has done before and talk to some clients.
If you have a bright idea, a complex business model but not much money maybe you will be looking for a joint venture with the development company. We have a few of those which work pretty well (we think). So far I have only had one person who used the JV model to prove the concept then dumped us when it did! In that case your developer is going to be small to mid-sized and prepared to take a punt.
Good Luck
Bob
http://www.textor.com
MD at Boo Marketing
26 January 2006 07:53am
I run a course on developing a web brief and choosing a web development company. I would recommend you visit sites you like the look of and email the site owner(s) for details, visit web developers sites and contact the case study site owners on their sites, speak to customers and suppliers and get feedback on their web developers: what you should be asking is how long it took, how well they communicated during the site build, were they proactive in offering ideas and solutions, what budget the site owner spent, how easy is the site to use, did they offer any project management advice and steer.
I am an internationally published academic and my Masters research found that SME's were regressing in their e-business knowledge and it was due to the poor briefing and communications at the onset and during the site build. It's important to provide a good brief, what the business is about, what it wants to achieve, what it's typical customer is like, what's their technical level/ability, give them the URL of competitors sites, do a competitor analysis of competitor sites and pick out what you like/dislike about them, do the same with sites you like the look of. Think about how your company wants to progress in medium/long term and how this will impact on the site content. Make sure you get a content management system as this gives you control of amending the site text in the future. Decide who is going to be responsible within the company for keeping the site up to date and checking for problems. When you've established your brief put it in writing - and also confirm in writing any changes/amendments on your or the developers part during the site build. This means that you have an audit trail of what was requested, what the developer proposed, and any subsequent discussions/amendments and agreements. I found that there was a poor level of information out in the field for business about deciding what a site should or could do for a business and the poor briefing and communcations process was a joint problem - many businesses did not prepare relevant and useful information for developers to work from, and many developers did not have a formal briefing process to provide a guide to clients. Using all this knowledge - I am confident you will find a suitable developer and work well with them.
Director at Digivate
26 January 2006 10:48am
I would second all the other replies to this post. Getting the 5% right requires e-commerce experience. I have seen many badly done e-commerce sites by well established generalist agencies; you'll only get value from an agency with a track record.
Lysander Meath Baker
lysander.meathbaker@digivate.com
On 14:14:06 25 January 2006 WillHumphries wrote:
Director at Software Testing Club
27 January 2006 01:23am
It's important to consider the package as a whole from start to finish, and ongoing support.
In general, it's not just about delivering code, aspects to consider are:
-development
-design
-Usability
-accessibility
-SEO
-emarketing
-QA & Testing
-ongoing support
Documentation is key! It only helps with all those sticky communication issues.
What are their processes like? How do you know you can expect a quality product?
Remember you get what you pay for, cheap options will only cost you more in the long run.
Regards,
Rosie Sherry
http://www.drivenqa.com
On 14:14:06 25 January 2006 WillHumphries wrote: