Adobe Commerce

Operational Playbook
Created by: Scott Rigby
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Playbook Objective

The objective of this playbook is to get your businesses operationally ready to run a successful Commerce road map on Magento Commerce.

e-Commerce site. This will help you and your organisation as Commerce users derive maximum value
Day to day commerce operations and the successful management of their commerce
from your technology investments. Although we have seen many websites succeed, others have faltered
platform
due to a lack of internal investment in the businesses to ensure they are operationally ready to run an

e-Commerce site successfully.

This playbook should be read by:

This playbook is created for all industries and customers (B2C and B2B) to use as part of their day to day Chief Marketing Officer
commerce operations and the successful management of their commerce platform.
Head of Digital, Head of Strategy, Head of Marketing

This playbook will help to avoid some of the common areas we have identified as missing in less Head of Content, Head of UX, Content Production Lead, Content Strategist,
Content Producers, UX Designer
successful website management and delivery teams. The recommendations and best practices in this

playbook are ideally intended to be applied any industry and business in parallel to your technology Solution Architect, Head of Implementation, Lead Developer
solution, to ensure your business is best positioned to realise value from your investment and utilise the
Program Manager, Project Manager
platform end to end.
E-Commerce Manager, Business Analyst
The playbooks in this series use a common digital governance structure focusing on the key areas of

leadership, strategy, people, solution, product and process to deliver a robust approach to readying

your business whether you are deploying one new feature on your platform or planning a robust

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Part 1 Introduction Part 2 Leadership Part 3 Solution Part 4 Strategy Part 5 Process
Contents

About the playbook 5 Leadership Overview 15 SaaS 24 Commerce Strategy 34 Order Management 44
Process
About Adobe Magento 6 Goals 20 On-premise 25 Focus 36
Project Plan 45
What is e-commerce 7 Vision 21 Cloud vs On-premise 26 Content Strategy 37
Project Scope 46
Commerce Industries 9 Planning 22 Integrating with Third-Party 30 Maturity 39
Services Project Management 47
B2C vs B2B 11
Upgrades, Backups and 31 DACI model 49
Commerce Operations 13
Maintenace
Agile Scrum Methodology 50

Common Project 51
Workshops

Testing 53

Part 6 People Part 7 Product Part 8 Checklists

People 55 Order Management 74 Campaign Management 92 Maturity Checklist 108

Systems
Team Structure 58 Lead Generation 93 GoLive Checklists 109
Shipping and Fulfilment 77
Organisational Structure 59 Reporting and Dashboards 95 Performance Checklist 118
Payment Gateways 79
Project-Based 60 Customer Service 97
Organisational Structure Pricing 81
SEO 99
Culture 61 Product Images 82
Email Marketing 100 Part 09 Templates
Communication Processes 62 Checkout flows and 85
Personlisation 103
process Part 10 Acronyms
Communication Tools 63
Click and Collect 104
Dynamic Pricing 89
Team Communication 66
Management PWA 106
Roles and Responsibilities 67
Promotions 91
Resources 70

Adobe e-Commerce Operational Playbook Project Teams 72

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01.
Introduction
Within this section:

1. About the playbook

2. About Adobe Magento
3. What is e-commerce
Introduction
Advantages and Diisadvantages
Customer Challenges
4. Commerce Industries
5. Name Companies
6. B2C vs B2B
7. Commerce Operations

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About this playbook This document follows a structure that will help you understand
the key focus areas to drive maximum value from your investment
in Magento Commerce. This structure is based on the Deloitte
and Adobe Commerce Governance Framework, which creates
the appropriate business environment for digital operations and
transformations to succeed. It includes:

Leadership People

Executive buy-in and support for the successful Resources, expertise, and the appropriate team
management of a Commerce platform. structure to run Commerce Operations effectively.

Strategy Process

Clarity and alignment around key business Procedures, project management, and workflows
goals for evaluating digital performance and for managing a Commerce site effectively.
Commerce operations.
Product
Solution
General Commerce solutions, common
Hosting and infrastructure evaluation for integrations, and automations.
varying business and Commerce requirements.

The playbook is industry agnostic and created for all customers (B2C and B2B) to use as part of their day
to day commerce operations.

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Magento Commerce
• WYSIWYG page builder.
Magento is the leading platform for open commerce innovation. Magento Commerce.
Every year, Magento handles over $100 billion in gross
• Customer segmentation
merchandise volume. Magento Commerce gives customers the Magento Commerce can be hosted on-premise. So you host and
power to create unique and engaging shopping experiences, develop locally on your own server, or have the choice of your
• Customer Loyalty Tools, like Easy-to-redeem coupons.
out-of-the-box features, and the unlimited ability to customise, own Magento host. Alternatively, there is Magento Commerce
a flexible headless architecture, and seamless third-party Cloud, the cloud-hosted solution from Adobe. In the Solution
• Content staging and preview for Magento hosting.
integrations. section, we look deeper into the differences between hosted
(SaaS, on premise and Platform as a service hosting solutions.
• Visual merchandising.
There are two versions of the Magento platform:
Magento Commerce is a full-featured e-Commerce platform
Magento Open Source is the free version of Magento, previously that comes with additional features:
called Magento Community. You can download, customize, and
run the platform on your own server or Magento host of choice. • B2B functionality, like quoting, custom catalogs, and manage
buyer roles and permissions.
The majority of merchants use Magento Open Source because
of the low cost and open nature. For developers, it doesn’t • Magento BI dashboards, with Visualisation and custom report
really matter if he develops on Open Source or Commerce. But builder.
Commerce has more built-in features that can be used out of the
box. • Magento Chat (powered by dotdigital)

Magento Commerce: Magento Commerce is the paid version of • Advanced marketing tools.
Magento, previously known as Magento Enterprise. Being the
premium version, there are a lot of additional features from • Sense powered product recommendations.

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What is Here’s a quick summary of the types

of e-commerce businesses out there
• Individual brand website (one seller)

e-commerce
• Online retailers (select number of sellers)
according to each different category:
• Marketplaces (multiple sellers)
Here are the different e-commerce business models:
In the overlapping worlds of e-commerce, social selling and
digital marketplaces, the customer experience gives consumers a • Business-to-Business (B2B)
Advantages and Disadvantages
choice to engage in the channel they prefer, so making the right
E-commerce makes it possible for people to open the doors of
choice on how you engage and sell online has never been more • Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
their very own virtual stores. Selling online makes it easier for
paramount ‘E-commerce’ and ‘online shopping’ are often used
small, specialized stores and big brand outlets to reach a wide
interchangeably but at its core e-commerce is much broader • Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C)
audience. And, just like traditional businesses, e-commerce has
than this – it embodies a concept for doing business online,
its advantages and disadvantages.
incorporating a multitude of different services. • Consumer-to-Business (C2B)
Here are a few advantages and disadvantages of Commerce:
E-commerce is experiencing monumental growth. It went from Here are the different e-commerce revenue models:
being a 1.3 trillion-dollar industry in 2014 to a 3.5 trillion-dollar
Advantages:
industry in 2019. And experts predict that by 2023, it will reach • Dropshipping ­
more than 6.5 trillion, which means there is a tremendous
• E-commerce overhead is low in comparison to bricks and
opportunity for e-commerce brands to capitalise on conversion • Subscription
mortar
optimisation. The power of e-commerce should not be
underestimated as it continues to pervade everyday life and • Private labelling and manufacturing
• Online stores are open 24/7
present significant opportunities for small, medium, and large
businesses and online investors. • White labelling
• Purchasing is instant
Whether you’re just starting your e-commerce business, or • Wholesaling
• Personalisation and customised user experiences
you’ve been in the business for a while, you probably know that
it’s hard to be successful, which is why we have compiled this • Rent and loan
• Global customer reach potential
guide on how to run a successful e-commerce business.
Here are the different types of e-commerce website:
Disadvantages:

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• Competition online is fierce

• Shipping can be unpredictable

It is clear from the above, that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, which is why the
Commerce market, retailers and merchant revenues are growing expediently.

Customer Challenges
Here are some common e-Commerce challenges organisations encounter:

• You might use an outdated platform that makes visitors leave your site.

• Your site may be not responsive, forcing mobile visitors to head elsewhere.

• Your internal team might lack structure and skills to be able to effectively run a Commerce
platform.

• You might question whether your infrastructure is the right fit for your business

Customer expectations are rising and there are always new growth techniques to surge your
conversion rate. This playbook will look to outline and explain in more detail how to address some
of these customer challenges and successfully run an e-Commerce site to its full potential.

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Commerce Industries
Successful Manufacturer & Successful Technology Successful Retail Successful Healthcare Successful Media &
Distributor Customers Customers Customers Customers Entertainment Customers

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What is B2C and B2C

Simply, “B2B” stands for “business to business,” while “B2C” • Provide reviews and ratings • Live chats
means “business to consumer. In general, B2B businesses sell
products and services directly to other businesses. Or, more • High-resolution product images and videos • FAQs
specifically, they sell to the decision makers in any business. This
can include everything from manufacturing to consumer. • Featured products • After sales issues

This contrasts with business-to-consumer (B2C) models, which Homepage of B2B should include: • Reorder
sell products directly to individual customers, which are generally
purchased for personal use. This can include travel, clothing, cars • Product demonstration Customer Service for B2C:
and so much more.
• Product carousel • 24/7 customer service
B2B businesses need to focus on:
• Content for target audience • Post-sale returns
• Purchase Guides
Homepage for B2C should include: • Post-sale exchange
• Product details including images and videos
• Displaying promotions • Post-sale issues
• Product specific blog posts
• Product carousel • Availability
• Provide 24/7 customer support
• Simple checkout
• Provide case studies for reference
Customer Service for B2B:
B2C businesses need to focus on:
• 24/7 customer service

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Here is a summary of the differences between B2B and B2C:

Variable B2B B2C

Audience Businesses Individual consumers

Stakeholders involved in decision making Sales representative, managers Individual end consumer

Purchase Volume Bulk orders Small volume

Price Dynamic price changes as per the client, product quantity and/or Consistent pricing
payment timelines

Customer Service 24/7 support throughout the purchase process 24/7 support before and after purchase. Usually required sometimes

Product Detail Product images, videos, guide, case studies, demonstration Product videos, images, features, promotions

CTA Business oriented User oriented

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Commerce Operations

Commerce Operations is about centralising the back-end operations so that it Why is e-commerce operation strategy important?
works smarter, faster, and more efficient for an e-Commerce business to have
a successful operational strategy, it requires a strong IT infrastructure that is e-Commerce is based on direct-to-consumer strategy; hence it is essential that customers receive the best customer
capable to support the end-to-end e-Commerce operations from displaying experience for them to keep coming back. To do so:
products to inventory to checkout and shipping. e-Commerce operations are built
on several things such as a user-friendly storefront, variety of products, proper • The owner would need to start with understanding the products they are hosting on the site and target audience
management of inventory, promotions, easy checkout and convenient payment they would be catering to which would lead to a higher conversion rate.
and shipping methods.
• The owner needs to find the right platform which is not only secure but also scalable, has different features and
functionality that are not over complicated for the team to manage.

• There needs to be the right set of people with the required skill set to achieve the end vision

• There needs to be set Project Plan which covers team required, timelines, deliverables etc

• There needs to be clear Project Scope which mentions the singed off/agreed in-scope and out of scope items to
avoid scope creep and delay on the project deliverables

• The pricing modal of the project keeping in mind with any internal and external costs that would be incurred during
the project

The importance of laying out an e-Commerce operations strategy is to provide the best e-Commerce experience to
the customer by keeping all the internal plan, scope and team aligned. Better the commerce operations, better the
focus and speed on selling products online to bring more revenue.

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Commerce Features

An open platform to support your evolution

Delivering the world’s best commerce
experiences requires supporting every
touch point, business model, and Unified Cloud

deployment scenario
Physical Digital

B2B/B2C B2B B2C

Multi-language Multi-geography Multi-store Multi-brand

Services Franchise Terms Subscription Transaction

Call Centre In-Store Marketplace Social Mobile Online

Multiple Industries

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02.
Leadership
Within this section:

1. Leadership Overview 2. Goals

Sponsorship Long term goals
Buy-In Short term goals
Accountability 3. Vision
C Level 4. Planning
Stakeholders
Steering Committee
Common Roles and Responsibilities with
in a Steering Committee
Communication

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Leadership Overview

Sponsorship Buy-In Accountability

Having an effective executive sponsor will help the project Achieving management buy-in across your leadership team is Project leadership is most simply, the act of leading a team
achieve maximum success. To be truly effective, this internal also key. Having multiple change agents to drive growth will help towards the successful completion of a target goal. It can
executive sponsor should have enough seniority and influence you drive growth easier and faster. The responsibility for the often be one of the most critical areas to get right in order to
within the business to have buy-in from other stakeholders successful management of Adobe Magento needs to be shared successfully deliver an e-commerce project. Successful project
across the organisation. Having a high level of self-interest in the by the entire leadership team. It is then the executive sponsor’s leadership requires skills in both management and leadership in
online store’s success and a passion for digital transformation responsibility to win over the executive team by sharing order to secure buy-in from the right people, whilst leading the
and Commerce — and truly believing in how Adobe Magento is examples that prove the value of Adobe Magento and Commerce team in the right direction.
going to transform the business — are also critical. overall. Typically, this focuses on delivering a better customer
experience and subsequent benefits to the business.
An effective executive sponsor should guarantee the
management, roadmap and continual growth of the Commerce When managing e-Commerce sites or implementing digital
platform stays in line with the corporate strategy, protecting projects such as Adobe Magento, leaders will be responsible for
it from conflicting initiatives or internal politics and helping monitoring different departments and teams owning different
address any limiting factors, such as resource, skill shortage or parts of the e-Commerce initiatives. It is critical then to make
budget constraints. sure that all groups share a common strategy to achieve
common goals. Having an internal roadshow to win support
from executives will help raise awareness towards aligning all
teams and obtaining the necessary resources for an optimal
implementation.

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C Level Stakeholders Steering Committee

C level executives play a strategic role within an organisation. Stakeholders are those with an interest in your project’s Steering committees are advisory bodies that are made up
They hold senior positions and impact company-wide decisions. outcome. They are typically members of your project team, of senior stakeholders or expects, that provide guidance on
C stands for “Chief”, so a C-level executive is often in charge of project managers, executives, project sponsors and finally, a range of factors which may affect a project. The aim of the
an entire department or business unit, such as Finance, IT or your end users. It’s important to secure buy-in from all relevant steering committee is to ensure successful delivery of the
Sales. As these individuals are significant stakeholders within the stakeholders to ensure effective change. If you fail to get support project, including the maximisation of benefits from the project
organisation, it is important to ensure that they are aware of the from key stakeholders who contribute to the final decision, often and ensuring that proper project management processes and
benefits the e-commerce project will bring to the organisation. a project may fail. controls are followed.
More specifically, it can be helpful to identify the specific
benefits the project will bring to their department, as this can As well as this, it’s important to ensure that you have an effective
be an important motivating factor. Tying tangible metrics to the process in place to train and upskill users on the new systems
successful delivery of the project can motivate and transform or platforms. People can often be a strong barrier to change,
your C level stakeholders to become active supporters of the especially when they are unfamiliar with a new system and the
digital transformation project. impact that this may have on the processes and workflows within
their environment. Having effective change management and
At smaller organisations, C level executives tend to be heavily training processes may help mitigate this. In addition, upskilling
involved, or at least very close to the transformation project. As users will ensure you get the most out of the system. Teams
we start looking at larger merchants however, it’s natural that that are well-versed in the platform will be able to optimise the
executive involvement decreases as the company size increases. platform for effectiveness, ensuring you get the most bang for
As such, it’s critical to keep these stakeholders involved and your buck.
informed throughout the project to ensure buy-in and support
remain intact.

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Common Roles and Responsibilities • Monitors and controls the progress at a strategic level, in • Provides a statement of actual versus forecast benefits at the
particular reviewing the business case regularly benefits reviews
Within a Steering Committee
• Escalates issues and risks. Is the escalation point for issues and • Resolves user requirements and conflicts
The following high-level roles and responsibilities are based on
risks, and ensures that any risks associated with the business
industry-standard practices for Steering Committees.
case are identified, assessed and controlled? Technical Owner or Chief Technical Officer

Role Responsibility Business or Technology Sponsor - Ultimately

• Makes decisions on escalated issues, with particular focus on Represents the interests of those designing, developing,
accountable for the outcome of the project and responsible for
continued business justification facilitating, procuring and implementing the product. This role is
securing spending authority and resources for the project.
accountable for the quality of product(s) delivered by suppliers
• Ensures overall business assurance of the project and ensures and is responsible for the technical integrity of the project.
• Vocal and visible champion
that it remains on target to deliver products that will achieve
the expected business benefits • Assesses and confirms the viability of the approach
• Legitimises and lends credibility to the strategic goals and
objectives
Business Owner • Ensures that proposals for designing and developing the
product are realistic
• Is the escalation point for changes and issues outside the
Represents the interests of all those who will use the product
agreed tolerances
(including operations and maintenance), those for whom the • Advises on the selection of design, development and
product will achieve an objective or those who will use the acceptance methods
• Assists with stakeholder engagement where required
product to deliver the benefits and value drivers.
• Ensures quality procedures are used correctly, so that products
Business Executives - Ensuring that the project is focused on
• Provides the quality expectations and defines acceptance adhere to requirements
achieving its objectives and ensuring a cost-conscious approach,
criteria
delivering a product that will achieve the forecast benefits, give
Head of Digital
value for money and balance the demands of the business.
• Ensures that the desired outcome is specified
Covers the primary stakeholder interests of the business,
• Designs and appoints the project management teams
• Ensures that products will deliver the desired outcomes and technical, end users and suppliers.
meet user requirements
• Oversees the development of the business case, ensuring
• Ensures that the right people are involved in quality inspection
corporate strategic alignment
• Ensures that the expected benefits are realised at the correct points in the product’s development

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• Ensures that staff are properly trained in • Reviews the business case for compliance • Ensures that quality control procedures operations with the prime responsibility of
quality methods with corporate standards are used correctly to ensure that products ensuring that the result produces the required
meet user requirements Supplier assurance products within the specified tolerances of time,
• Verifies that the quality methods are being • Verifies the business case against external responsibilities cost, quality, scope, risk and benefits.
correctly followed events
• Reviews the product descriptions (features Effective management of a Commerce site
• Ensures that quality control follow-up actions • Checks that the business case is being and capabilities) and aligns to delivery requires that the project management team
are dealt with correctly adhered to throughout the project possesses and applies the knowledge in several
• Advises on the selection of the development areas:
• Reviews regularly to ensure that an • Checks that the project remains aligned to strategy, design and methods
acceptable solution is being developed the corporate strategy and continues to • Project management itself
provide value for money User assurance • Ensures that any supplier and operating
• Makes sure that the scope of the project is responsibilities standards defined for the project are met and • Business and industry domain knowledge
not changing unnoticed used to good effect specific to the product and platform
• Ensures that the specification of users’ needs
• Verifies that internal and external is accurate, complete and unambiguous • Advises on potential changes and their • Technology knowledge required by the
communications are working impact on the correctness, completeness and product
• Assesses whether the solution will meet integrity of products against their product
• Ensures that applicable standards are being users’ needs and is progressing towards that description from a supplier perspective • Interpersonal and communication skills
used target
• Assesses whether quality control procedures • The Project Management Framework consists
• Makes sure that the needs of specialist • Advises on the impact of potential changes are used correctly, so that products adhere to of five key activity groups: Initiation, Planning,
interests (for example, security) are being from users’ point of view requirements. Execution, Monitoring and Control, and
observed Business assurance responsibilities Closing.
• Ensures that quality activities relating to E-Commerce Manager
• Assists to develop the business case and products at all stages has appropriate user • These are the processes or activities for
benefits review plan representation Has the authority to run the day-to-day managing the tasks and they are different
from the Project Life Cycle.

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• The Project Life Cycle activities are generally

sequential, while project management
activities are performed concurrently,
because project management activities
may overlap and repeat along the timeline
depending on risks (for example, the
controlling activities may lead back to
planning to revise the goals or plan as a result
of changes)

Communication
To get the organisation on board, it is always
a good idea to share the vision and repeatedly
reinforce the reason why your company is
investing in Adobe Magento technology by
articulating both the customer benefits and
business benefits. Sharing documentation
such as success case studies of digital
implementations will help you validate why and
how this investment will take the organisation
to a new level. If you want the organisation to
embrace digital transformation, it’s important to
let employees know it is a priority

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Goals Organisational goals are strategically set objectives

which outline expected results and guide the efforts
of employees to share objectives. Goals are critical to
organisational effectiveness, as they serve as an objective
for people to work towards. It’s important to establish
short-term as well as long-term goals for your business, in
order to provide realistic steppingstones towards achieving
long-term objectives.

Long term goals Short term goals

Long-term goals are commonly defined as goals Short-term goals are often defined as having
which will take a minimum of five to ten years a time-frame of under five years, and more
to achieve. Long-term goals are inherently commonly, within one to three years. These
strategic and are used to shape the overall goals have an operational component to them,
direction of an organisation. These goals form with action plans for the immediate future. They
the broad strategy which maps out the long- also roll up to form the action plan for achieving
term direction for the organisation. Long- long-term goals
term goals should have periodic milestones
or benchmarks for the organisation to use in
evaluating their progress.

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Vision

An organisations vision is the desired state, or ultimate

condition that the organisation is working to achieve. It is
typically expressed in a vision statement, which is a clear and
brief summary of what the organisation is trying to achieve.
An organisational vision provides focus and serves as a source
of inspiration for employees. It articulates the goals for the
organisation, and it is important for all employees to understand
and work towards the same vision across the organisation.

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Planning

Organisational planning is the process of defining a company’s

purpose, setting goals to realise an organisations full potential
and finally, creating increasingly discrete tasks to reach those
goals. Organisational planning helps a company uncover
approaches to enhance performance. In addition to this,
organisational planning can:

• Increase the efficiency of an organisation

• Identify genuine customer needs

• Optimise resource allocation

• Enhance decision making

In Commerce, planning with the leadership team, c-level

executives, stakeholders, marketing and IT teams are paramount
activities to the success of any Commerce platform and
transformation.

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03.
Solution
Within this section:

1. SaaS
2. On-premise
3. Cloud vs On-premise
4. Integrating with Third-Party Services
5. Upgrades, Backups and Maintenace
Why upgrading makes sense
Planning your upgrades
Common upgrade questions

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SAAS
More businesses are turning to Software-as- their e-Commerce platform. the e-Commerce or IT teams can focus on core of most businesses, it’s not always the only
a-Service (SaaS) apps and systems to optimise developing the code base of the online store, system organisations use to run all operations.
and forge business functions whilst better Some other advantages of SasS solutions whilst the SaaS provider (aka Magento Cloud) In most cases, SasS e-Commerce platforms
managing their e-Commerce operations. include: can improve the infrastructure. will be required to integrate with an ERP, POS,
3PL, or any other financial software. Most
Using a SaaS e-Commerce platform instead of • Leveraging out of the box solutions Part of selling goods or services online is SaaS platforms have powerful APIs that make
open source or on-premise software can seem ensuring the store is meeting PCI compliance integrations easier because there isn’t as much
overwhelming for any size organisation. It feels • Maintenance standards, so customer data such as payment customisation required. It is recommended
like an even more daunting decision if you’re information is safeguarded. In a SaaS that retailers should use best of breed systems
planning on switching platforms. • Security and PCI Compliance e-Commerce model, this responsibility sits with meaning that they use the best system for
the SaaS provider, as its their responsibility to each part of their business. Most of the time,
SaaS e-Commerce platforms operate in a • Scalability stay up to date with any patches or bug fixes choosing one platform to perform all aspects
software licensing and cloud-based delivery which may impact the security of the store. and functions of your business falls short of
model, which users access via a web browser. • Easy Integration your expectations.
One of the benefits of SaaS platforms is that As thriving retailers need e-Commerce
the software isn’t installed on-premise or SaaS e-Commerce platforms are out-of-the- platforms to scale, take on more customers, Instead, businesses should be able to use any
maintained by the user themselves. Instead, box solutions, where users leverage intuitive, process more orders, and add more complex number of best systems for their ERP, POS,
your e-Commerce system runs on the SaaS user-friendly interfaces. In general, SaaS functionality when needed. SaaS e-Commerce 3PL and e-Commerce systems. Then, integrate
provider’s hosted servers. The third-party projects can be up and running within a short platforms tend to be more robust and agile, those systems so you can sync inventory,
provider is responsible for the security, amount of time, which allows merchants to when trying to accommodate these growth orders, customers, items, and shipping/tracking
performance, and maintenance of the operate the e-Commerce platform using the spurts. Businesses can easily increase their data, thus automating your business processes.
application on their servers. Normally, SaaS prebuilt themes, features and functionality bandwidth on servers to deal with increased Cloud-based, SaaS platforms often allow for this
licensing models operate on a subscription rapidly. One of the core advantages of a SaaS load and traffic, this is especially important business requirements to happen with flexibility
basis, where users pay a monthly fee based on e-Commerce platform is the maintenance. during peak periods, sales, campaigns and new and ease.
level of service and number of users. This kind The provider is responsible for hosting and product drops.
of operating model is usually a cost-effective maintaining the software, uptime, performance,
way for merchants to have real-time access to updates and bug fixes to the software. In turn, Even though e-Commerce platforms sit at the

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PaaS
PaaS is a type of cloud computing which offers Advantages of PaaS: Disadvantages of PaaS:
service to deliver a platform to clients allowing them
to develop, run and manage the business without • Allows to build and deploy without the requirement to • Could lead to a security threat as everything is
the requirement to build an infrastructure to spend money and time on building infrastructure such stored on the cloud
manage the services. PaaS is provided as a service as servers
which is hosted on the providers’ infrastructure and • Dependant on the service provider
can be accessed using the Internet on the browser. • Allows faster deployments and delivery
Most of the e-commerce platforms function as a • If the provider experiences a down-time it would be
PaaS which means the site does not need to build • Gives a competitive advantage an issue for the client
from scratch.
• Allows the user of new languages, technology, systems • Allows easy and quick updates
PaaS works on all types of cloud private, public, and etc.
hybrid: When the client uses PaaS in e-commerce, they do no
• More flexible need to manage the system and operating software.
• PaaS with Private cloud: PaaS is delivered within The client is provided with a platform to set up their
the client’s firewall for security, where the data is • Access to the code of the website e-commerce site where they build and configure
stored on-premise. content, code data, products etc. which is separate
• Allows to integrate with external 3rd party systems or from the administration side of things related to
• PaaS with Public cloud: The client is in control of software PaaS. Due to its flexibility, it is easier to implement
the deployments and the provider is responsible changes on the website without requiring updating the
for all the other components such as network, • Self-hosted entire system. PaaS allows clients to build and test in
operating system etc. development or staging sandbox before going live so
• Accessibility that there is no issue or downtime on the production
• PaaS with Hybrid cloud: Hybrid mixes the site.
functions of both private and public so that the • Cost-effective
client can have flexibility
• Time-effective

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P 3.3

On-premise

Cloud based solutions are extremely popular, and it certainly

serves an important role in many organisations, however
on-premise infrastructure is still a suitable option for some
organisations and merchants.

Several factors come into play including significant sunk costs, a

readily available pool of competent / cost effective IT expertise,
and the fact that on-premises applications can often be more
readily tailored and adapted to an organisation’s needs. When
compliance regulations (i.e, when data must reside locally),
on-premise hosting solutions are more advisable. Many
organisations are more likely to stick with on-premise when they
are still depreciating their hardware and software costs along
with no compelling technical or economic reason to change.
Keep in mind to effectively leverage all the cloud has to offer,
traditional applications need to be rewritten and built upon micro
services. In most instances a “lift and shift” to the cloud doesn’t
result in tremendous savings.

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P 3.4

Cloud vs On-premise

By analysing and then determining the type of technical and economic resources an organisation is willing devote to each of the areas
below, allows merchants to make tactful decision about which hosting solution is the best fit for their business.

Below is a table outlining the advantages and disadvantages of cloud vs on-premise solutions:

Factors On- Premises Cloud

Advantage Disadvantage Advantage Disadvantage

Cost Possibly more cost Considerable upfront hardware Predictable subscription Long term cost projection is
effective in the long term and software costs (cap-ex). pricing. required.

Any mistakes during development Costs can be budgeted to op- Licensing costs can mitigate
can be very expensive for the ex and no upfront hardware/ hardware savings
business. software investment required.

Security The organisation can Internal resources require specific Advanced data security Aggressively targeted by
control all the data locally. skills and knowledge of the is available and easily hackers
infrastructure. manageable for organisations.
No third-party access to Data could be accessed by
the data. If organisations lack the applicable 3rd party.
skills and expertise, it risks
significant exposure.

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P 3.4

Factors On- Premises Cloud

Advantage Disadvantage Advantage Disadvantage

Scalability Physical control over the Need to plan well in advance to changes Cloud resources can be rapidly Costs escalate when the
hardware means upgrades in demand because of the time necessary adjusted to accommodate cloud infrastructure is
can be tightly controlled to research, justify, order, and deploy specific demand improperly managed and
hardware. not properly tracked

Could be stuck with excess IT infrastructure

which may or may not be able to be re-
purposed

Upgrades The organisation can Time consuming exercise Fast and cost effective SaaS provider manages
control when the upgrade which can impact other work exercise with low impact to the upgrade, and the
takes place and what pipelines other work streams organisation is not always
features are included/ aware of the final output
excluded as part of the Costly exercise if not managed and impact on the site
output appropriately

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P 3.4

Factors On- Premises Cloud

Advantage Disadvantage Advantage Disadvantage

Platform Readily able to customise Customisations can lead to reliability and SaaS platforms are quite stable. SaaS minimises the ability
Customisation the platform to meet software support issues Updates are iterative and easy to modify the platform
unique requirements to manage

Deployments Technology can be Complexity can mean lengthy and difficult SaaS is reliable and easy to Normally, SaaS is
deployed based on deployments execute deployments implemented to a lowest
unique IT infrastructure common denominator,
and application which can sometimes cause
requirements limiting functionality

IT Support Infrastructure and Dedicated IT team is necessary, especially The caution of scale inherent to The learning curve for cloud
application expertise are when applications are tailored to meet an cloud deployments mean that IT is significant and adequately
readily available organisation’s unique requirements. support can manage more with trained personnel are
less time and effort. expensive

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P 3.5

Integrating with
Third-Party Services
As most business understand, when developing an online store, Here are some points to consider when integrating and Below is a list of common Third-Party Integrations which most
many unique strategies and processes need to be considered selecting a third-party platform: e-Commerce sites will need to consider as part of their digital
as part of the overall digital roadmap. Sometimes, the platform roadmap:
alone does not provide all the features and functionality needed • Integration preference - API etc
to operate a storefront at the optimal level. Which is why • Accounting software
merchants turn to third party providers to fill the gaps and move • Any technical limitations of the plugin
the Commerce operations forward. Most operational needs can • ERP system
be fulfilled using different software platforms including ERP, • Cost vs return of the investment
marketplace, business intelligence tools, accounting software, • Product Information Management (PIM)
reporting suites, and many more. The additional software is • Scalability of the service
selected to reduce time and effort for the organisation, whilst • Finance
optimising the customer experience and business operations. • Upgrades and maintenance required
• Payment Gateways
When selecting a third-party provider, businesses should use • Help Desk reliability
a simple and effective approach of third-party integration as • Marketplaces
per the customer’s needs. After understanding the need of
the customer, decide on a detailed plan with the help of the • Email Marketing
stakeholder. After deciding the plan, set up a specification
document that defines how the system communicates and what • Social
kind of data will be required and passed onto the third party.
Most integrations are available via an API, which allows systems • Google Shopping, Tag manager and other API feeds
to communicate with each other. But the problem is that all
platforms are not supported via an API, so understanding what is
possible from a technical perspective is paramount.

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P 3.6

Upgrades, Backups and Maintenace Services

Maintaining the strong code base, features, functionality and By upgrading, you’re future-proofing your business and giving Do I still need them? Which third parrty extensions cover my
keeping a high-security level are crucial to having a competitive yourself the ability to better service changing customer needs needs?
e-commerce store.
Integrations
There are multiple ways to efficiently upgrade the e-Commerce Planning your upgrade.
site depending on the infrastructure available, this process will What third-party systems (e.g. ERP, accounting), do I integrate
Planning Questions:
vary from business to business. Depending on the technical with? Do they have specific connectors or are custom integrations
maturity, this can be a very challenging and costly exercise for needed?
Here’s a quick list of questions you should ask as you plan your
business to undergo. In the above table, the advantages and
upgrade:
disadvantages of managing upgrades on a Cloud vs on-premise Training
were detailed.
Site Cleanup
Does the upgrade team have the right knowledge and training?
Firstly, always important to back up files before running an What’s my plan to train end users on how to use the new admin
What can I keep and what can change? What new things do I
upgrade. before it goes live?
want to implement? (e.g. what changes do I want to make to
taxonomy and product structure, or changes to content)
Upgrade Team — Who will be dedicated to the upgrade project,
Why upgrading makes sense? both in-house and external experts? Do they have the necessary
Analytics Check
support from leadership and other internal teams?
Since change and adaptation to new customer behaviors is the
norm, being on an older platform makes accommodating or What are my current KPIs? What does my data tell me about
imitating new technology and behaviors more expensive and how my site could be improved? Are there new KPIs that I want
time-consuming, or may simply not be possible. Additionally, as implemented for my new site?
more and more developers move their focus on new technology,
the scheduling and cost of retrofit projects may be prohibitive. Extensions

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P 3.6

Common Upgrade Questions grown. Examples of leading global technology companies who • Creating a succinct 301 redirect plan
have created extensions include: • PayPal • dotmailer • TaxJar •
How long does a typical upgrade take? Nosto • Adobe • Fastly • Vertex • Amasty • Celebros • Logicbroker • Building a strategy around URL taxonomy
Also, quality assurance checks implemented for all Magento 2
A. It depends on the platform and architecture. There are a lot of extensions ensure consistently high product quality, so there • Doing an XML sitemap check
variables, and if you’re also doing a redesign, it will take longer. is a very high probability that your extension or a high-quality
After the discovery process is complete, your implementation alternative to your extension is already in Marketplace. Many • Working with tag management (e.g. Google)
team will be able to give you a more accurate timeframe for your merchants have found that the native capabilities in Magento
project. Commerce 2 have reduced their need and reliance on extensions, • Discussing in detail with your implementation team
simplifying development and maintenance operations and
How much does it cost to upgrade? improving overall performance. If you haven’t already, engage
in thorough upgrade planning to uncover these types of
A. Again, it depends on your current situation and your opportunities.
requirements for your new site. The good news is that generally
as partners and developers have become more familiar and What if my extensions and integrations are not compatible
adept with your Commerce platform, upgrade costs and projects with the platform?
lengths have come down. We recommend consulting with your
Solution Partner for an estimate. A. Depending on the platform flexibility and hosting solution
different customisation options maybe an option for most
Are Magento Commerce 2 versions of my Magento Commerce software and systems. These customisations would be developed
1 extensions available? during the upgrade process.

A. Virtually all business-critical needs are covered. From How will my SEO be impacted?
content and customizations and shipping and fulfillment to site
optimization, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number, and A. With proper planning, your SEO should be improved. Our
diversity, of extensions in Marketplace as merchant adoption partner Corra recommends:
of, and partner familiarity with, Magento Commerce 2 has

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04.
Strategy
Within this section:

1. Commerce Strategy
2. Focus
General Commerce Metrics
KPI
3. Content Strategy
4. Maturity
Crawl
Walk
Run

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P 4.1

Commerce Strategy
Unlock Core Commerce Capabilities

Digital Commerce is a rapidly moving force,

that evolves expeditiously each year. While
this can be exciting for individuals, it also
comes with many challenges for organisations
trying to navigate the lay of the land that is
Awareness Consideration Purchase Support Support
Commerce.
Product catalog Product selection support Order Creation Order management status Order management status
management and recommendations & tracking & tracking
As Commerce continues to evolve in both
Shopping cart & checkout
B2B and B2C, businesses are seeing drastic
Product Comparison Customer specific pricing Shipping and delivery Shipping and delivery
changes in customer behaviours and
Marketplace status status
expectations, from the way they research a
Product Search and Product availability and
product/service, consider and complete a
navigation inventory Quote to Order conversion Retrieve invoices (order Retrieve invoices (order
purchase, or show loyalty to a brand, to the
history) history)
way they communicate all of this to their
Product information Price identification and price Subscription services
peers. Customer behaviours and expectations
list management One-click reorder One-click reorder
can shift instantly, and businesses can struggle
Personalized Experience Online PO transaction and
to adapt to new market trends and creating
Self Service Quote request/ pay invoice online Returns Management Returns Management
a digital strategy that is both realistic and
Product bundle RFQ
achievable. Therefore, the execution and
management NextGen B2B Integrated View accounts statements View accounts statements
planning of any digital strategy is key to any
Configure, Price, Quote ordering (e.g. Punchout) invoices & credits invoices & credits
successful e-Commerce business.
Promotions
Dynamic Pricing Procurement workflow and Automated renewals and Automated renewals and
The overall Commerce strategy of every
integration replenishment replenishment
business will be unique in nature, depending
on maturity, team size and resources. Here is
Product registration / Product registration /
a strategy for unlocking your core commerce
activation activation
capabilities:

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P 4.1

Key objectives to consider when planning the digital strategy of A suggested Commerce Strategy Framework
your business:

• Consistency is important

• Regularly review customer analytics

• Improve personalisation online

• Interactive Product Visualisation

• Leverage new technology where applicable

• Artificial intelligence (AI)

• More delivery options

• Appropriately plan for upgrades and site maintenance

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P 4.2

Focus

General Commerce Metrics • Shopping Cart Abandonment rate KPI Obviously, conversion is an important KPI
in any digital commerce environment. But
The most successful Commerce teams follow Below are the most important e-Commerce As businesses go through the mapping of their variables like time spent on the site, number of
and embrace metrics to make informed metrics all businesses should be tracking for digital strategy a common marker of success visits before conversion and even the type of
decisions about back-end operations, user B2B: is meeting set KPI’s, when measuring the content visitors are consuming can also provide
experience and most importantly customer effectiveness of the team’s effort. valuable insights in the overall journey and the
behaviour. • Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) visitor’s willingness to convert.
• It is most constructive to have multiple KPIs
Below are the most important e-Commerce • Conversions that tell you something about the visitors and Example KPI
metrics all businesses should be tracking for their behaviour
B2C: • Customer retention rate Customers viewing at the cancellation page
• Spend time with your team defining of a mobile phone provider might be existing
• Sales conversion rate • Traffic funnels meaningful KPI’s that are not centred purely customers looking to cancel their subscription.
around conversation rates However, by looking at the overall customer
• Website Traffic • Returning customers journey and behaviour you could potentially
• Measure content effectiveness, not just page identify if they looked at the store pages as well.
• Customer lifetime value • Pages viewed views It could be that visitors are concerned about
their ability to cancel easily but are still willing to
• Email opt-in rate • Customer actions • Set a small number of achievable KPI’s that sign up and buy.
will inspire the team
• Average order value • Peak periods
• Short term and long term KPI’s are more
• Customer acquisition cost achievable

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P 4.3

Content Strategy

Successful Commerce content marketing plans do not come from brainstorming Pre-Production Post-Production
sessions, hunches, or inherited habits. Businesses must gather quantitative
and qualitative data, some from sources they already own and some created or This stage involves starting with your user, This stage involves the review and evaluation of content,
purchased, to plan for content that customers will find and value. With AEM, you understanding their needs, the development of adaptation and optimisation. This includes analytics
can leverage content managed in the AEM authoring environment to build highly personas, as well as a review and inventorying of evaluation, optimisation, test, learn and user experience.
engaging campaigns. Marketing assets designed, managed, and validated in existing assets and position. Content management,
Adobe Experience Manager can be easily published across different channels. resourcing and planning is designed to establish and Finally, the test, targeting and personalisation strategy
maintain appropriate structures, organisation and will give you the opportunity to identify the right content
resourcing. to be delivered to a specific segments of visitors with
different preferences or needs and then create targeted
Framework for content strategy
Production and Execution experiences for each of them.

Pre-Production Production Post-Production This stage involves the creation and production of
content. This includes content creation, authoring,
editing, asset production, and content optimisation —
Reseach/Insight Delivery&Distribution Content Review& accessibility. SEO, tagging and classifying, insourcing/
Optimisation outsourcing in production, role of third-party tools and
technology and content re-use.
Content Management & Content production
Resourcing

Content Planning/
Objective Setting

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P 4.3

Adobe Experience Manager • Forms - Integrate enterprise-level forms into your websites and mobile experiences and simplify the creation of
forms and the completion of transactions.
Whether you’re managing basic web content or content to be
released into social networks, Adobe Experience Manager helps • Apps - Create and deliver mobile apps with a solution that bridges the gap between marketers and IT, so marketers
deliver creative assets and other content across all channels where can easily update content, even after launch.
a customer might engage. With AEM, you can leverage content
managed in the AEM authoring environment to build highly engaging
campaigns. Marketing assets designed, managed, and validated in
Adobe Experience Manager can be easily published across different
channels and platforms.

Adobe Experience Manager combines a number of infrastructure-

Framework for content strategy
level and application-level functions into a single integrated package.
The offering addresses:
Sites Assets Communities Forms Apps
• Sites - Quickly create and deliver relevant websites and mobile
apps, and update the content anytime, all without burdening your
IT department.
Web Content Digital Assets Social Communities Forms & Documents
• Assets - Easily manage images, videos, and other assets across Management Management • Customer-facing
mobile apps authoring
every digital channel to deliver personalised customer experiences. • Global with machine • Adaptive accessible forms
and management for
translation for mobile
• Go Live 25% faster • Advanced video support marketers & Developers
• Unified moderation with • Increase conversion rates
• Valuable content insights • Streamlined photo-shoot
• Communities - Build thriving communities and engaging to delivery
Adobe Social with user insights
• Touch UI
conversations across all your social properties, so you can inspire • Commerce integrations • Responsible viewers
new levels of learning and customer loyalty.

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P 4.4

Maturity Different Needs Across Maturity Levels

Global, multi-site, Advanced IT Best in class Fully Custom AI driven Highly Configurable & AR, VR, 3d, prototype

Cutting Edge
multi brand Unique Environment – Systems customized Storefront personalization, Sales Assisted Goods, and advanced
and custom business of Record approach, Experience optimized optimization, and services, digital goods Product support
models. Fully Custom many custom for channels (BFF/ dynamic merchandising
business processes processes, service- Headless) supported by custom
A maturity model is a formula for businesses to oriented approach models and algorithms
use to determine what stage they’re at with any (microservices) and
homegrown systems
given functional area or strategy. A useful and
accurate maturity model will help businesses
understand how to advance from one stage to Global, Multi Language, Advanced IT Advanced storefront AI driven Configurable Products Advanced rendering,
Multi Store Environment – Systems experience using best of personalization, across product lines customization
another through their Commerce roadmap.

Advanced
Multiple business of Record approach, breed tools/approaches optimization, and and sizing
models many custom processes, dynamic merchandising
Complex business mixed build/buy tunable by business
Think of a maturity model as a robust chart/ processes approach and data prof.
report with all the information needed to know
how to improve an area of the platform, which
acts as a road map for progress.
Advanced, may have Established IT env. & Customized storefront Rules based Customizable Products Rich product content
multi store proficiency. Multiple using native tools and personalization, And Services And dynamic media
Below is a summary of the different levels of

Emerging
Multiple business systems with packaged extensions Dynamic Merchandising
maturity: models SW preference
Advanced business
processes

Single Store Limited IT, cloud-based Templated – One size Simple personalization Simple or Basic Simple product images
Single Business Model environments. Prefer fits all Site and segmentation Merchandise And content
Simple Processes pre-integrated
Basic

Expansion Technology Customization Data Selling Content

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P 4.4

Variable B2B

Crawl The entry level for e‑commerce maturity consists of the easiest to reach
tasks by a single marketer. The business normally progresses through to
build upon the basics to further enhance the customer experience.

Walk At this level, organisations are starting to leverage past customer data
coming from multiple sources, needing multi‑departmental collaboration.
Organisations within this level can use the full potential of campaigns
managed by people and have a mature set of best practices, processes and
development stream.

Run The highest level of maturity enables AI‑powered campaigns across various
channels and uses predictive stock management to prevent churn, product
information management tools to enrich products. It is best achieved
by organizations with an evolved data culture, development skills and
processes in house and offshore.

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P 4.4

Following on, here are some areas of an e-Commerce Maturity Model, that
businesses would consider as part of their overall strategy.

Action • Updated product returns • Trigger based campaigns Privacy

Types of marketing activities that are in place: • Advanced session and customer behaviour • Campaigns based on predictions, i.e. Security and privacy management:
tracking potential churn
• First session web layer Are you adding value to your customer’s
Insights • Campaigns based on past behaviour of experience in exchange for the personal data
• Personalised recommendations on website customers they are providing you? Are you just aiming for
Analyses, trends and data triggered alerts: the basics or do you compete in privacy and
• Abandoned cart email • Product information management security?
• Campaign evaluation based on product profit
Data Governance • Privacy policy documents online
• Recency, frequency, monetary
Data collection and management: Resources, team size and processes: • Data flow processes mapped
• AI-driven lead scoring
What data is available and how interconnected Have you established continuous support of • Customers can edit and extend their tracked
they are. What interactions and attributes • Advanced reporting and dashboards optimisation and knowledge sharing? data
are tracked? How is the data enriched from
external sources? Methodology • Marketing team takes care of campaigns with • Hosting optimisations
support from e-Commerce team
• Data optimisation and enrichment Processes the business follows:
• Common use cases are documented
• Page view tracking Are you just trying out your luck with ad-
hoc campaigns or are they based on • Company-wide programs for idea generation
• Complete cart interactions customer behaviour, historical purchases and
predictions?

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P 4.4

Crawl Walk Run

This is the initial phase for any business, the starting point. In Businesses in the walk phase begin to develop the site based on In the run phase, businesses have a complete understanding of
this phase, businesses need to focus on delivering a presentable, the customers they have, insights and the experience they have their customers and their purchase behaviour which helps them
easy to navigate, user-friendly and simple checkout style of had with their existing e-commerce site. In this phase, businesses to set a goal where they can expand their business outward.
e-commerce platform which is equipped with the basic features can start implementing more complex features to provide new In the run phase, businesses can set a goal to achieve complex
required in an e-commerce site. Businesses need to check if they offerings to their customers to increase customer experience and requirements, marketing, multiple global payment methods or
already have a pricing system in place or would they require a customer loyalty. global shipping.
pricing system.
Business in the walk phase have features like blogs, videos, Having an in-depth understanding of the customers, market,
If they require a pricing system, they will need to understand the feature sections, product variations and purchase of the internal and external team, the website can allow businesses in
payment gateway providers out in the market and which suits product is easily accessible on the web pages. In the walk phase, the run phase to implement custom features that are unique to
best to their needs, who are experienced, fits the budget and businesses already understand the purchase trend of their the site like recommending the payment methods most used by
provides the service and security required. Payment gateways customers through the data and the feedback which allows them the customer, provide services like subscriptions for the registered
will process the transaction payments independently from the to improve their process including their pricing. Businesses in user where they can get free shipping discounts or offers on their
website which would allow the team to focus more on the site the walk phase are in a place where they can implement multiple transactions and more.
and the payment information will not get stored on the website. payment methods such as credit/debit, more than one option for
electronic wallet and/or gift cards. Providing multiple payment Implementing more complex features be it in shipping, product
Once the business decides the payment gateway provider, they options gives the customers the liberty to choose the one they or payment can be easily done by the businesses in the run phase
would need to analyse the required payment methods, the are comfortable with. They also have the option to opt for a larger as they have already achieved the market share and are confident
ones that are popular among the customers. Being new to the payment gateway provider who can manage more than one that investing in these will help them improve their customer
e-commerce platform, some businesses choose to offer limited payment method. service and make their customers keep coming back.
payment method options as each option has a setup and on-
going costs which could be a heavy upfront investment. As a Overall, businesses in the walk phase have the advantage to
basic, businesses in the crawl phase do offer credit and debit improve their site and payment methods based on customer
card and then branch out to payment methods like PayPal and data.
Afterpay. once they see there is traffic on the site and the traffic
is leading to increased conversion rate.

Overall, businesses in the crawl phase should develop a well-

integrated e-commerce system to get it started and off the
ground before they expand to add-on more features.

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05.
Process
Within this section:

1. Order Management Technical

2. Project Plan QA
3. Project Scope 8. Testing
4. Project Management A/B testing
5. DACI model Deployment testing
6. Agile Scrum Methodology
7. Common Project Workshops
Project kick off
Discovery
Design

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P 5.1

Order or indirectly impact the performance of the

business and the growth in the revenue.
• Keep shipping in check to know if there is a requirement of more staff or shipping methods to
speed up the order shipping

Management An Order Management system will help

centralize all the crucial data in one centralised
system which gives a single view of all the
• Monitor return to understand why the returns re being made by the customers so that they can
work on that and improve

Process streams such as orders, products, customers,

inventory, packing, returns, payment etc.
so that you are easily meet customer
• Helps to understand the overall experience of the customer if they were satisfied with their
purchase or not and how can the business improve to better serve the customers

expectations. The correct Order Management system and the right use of it can do wonders for the organisation
in terms of revenue as it helps to save money and time. Also provides an overview of the different
For brand new businesses the order levels are
Order management is essential in any departments of the business who are working together, helps the business to forecast the demand
low, and it is easier to complete the orders
e-Commerce business as it forms a chain and overall work on improving customer experience to increase conversion rates
at a low cost but when the demand rises, the
and binds all the factors together so that the
orders increase, and it becomes difficult to
business can:
handle the orders with a small team or by
yourself at a lower cost. You might need a
• Keep inventory in check be it in multiple
bigger place like a warehouse or more than
warehouses
one warehouse depending on the nature of
the business which can be costly and would
• Maintain the product stock level sow they are
require more manpower. This is where Order
prepared for any promotions or sale period
Management comes to play.
• Provide multiple payment methods to the
Order management helps to meet the changing
customer to enhance customer experience
requirements and the changing operational
needs to be able to manage the demand,
• Provide order tracking making it convenient
inventory, packaging and shipping. Integrating
for the customer to check the order status
an Order Management System to the Platform
and for their in-house customer service team
can help businesses meet their changing
to speed through any inquiries
requirements, drive customer satisfaction,
customer retention, higher conversion rate
• Provide support to all the departments in the
and brand loyalty. All these factors will directly
business so that no one is misaligned

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P 5.2

Project Plan

For a project to be successful, it is not only required to have a well-

detailed project plan but as a prerequisite, it is important that the
organisation has done their business plan are well versed with their
products, services, pricing modal, market, customers and their Geo-
location Without this drafting a project plan would be difficult. The
project plan should contain all of the information relating to the
project from monitoring, executing and managing the project. This
is the initial document which is signed off by both the project team,
product owner or any stakeholder who is involved in the project. The
project plan should have details relating to:

• Project Vision • Team

• Objectives • Milestone

• Requirements • Budget

• Timelines • Risks

• KPIs • Scope

A well laid out project plan acts as a roadmap that everyone needs to
follow to achieve the required result.

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P 5.3

Project Scope

Project Scope is an integral part of a Project Plan which outlines the goals, deliverables, costs, tasks, deadlines etc.
Project scope defines the project limits, each team members responsibilities and sets the procedure of how the
project needs to be done. In-scope and out of scope items are defined in the project scope which helps to track what
requirement was signed off and what is a scope creep. Following the in-scope items helps the project to stay on track
and hand over the deliverables on time by staying within the budget. The project scope also helps to take decisions
on changes that occur during the project. Changes are bound to happen when the project is ongoing and if the
project is well scoped in the beginning it will be easier to manage any changes that crop up.

Projects will never be as planed out there will be scope creep that would occur, a situation when there is additional
work requested which takes more time and this could happen due to change in requirement or miscommunication.
To avoid such situations or manage scope creep, a well-written project scope acts as a guide to understand what in-
scope is and what is a scope creep.

There are some benefits of having a well-written project scope:

• Outlines what the project consists of

• Acts a road map that can be used by the project team and/or any stakeholder involved in the project

• Define the project objectives the team is working towards

• Prevents and helps manage scope creep

• Defines the scope of work that the team needs to work towards

Overall Project Scope provides a strong foundation for carrying out the project

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Project Management

Project management can be defined as the application of knowledge, The project management life cycle provides timely and controlled process to project delivery which benefits a project’s
skills, tools and techniques to project activities in order to achieve stakeholders. The first step to a successful e-commerce project delivery is project management. A right approach and
goals and meet project requirements successfully. There are five methodology are required to enable the team to deliver the project effectively and efficiently.
phases of project management, and the project management life
cycle provides an overview of this process. Scrum methodology is applied within the project management for some e-commerce projects. Scrum features mentioned
below help to facilitate and manage the project:

• Periodization of tasks

• Periodization of backlog tasks before and during the sprint

• Daily team stand-ups

• Planning session for each sprint

• Sprint retrospectives

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Scrum helps to overall manage changes during the project, allows Migration
team to give quick results, is flexible and increases collaboration.
Plan out the steps that would be taken when migrating content, data etc.
A basic e-commerce project management plan would include:
E-commerce platform
Analysis
Analyse and finalise the platform required for the business to meet the
In the initial stage of a project the business would need to conduct requirements
analysis which includes market, competitor and business analysis to
understand the organisations strengths and weaknesses. Some best practises that businesses can refer to for project
management:
Requirements
• Set clear, precise and trackable goals
Lay out detailed requirements of what the organisation wants in
the end of the project in terms of enhancing existing skills and/or • Monitor the time spent on tasks and/or resources to avoid wastage
implementing new features and/or integrations
• Select the correct e-commerce tools required by the team such as the
3rd party providers e-commerce platform, communication tools etc.

In this stage map out the integrations which would be required by a • Constant testing and iteration should be conducted
3rd party for example payment, shipping, ratings, reviews and so on
• Track budget
Design
• Scope creep to be kept in check
Plan of using existing templates, company’s brand book etc. To
brainstorm the requirements which are design specific Developing an e-commerce site involves many different aspects that
need to be considered which would need tracking to make sure the
project goals, timelines, deliverables, team etc are aligned and this is
where project management plays an important part.

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DACI model

D A
The DACI model is a project management framework used to clearly
define the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders on a
project, leading to effective and efficient group decisions. The DACI
stands for Driver, Approver, Contributor and Informed. These roles
make it clear who has authority in certain areas and situations,
allowing a project to progress smoothly.
Driver Approver
Who is setting the pace and Who decides the output is
pushing this forward? acceptable?

C
Contributor
I
Informed
Who is contributing to the Who need awareness of ac-
process or output? tivity & outcome

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Agile Scrum Methodology

Agile is a time-boxed, iterative approach to project management what each team member is working on
and software delivery which focuses on delivering incremental
value to customers faster and continuously, compared to • Sprint review: A meeting used to demonstrate progress from the sprint
a traditional, waterfall approach. Scrum is an example of a
framework based on agile and is often used in many Commerce • Sprint retrospective: a meeting used to reflect on the previous sprint and to identify opportunities for improvement
delivery units. In recent times, there has been a shift away from
traditional or waterfall styles of project delivery towards agile or At the end of each sprint, an increment of value, new features, bug fixes, upgrades or general code updates should be delivered and
scrum-based delivery. This is due to the increased transparency, releasable to customers.
collaboration and faster time-to-market that these frameworks
provide.

Scrum encourages self-organised, cross-functional teams to

solve problems together in a time-boxed period called a ‘sprint’.
The scrum team is self-organising in that there is no leader, and
the team is cross-functional so that everyone is needed to take a
feature from idea to implementation.

In Scrum methodology, there are several meetings which are

used to drive transparency and progress on a Commerce
project:

• Sprint planning: a planning meeting where team members

come together to decide how much work can be completed in
a ‘sprint’

• Daily scum: a 15-minute meeting used to share updates of

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Common Commerce Workshops

Project kick off In this step it is essential to add-on a technology etc. Some of the common things Next steps
presentation deck, proposed agenda, that need to cover are:
Kicking off a new project is exciting and at the deliverable, team and timelines to avoid any Next steps for an e-commerce project refer to
same time can be a horror. The only thing surprises. If face to face meeting is no possible • Budge to the project outlining the requirements such as the build
that can save it from becoming a horror if with the client, the project kick-off can also be solution, design Nd project planning. Be it a
proper kick-off planning and presentation. executed online. Make sure you are prepared • Team introduction remotely managed project or same location
Project kick-off is the initial step and needs to for either of the scenarios. project, the next steps need to be detailed so
be properly planned, laid out and executed. • Timelines that the team is aligned.
Some companies do not require this as they Attendance
feel its standard but this phase no matter how • Deliverables
standard it needs to be carried out effectively. It is essential to outline the attendees for
This forms the foundation of the project. the project kick-off. Having a big team which • Milestones
includes all the developers, users etc will only
There are a few phases of project kick-off: complicate the kick-off. It is important to call • Proposed Dates
key stakeholders from the client site such
Preparation as the project sponsors, C level, and project • Communication mode
leader from the client-side. From the project
In this step, the project manager and team side, it should be Project manager, • Training
sometimes few team members get in touch Functional Architect, Technical Architect and the
with the client to understand when the kick- Engagement lead. • Testing
off will take place, where the kick-off will take
place and who all will be attending. Usually, the Topics to cover • Change Request
project kick-off takes places at the client site to
make the client feel comfortable as they are in Topics that need to cover in the project kick-
their zone. off depends on project size, requirement,

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Discovery • Start with an overview • OMS o Transactions

A discovery phase in e-Commerce is conducted • Set a goal • ERP o Processing

with the leads of the client such as the product
owner, project team lead, digital lead and • Brainstorm the needs • Current or New platform o Integration
sometimes even the C level do get involved.
From the team side the project manager, • Define the outcomes o Login
functional and technical leads attend the QA
discovery workshop. This phase is to go through • Sketch Sketch Sketch! o Security
Testing in e-Commerce is important. One
all the requirement of the client in greater
cannot go live with bugs on the site or a
detail to understand their business needs and • Make teams within the client side to get o Performance
broken page, or poor checkout. Setting up an
expectations of customers. feedback on each other work
e-commerce site is complex and requires to be
All of these must be tested thoroughly as any
tested inside out covering all the aspects from:
• Note down the likes and dislikes issue in the site can negatively impact customer
Design experience
o Browser Compatibility
• Track time
Design and requirements go hand in hand.
When an e-commerce system is being built o Page display
one of the first key workshops is the design Technical
workshop. The design of the site matter when o Usability
it comes to attracting customers and increasing A technical workshop is used to define the
traffic on-site In this workshop people involved details of the technical aspect of building a site. o Content
from the client is usually the digital provider, During this workshop the client and project
product owner, creative lead and C level. from team side will go through various technical o Availability
the team side project manager, functional lead accepts relating to:
and designers get involved. o Products
• Team skills in-house
In this workshop here is brainstorming done by o Page Load
the client site to understand what look are there • Integration
after for their storefront. To create an effective o Backup
workshop: • Coding language

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Testing

A/B testing Deployment testing

A/B testing is the process of comparing two different versions of the website to see The objective of deployment testing to check that all the build, changes, design, load etc.
the difference in performance. Works are per the requirement on the production site. This is testing is important as this is
the final check before the site goes live, and customers would get to view the site and the
Once the website is created, running A/b testing helps to test which words, phrases, functionality.
images, content etc. are working best towards increasing in conversion rate. E.g. A/B
testing a green CTA button and red CTA button to understand which colour button is Deployment testing should be done on staging before the release and bug fixing executed
preferred by the customers. accordingly to avoid any live issues and impacting customers from checking out. As well,
testing should be done after every release on the live environment to ensure ease of
As a rule. it is recommended that A/B testing is conducted twice a year on major adding to cart and transacting. w
release, features and front-end optimisations.

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06.
People
Within this section:

1. Teams Dandelion E-Commerce SME

Marketing team 3. Organisational Structure Marketing Team
IT team 4. Project-Based Recommended E-Commerce Business Analyst
Customer Service Organisational Structure IT Team
E-Commerce team 5. Communication Processes Warehouse Team
Warehouse 6. Communication Tools Customer Service Team
C level JIRA Content Team
Others Confluence 9. Resources
2. Team Structure Stand-ups Internal
Centralised 7. Team Communication 3rd Party
Dispersed 8.Roles and Responsibilities Hybrid
Honeycomb/Holistic Head of Digital 10. Culture
Decentralised 11 . Project Teams

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People

E-Commerce is one of the fastest-growing segments in the market

where brands are rushing to get online. For every e-Commerce
project to be successful, it is necessary to have the right team
balance. Managing an e-Commerce business needs a team with
experience, strategy and cross-functional skills. Along with the right
e-Commerce team, it is also essential to have other teams within the
organisation to be equally involved in the entire project process and
even after go-live. It needs to be a collaborative effort if the business
wants to achieve the envisioned goal and to do so the business
needs to ensure the departments aren’t working in isolation,

Along with setting up teams, onboarding team members should

not be overlooked. On-boarding a member on the team needs to
be done in an effective manner as it can define the success of the
overall team. The team can be structured in a mixed format such as
the team can be co-located, working remotely, and 3rd party service
providers. A successful team can be in-house, co-locates, remote
or 3rd party service but needs to be clearly defined yet needs to
be flexible so that the business to minimize cost and maximise
efficiency and productivity.

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People
IT team e-Commerce and Marketing team were able to firsthand hear and
understand what the customers had to say which was invaluable.
Some businesses take the IT team (technical team) involving the
developers - both back end and front end and testers as part It is important to ensure that the customer service team is
of the e-commerce team, whereas some businesses keep them involved and consistently providing feedback to the Commerce
separate. Some businesses prefer to have the entire IT team team, because the information provided is firsthand knowledge
inhouse, this could be due to security concern, cost, culture, of the customer. Any feedback that might be impacting
Marketing team
environment or product management. transactions or add to cart behaviour can be quickly addressed
and accounted for as part of the roadmap.
There are tons of tips and tricks out there that can be used for
Alternatively, some businesses prefer to outsource the IT
marketing your brand online, some might be great, but some
(development) team to consultancy type firms who have more It is important to ensure that the customer service team is
might not work for you. It is not only posting content on social
expertise in that area and can help enable the in-house team involved and consistently providing feedback to the Commerce
media or sending out emails to customers. It’s the people who
more effectively. Also, some businesses prefer to have a mix of team, because the information provided is firsthand knowledge
create all of this for the business, it’s the marketing team that
both. of the customer. Any feedback that might be impacting
helps bring traffic on the site, helps drive the ROI, produces
transactions or add to cart behaviour can be quickly addressed
campaigns and promotions, manages influences, builds online
Ideally, the development and Commerce teams would remain and accounted for as part of the roadmap.
marketing strategies and so on and so forth. The marketing team
separate, but work together in unity when it comes to setting
is an integral part of e-Commerce just like the other teams. They
goals, planning sprints and deploying new features. E-Commerce team
keep the SEO, SEM, loyalty programs, rewards and other related
tasks running. Coordination with the marketing team helps drive
Customer Service Ideally, most organisations have a dedicated e-Commerce team
conversion rate on the site.
that manages the day-to-day e-Commerce related operations,
Customer Service is usually one of the most overlooked and decisions, strategy, goal, maintenance, and everything related to
If there is no communication or collaboration, there could be
undervalued teams in an organisation. But in the e-Commerce the success of the online platform. A typical overview of the team
issues that crop up. For example, if the inventory level for a
industry, everything is based online, and the customer service members involved in an e-Commerce team are:
certain item is low in the warehouse and the marketing team
team is the only team who have direct day to day contact with
sends out a promotional email regarding that product, the
the customers. They can provide the marketing, product, and • E-Commerce Manager
business could face some angry customers and that would in
e-commerce employees with important information which can
turn negatively affect the brand name and customer loyalty.
be used to improve and understand what is working and what • Platform SME
There is one shot when it comes to e-Commerce, and that needs
changes need to be accounted for in the next sprint cycle.
to be perfect.
• Product Specialist
For example, an organisation had the customer service team in
the same room as the e-Commerce team for the first time. The • Business Analyst

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• SEO/SEM Specialist C level Others

• Content Manager C level executives always want their organisation to perform There are various other teams that are either part of an existing
at the optimum level and increase the conversion rate to time or are a stand-alone such as:
• Inventory gain returns on investments. For this to happen it is not only
important for the different teams in the organisation to be • Content team - they need to be aligned with all the teams to
In some businesses, these roles overlap with the other team involved and work together but it is also crucial for C level and know that the content being put out there is being well received
roles or they sit within the e-Commerce team, depending on size, other top-level executives to be more involved and understand or not. Content on the site would be required to be updated with
revenue and growth targets. the process of how the goal set is going to be achieved. time to keep the customers up to date. The content team are
Having C level and other top-level executives buy-in to a major responsible for setting up content on the product page, category
Warehouse e-Commerce project is critical to the success of the project pages, blog, footer etc. that attracts traffic onto the site to
overall. Direct engagement is required from the C level as well as increase conversion rate.
When a business plans to release an e-Commerce site, it is proper communication is needed with all the teams involved.
imperative to consider the working of the warehouse because • Data team - on an e-commerce site there is a lot of data
even though e-Commerce shopping experience takes place Though at times it does depend whether the project was that can be gathered and analysed. Data such as customer
online, packaging and shipping products take place in the initiated at the C level or below. Often the project starts with the information, spending habits, popular products, time the site has
physical world. When businesses only focus on the working of the technology rather than starting with the business. It is usually the most footfall etc. all this information is processed by the data
site, they can miss out on the intricate parts of the end-to-end rare to find a project being initiated at the C level. Due to this team to provide great insight on how the site is functioning and
e-Commerce experience. very reason, it is necessary to get the C level involved as soon as where the site needs more improvement Data can recommend
possible and keep them involved till the very end to bring it all what trends are upcoming and where the business needs to
For example, an organisation builds the website, did all the together and to set expectations across the board so that as you focus on.
testing and in the end, they found out that their warehouse move along the project everyone knows what you are doing, why
printer could not print the orders fast enough because of which and how the project is being carried out. • Finance and Accounting team - some businesses have a small
the warehouse team had to wait to pack the orders which in turn finance and accounting team which can in-house or outsourced
reduced the number of products they were able to package and When you start the project, the C level and business in mind, they who focus on budgeting, speculating and managing the finance
send out. This not only wasted time but also the orders were would first look at the KPIs and the ROI but bringing them onto aspect of setting up and running an e-commerce site
being delayed which increased the number of phone calls made the journey from the very beginning will them understand why
by customers to the customer service team which damaged their this is being done, what the organisation will gain from this and
customer experience and customer loyalty. what benefits will all the stakeholders derive from this. For the
success of any e-Commerce project, it is downright essential from
everyone from top-down to be on the equally involved and on the
same page.

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Team Structure

Team structure refers to a combination of either an individual team or a multi-

team structure. Team structures are an elemental part for any team process. A
correct enabled team allows effective collaboration, communication, support,
leadership, problem-solving and decision-making. Team Structure allows the Expertise Dispersed Centralised
individuals to work together towards a common goal which working on their
business as usual. There are different types of team structures ranging from being
hierarchical to being flexible which work differently for different industries.

In the below diagram, a summary of the different team structures found within
organisations:

1. Expertise Dispersed

2. Centralised

Hub & Spoke

3. Hub and Spoke
Dandelion
4. Dandelion

5. Honeycomb

As part of a typical Commerce flow, a centralised team is the most common of the
5 types displayed below, with the honeycomb structure being the closest to Agile
alignments.

Honeycomb

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Organisational Structure

For digital implementation projects, there is usually a centralised team structure which is implemented. There are individual teams The benefits of this form of centralised modal in a digital
which have a team lead which then reports to the head of digital, e-commerce lead or the product owner. Example of how the implementation project are:
organisational structure would look:
• Promotes control and consistency

• Unifies budget and strategy

• Helps scalability

• Supporting wider business

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Project-Based Recommended
Organisational Structure
Business Owner

Project Director

Scrum Team Other Team members

Product Owner IT/Ops / Designers / Product

Sys Admin UX / IA Managers
Scrum Master

Tech Lead Quality Assurance Developers

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Culture

When working with internal and external customers on a project,

it can pay dividends to pay close attention to the corporate
culture at hand. Commerce culture refers to the shared beliefs,
attitudes and values that an organisation’s members share and
are consistent with. Culture helps an organisation reach strategic
goals by encouraging desired behaviours, attitudes and ways of
working.

Understanding the organisational culture at hand is critical for

project success. On any given project, despite the many benefits
a new project is projected to deliver for an organisation, this
will effectively be reduced to 0 if the changes are not adopted
successfully. If the pre-determined culture at play within
the organisation is resistant to change, the employees of the
organisation may not be receptive to the changes the project
is introducing. This can manifest itself in employees failing to
adopt the new system, failing to understand the benefits the
new system will introduce or worse yet, blaming the system for
failing to deliver a full ROI.

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Communication
Processes
Creating a strong communication process within any Commerce
team is about managing all assets and processes as efficiently
as possible and investing in the people that matter. Part of the
strategy that businesses need to adopt is about delegating
tasks to the right people, or software, in their teams. In general,
every e-Commerce business needs to tackle three main groups:
product, customer acquisition, and customer retention. Many
roles will fall under these three umbrellas.

Listed below are some of the process’s e-Commerce businesses

should adopt in order to operationally tackle, manage and
improve those three groups effectively.

• Create workflow and task management solutions that your

team can easily access and understand

• Design an efficient onboarding process

• Create a workflow that employees can use across product

management, Commerce operations, order fulfillment and
distribution

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Communication Tools

It is common knowledge that poor

communication within any working relationship
is detrimental to any organisation and team.
Studies have shown that financial losses per
year are in the millions due to inadequate
communication between employees. It’s
likely that staff take on varied roles and
responsibilities, which leads to them being
pulled in many directions. Fortunately, there is
an array of technology available to help people
stay open and connection through clear lines of
communication.

We will explore some of these tools, which have

been found to be very impactful within large
and small organisations.

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JIRA • Search and filtering Here’s an example of a default workflow: The right workflow can make or break
communication lines. Teams can create
Application tools for project management
• User mentions and multiple assignees JIRA allows teams to create and write detailed their own workflows to define the steps an
and issue tracking have been around for
tasks, generate reports customise workflows issue follows toward completion. Jira allows
quite some time now. Such tools simplify the
• Project planning and assign jobs across individuals relatively for business to customise workflows to suit
communication process among employees
fast. Commerce Managers, Marketing and their business requirements and obligations
and ensure the scalability of the project or
• Task management Development teams, even C stakeholders while easily matching how teams work most
platform. JIRA has been known to tick all
can track the daily, weekly, month and yearly efficiently. As issues are tracked throughout
the boxes when it comes to the exchange
• Resource management progress of any given JIR A task or project. The a workflow, all members of the team,
of information and fundamental project
Atlassian project management tool comes in department, or even business gain visibility into
management. The application allows teams to
• Resource planning three versions including JIRA Align, JIRA Core their status. A workflow also ensures that an
share more knowledge and information, which
and JIRA Software. issue passes all the steps before it’s complete
lead to a better understanding of business
• Advanced reporting – that’s how teams never forget any of these
objectives, goals and tasks within any team and
The benefits of using JIRA within any priorities.
thus if used well can improve the collaboration
• Customizable JIRA boards e-Commerce business is the ability for multiple
and efficiency within organisations.
teams to collaborate using one platform.
• Out of the box Kanban and Scrum boards Many times, companies witness the marketing,
Below is a list of ways JIRA can be used within
development, creative and Commerce teams
any organisation:
• Advanced security and administration all working in their silos. Having a project
management tool like JIRA, enables each team
• Manageable agile workflows
• Integration with flexible REST APIs to represent all kinds of priorities including
documents, tasks or people. Issues can
• Unlimited custom fields and swim lanes
• JIRA hosting represent anything teams want to track and
are all contained within different projects that
• Bugs and test management
• Effectively import data from other systems are made up of recurring tasks teams need to
complete. Each issue goes through a process
• Seamless source and issue integration
called a workflow.

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Confluence easily accessible to teams that sit across the for deployments, managing deliverables and
organisation and allows everyone to collaborate debugging issues.
Creating a rich knowledge and information on topics in one space.
bank can be tedious. It takes a willing team to
come together and give attention to creating
processes around how documentation is Stand-ups
managed. When done correctly, however,
In the world of start-ups, stand-ups were
creating a proactive knowledge base can
born. And it is now more than ever; we are
dramatically shave the number of issues in your
seeing businesses review their process around
support queue and save your team hours of
meetings. Research has found that in general
work.
employees prefer fewer meetings, but to have
a clear line of communication and openness,
Whether you are launching or maintaining
getting people together occasionally is
a website, documenting the fundamental
important for the success of any business and
Commerce processes, Confluence is an
more specifically e-Commerce operations.
interactive space where individuals from across
the business can come and create, plan and
Therefore, as a more casual alternative to long
give feedback on all types of documentation.
and rigid meetings, companies of all sizes have
moved to a more relaxed stand-up style of
Commerce teams can create standardised
meeting. The culture of stand-ups within any
templates and checklists for deployment
Commerce team allows for short and quick
preparations, product launches, how-to-articles,
discussions, where all members are given the
test scripts and troubleshooting to name a
chance to talk, goals are set, and strong team
few. In addition, the Confluence application,
bonds maintained.
owned by Atlassian is a nice extension to JIRA,
where the two applications can work hand in
The use of stand-ups within any Commerce
hand harmoniously. The content created is
team are particularly useful when planning

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Team Communication
Team communication skills are taught in many different settings,
but company culture sets the tone of any

Here are some tips for how to improve communication:

• Keep your messages clear, use simple language, and stay away
from jargon. Although your teams may be expected to know
Commerce terminology, jargon can still impede understanding.

• Meet your team where they feel comfortable, whether that is

through traditional written or video messages sent via email.

• Use JIRA and Confluence for project management, planning

and documentation of Commerce processes

• Manage stand-ups to be short and impactful for the whole

team

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Roles and Responsibilities

Head of Digital e-Commerce SME Marketing Team

Responsible for managing the e-Commerce operations and An e-Commerce subject matter expert would take the lead of the The goal of a marketing manager is to attract traffic onto
overlooking at each team to ensure everyone is performing up project in terms of what can be implemented and how it needs the site, building marketing strategies, being up to date with
to mark and towards the envisioned goal. Some of the tasks to work. They guide both the functional and technical side of the current trends, focusing on conversion rate, abandoned
which the head of digital need to carry out consists of managing the teams. Projects can have more than one SME where one is cart and promotions to increase the ROI of the organisation.
contracts, partnerships, defining strategy, budgeting, overseeing more functionally focused whereas the other is more technically e-Commerce businesses require marketing in different forms
products and purchase. In some organisations, the digital head focused. An e-Commerce SME needs to ensure that the details such as email, print, web, social media, influencers and so on. It’s
would also have to oversee the marketing tasks. The digital head of the requirements are correct and aligned with the required the responsibility of the marketing manager to use these ways
would be the key point of contact for all the internal and external deliverables to meet the need of the policies, best practises and effectively to gain the most of it. The marketing manager of a
stakeholders. They require to have e-Commerce knowledge to standards. The e-Commerce SME sometimes do have to play digital implementation project also needs to focus on the SEO
carry out the implementation of technology be it B2B, B2C of a double role of being the project manager as well where they and SEM tasks which can be either carried out in-house or a 3rd
D2C. take care of the project management tasks such as reporting, party. A marketing manager should constantly communicate
presentations, and managing the stakeholders. with the digital head, the e-Commerce manager, customer
service team and warehouse team to align their campaigns
and promotions. If a marketing manager plans and sends
out a promotion for a product which has low inventory then
there would a lot of upset customers which would increase the
workload of the customer service team to manage, hence it is
essential all the teams are aligned. The marketing manager also
needs to cater to different customer service methods such as
loyalty, reward points, gift vouchers etc. to improve customer
experience and customer loyalty.

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e-Commerce Business Analyst IT Team Warehouse Team

An e-Commerce Business Analyst helps the business to run the The developers usually sit under the e-Commerce team but Though the entire experience takes place online, there is still a
project smoothly by being the key point of contact between sometimes they are under a separate IT team. There can be physical world which consists of managing inventory, packaging
the business and the e-Commerce team including the IT team. different types of developers such as full-stack developers, back- the order and shipping it off to the customers.
They need to able to multi-task, keep up with the requirements, end developers and front-end developers. The developers should
timelines, allocation of tasks, follow-ups etc. Most of the be able to create and customise the site as per the requirement The logistics manager needs to ensure that the orders coming
businesses also require the e-Commerce business analyst to have of both functionally and customer-facing storefront. In the in are being packaged correctly and is transported safely to the
in-depth knowledge about the platform on which the site is being current times, mobile-first sites have been in demand, ensure customer. The logistics manager would also need to manage the
hosted so that they can build the site using the configuration that the developers are able to carry out mobile integration. team and the fleet whether its in-house or 3rd party. The very
method where possible. Also, the knowledge would also help The e-Commerce site is the soul of the business which makes core responsibility of the logistics manager is to ensure that the
them answer questions of the client, making the workload less on it important that the site is user-friendly and easy to use for product is shipped in the right manner, to the right address, and
the developers. both the customers and the back-end users to both increase at the right time to the customer.
conversion rate and increase efficiency. The team needs to
get the foundation of the site right in terms of the payment The inventory manager needs to oversee the inventory in one or
gateway integration, social media, filters, sorting rules. customer more warehouses to ensure what product is being ordered, is
interaction with the site, content, category, pricing, inventory etc. the product being shipped. They are responsible to oversee that
the whole lot. the packing of the products is done in the correct manner. No
business would want to their customer to revive the product in
The team also consists of the testers. The main role of the an unlikely manner, presentation is key.
testers is to test every scenario possible that could break what
has been built so that the site when it goes live does not have
inconsistencies, bugs or performance issues which could hamper
the customer experience. In e-Commerce, you get one chance
with the customer and it needs to be right.

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Customer Service Team Content Team • Confusing Content: The content team needs to create a simple
and straight forward content. Simple language works best
Usually, one of the most underrated teams in the business. But The content team can either sit within the marketing team, the when interacting with customers
when it comes to an e-Commerce business this is the only team e-Commerce team or independently. Only having traffic on the
who have direct daily contact with the customers making the website is not enough, you require the customers to purchase The content team creates, tests, manages and optimizes all the
transaction on the site. Customer service teams use different your products to make ROI. Content on the entire website is content on the website which bring in the ROI.
tools to communicate with the customers ranging from live chats, important but the most crucial content is on the category and
answering calls, and managing chatbots. The customer service product pages, this is the content that helps businesses make
team are also responsible to answer any questions or concerns money. The content team is responsible for:
from the customers, processing returns, coordinate the inventory
relating to returns, checking order status with warehouse, check • Organise the content: Elements, URLs, navigation and page
promotions with marketing and anything related functionally structure need to be straightforward and user-friendly. If the
with the e-Commerce team. site is too complicated, then customers can be lost

The customer service team can provide detailed insight to other • Broken Content: Broken image, pages, missing pages, broken
team members based on customer feedback, questions and checkout flow, error messages etc. will make the customer
concerns which the business can use to improve and enhance leave your site and will leave a negative impression
their customer experience.
• Old Content: Content on the website needs to be up to
date. If the site consists of outdated content, it will hamper
customer experience and would in turn increase workload for
the customer service team where they would need to answer
customers questions which should have been early mentioned
on the website

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Resources

Digital implementation requires resources which can either be • More product ownership from the business and team understanding of the product or productivity. But overall internal
internal (in-house) or external (3rd parties) or a mix of both. A teams do have several benefits. Thus, the business needs to
business would need to analyse their in-house team and their • Easier collaboration ensure that they have the right people working in the team who
capabilities when deciding if they want to execute the entire are self-motivated, skilled and have the required capabilities.
project in-house or they would need support for an external 3rd • Same culture
party. In most cases, businesses with less digital implementation
experience would opt for outsourcing to an external 3rd party. If • When do businesses decide on having an internal team: External
the business wants to utilise their in-house team, they will need
When businesses don’t have the required internal team in terms
to access team capability and they can also opt for hiring new • When the business has a highly secured business environment
of resources and/or capabilities, then businesses resort to hiring
employees while retaining their digital talent. where all the information is sensitive and confidential which
external teams also known as 3rd parties. 3rd party resources are
cannot be shared with a 3rd party
hired for a limited time frame where the 3rd party team consists
Internal • Technology the business is working on is patented and could
of the required experience, knowledge, subject matter expert
and implementation skills. While developing the project, 3rd
create legal issues when working with a 3rd party
Some businesses try to develop and recruit people with the party team also helps to enable the internal team so that they
required skills to create an in-house team thinking that an can handle the platform once the 3rd party roles off. 3rd party
• Budgeting issues where the business is only able to afford an
e-Commerce site is a continuous development process which can resources can be in terms of consultancy, payment gateways,
internal team
be expensive if the project development is done with an external SEO/SEM related activities, marketing etc. Businesses need to
(3rd party) entity. To develop an in-house team, businesses need analyse and figure out where their internal team lacks so they
• Products being sold are highly innovative such as devices,
to focus on having the right people in the team with the required can hire the required 3rd party. Like any other resources, 3rd
software etc. which cannot be shared with an external team
skills and capabilities. Benefits of an in-house team are: parties also have pros and cons.

There are few cons of operating with an internal team like

• Effective and easier communication Pros of an external team/3rd party:
there is no guarantee on if the team members understand
the importance of the project, efficiency, self-motivation,
• More increased legal protection • A specialised organisation has more experience in delivering

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similar e-Commerce projects compared to the internal team • Can be quite expensive in the long run of the project with the support of the internal team, where the
which produces economies of scale internal team would be responsible to provide all the content,
• The project timeline could fall back, or it could not meet the information, integrations etc. to the external team to successfully
• The team members of the 3rd party team are more required expectation implement the system. During the project, the 3rd party
experienced. Like an SME of a platform would know the inside resources train the internal team so once the project is delivered
out features of the platform and can suggest best practises • There is always a risk of sharing confidential data and security the internal team can manage. In a hybrid modal, the 3rd party
that the business can use to maximise the use of the platform team becomes an extension of the in-house/internal team which
• Contracts with 3rd parties can be rigid which can cause issues allows better collaboration and communication.
• Consultancy companies are always pushing their resources to during the project
be up to date in terms of technology and trend. Consultants
have a flexible working style and bring a lot with them not only • There could be friction between what the business expects and
in terms of knowledge and experience but also culture what the team can provide within the guidelines of the contact

• 3rd party can provide people to work on the project in terms of Overall, based on the pros and cons the business needs to
need. Thus, it allows team scalability identify their need and what suits them best. Businesses who
have little or no experience, opt for external 3rd party resources
• Working with 3rd party resources requires the business to be who can implement the e-Commerce site and train their
more disciplined in terms of communication, planning and employees to handle after go-live.
executing the project

• Quality of the deliverable from a 3rd party is always better Hybrid

than the internal team as they are experienced and have the
When a business looks at carrying out a digital implementation,
knowledge to apply and build the requirements of the business
they need to consider a lot of factors from resources, budget,
skills, capabilities etc. Some organisations tend to choose a
• Payment gateways are managed and are more secure as the
hybrid modal. A hybrid modal consists of both internal and
3rd party is responsible for providing the support and security
external 3rdparty teams to work together. In a hybrid modal the
external 3rd party team would usually carry out the complex bit
• Cons of an external team/3rd party:

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Project Teams

Every brick-and-mortar store needs a team and • Project Manager dependencies who could directly or indirectly and the team size is small then they would
it’s the same for an online e-Commerce store play an important part in the success of the not be able to keep up with the number
thus is very important to have people in your • Technical Architect project, such as the: of calls which again would affect customer
team who fit best to the role with the required experience.
skillset. Be in a B2B or B2C e-commerce, • Functional Lead • Warehousing team: for example, if the
it is essential for each department in the website is all up and running but the staff in • Marketing team: marketing team would
organisation to be involved in the e-Commerce • Business Analyst the warehouse is limited, that would mean handle sales, offers etc. and if they were to
project. There are direct and indirect there could be a delay in packing and sending send out emails regarding a product and
dependencies between departments which • Back end Developers the products out or if there was a system they were not aware that the stock is limited
help to achieve the set goal for the project issue in the warehouse which could not keep then it could create a bad impression on the
team. It is key that each individual understands • Front end Developers up with the number of orders being placed customers which would lower the conversion
what the team is working towards, what is that would again delay package. rate.
the end goal and how we have to reach there • Designer
together. Getting someone on board in the • Customer service team: they are the only When setting up the project team it is not only
internal e-Commerce team who does not know • Content Manager ones who are in direct contact with the essential to have the correct people with the
the platform well or who is not aligned, will customer, they are aware of the pain points required skill set in the team but also to ensure
only tend to slow things down and increase • Tester and the linking’s of the customers, yet they the external teams are in sync with the project
pressure on the other team members. are usually the most underrated team in an and the workings to be aligned to achieve a
Each of the individuals mentioned above is organisation. For example, if there is a new successful result.
There is a dependency on the size of the team responsible for planning and executing the promotion being set out on the website and
based on the complexity of the project. e-commerce project. But at times it is not only the team is not aware it could be possible,
these individuals who are responsible they might not be able to provide the correct
There are certain key roles within the project information which would affect customer
team such as: Organisations tend to overlook the external experience or if there is a promotion out

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07.
Product
Within this section:

1. Order Management Systems 11. Reporting and Dashboards

2. Shipping and Fulfilment 12. Online Customer Service
3. Payment Gateways 13. SEO
4. Pricing 14. Email Marketing
5. Product Images 15. Personalisation
6. Checkout flows and process 16. Click and Collect
7. Dynamic Pricing Management 17. PWA
8. Promotions
9. Campaign Management
10. Lead Generation

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Order Management Systems

Online shopping is increasing as a rapid rate and companies expectation in terms of maximising customer experience which to not fall back
are competing to provide the best service to attract customers leaves no room for error. Some of the reasons why an OMS
to their site. To have competitive advantage retailers need to system is essential: • More multi-channel possibilities: In the era of
grow their digital footprint this includes selling online, other multi-channel sales across websites, marketplaces
marketplaces, and even partnerships. • Provides faster delivery: In an age of next day or 2-day or partnerships like Facebook, Instagram. Tracking
shipping, businesses need to look out for ways to push their orders can be complex as they are being shipped
e-commerce order management system is the back-end process orders out fast as the windows of completing orders are to several locations, through one or more shipping
of managing and meeting orders placed online. This involves becoming narrower. An OMS gets immediately notified when methods, OMS help to bring it together and increase
things like packaging, shipping, returns and subscriptions. An an order is placed, and the OMS can choose the nearest customer experience
order management system in today’s time need to allow the warehouse to the order destination to help fast track the
retailers to be one step ahead of their competitors, to be more delivery. OMS send automated order information for the Key features of an OMS:
scalable, flexible and adaptable. The OMS should allow the warehouse team to prepare and pack the order to ship is using
business to meet the customer demands and easily change with a cost-effective shipping method • Integrates with the company system or systems
the market.
• Limited errors: OMS help to cut down on human errors. These • The manual process is eliminated
Order management systems allow integration and automation errors can be time-consuming and expensive at times. OMS
through the customer order journey in the back end, this allows help to notify the team when the inventory levels are low, or • Can provide service internationally
retailers to provide enhanced customer experience. OMS help when a product is not selling or what product has the highest
retailers to process orders coming in from multiple channels and return rate. This helps the business to rectify the errors, • Helps to generate reports to forecast and
facilitating the packing and shipping to different locations while analyse the reason for returns, shipping errors etc. to improve understand order data
proving update to the customer via different mediums in real- customer experience
time. Businesses/retailers would need to select the
• Increase in scalability: OMS system scales according to the appropriate OMS system that best suits their
Order Management System is important for an e-commerce need of the business, unlike the old manual systems. OMS business needs to utilise the OMS system, efficiently.
site as it helps brands to grow and since customers have a high software gives the business the option to scale with the market Businesses should start with:

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• Understanding their customer orders, products, inventory, shipping and packing

• They need to decide how and when will the OMS system communicate with the company system
during the order process

• What should the OMS system do when the order has been placed, should it communicate with the
company systems, if so then which systems? and once they communicate what should be the next
step

• Based on the order the OMS will send the information to the warehouse. Businesses need to
decide which tasks in the warehouse would be automated such as calculating shipping costs,
allocating the shipping method, packing slips, and/or updating inventory

• If a product is out of stock should the OMS system communicate it to the vendors, production
team, suppliers etc to restock the product

• For shipping should the OMS system notify the customer about the progress of their order and
notify the team.
Businesses need to go through different aspects to better understand the OMS whether the
• If a product is returned what should the process be for the OMS like automate the refund, update organisation has an existing OMS or are looking to set one up. But in the long run, an OMS system
inventory, send the information to the customer and team can help control costs, increase ROI, speed up the process and improve not only the customer but
team experience. To summarise:
• Cost of the OMS - if the business can afford a full-fledged OMS system or parts of it
Order Management in B2B is intricate compared to B2C. B2B usually has a higher cost when it
• Implementing the OMS system - this would be a project to implement the OMS system and train comes to retaining customers as they have a different purchase cycle compared to B2C. B2B
the team to best utilise it purchase cycle takes longer as it involves RFP’s, Purchase Order etc. B2B orders tend to be reorders
several times where as B2C tends to have orders that are high in volume and smaller in size.

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Order Management Process for B2B typically looks like: • Helps to centralise information from multiple channels

• The sales representative enters the customer’s order details • Reduces complexity once it has been implemented
into the OMS or the customer can also place an order online
which will send the order details to the OMS • Helps to track orders

• The customer receives the order confirmation • Improved customer experience

• Products are allocated to the order • Helps speed up the delivery process

• The order details are sent to the warehouse where the When implementing an OMS system B2B business needs to
products are packed understand that they will not be able to serve customers such
as B2C businesses. OMS need to be implemented differently for
• The inventory is updated both B2B and B2C depending on their requirement.

• Order status is sent to the customer

• Order is shipped to the customer

Order management can be effective for B2B and B2C

businesses where the OMS system:

• Allows omnichannel or multichannel adoption which helps

order management

• OMS is usually cloud-based which allows organisations to go

paperless which helps to improve overall efficiency

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Shipping and Fulfilment

A lot of effort goes into providing customers with the best online experience from content to Shipping and fulfilment have some basic factors that act as the foundation such as:
products to blog to check out and so on. But on the physical side of things, retailers should not
overlook the importance of shipping. Shipping cannot just be handed over to any 3rd party, there • Shipping methods and cost: Businesses need to analyse and divide whether the entire cost of
needs to be research, planning, and analysing involved. This is the final point in the customer shipping will be passed onto the customer or onto the business or will it be split? How will the
experience journey, this is the reason why shipping and fulfilment should be mapped out in the business provide free shipping or shipping offers? How will the products be shipped? Will there be
right manner. more than one shipping method and shipping costs?

• Product: Each product would be different from each other in terms of the number of items,
weight, destination, durability etc. Businesses need to analyse such details to understand the total
cost of shipping as different products have different shipping costs

• Packaging: Packaging also plays an important role in understanding the shipping method and
cost. For example, is the product fragile, or is it packed as a gift?

• Season: What changes should be brought in during peak seasons like click frenzy, festivals, etc.

• Carriers: Which 3rd party shipping company would best suit the business? What are the services
provided by the shipping companies? What is the cost?

Before a business ships their product, the company would need to decide the shipping methods
and costs. There are various options for shipping methods such as:

• Free shipping: Providing free shipping to customers might be the best customer experience but
might not suit the business as in the end someone has to pay so if not the customer then the cost
would be on the business/retailer

• Real-time rates: Collaborating with 3rd party shipping providers would allow retailers to post

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the shipping method and cost as per the shipping company currently. This allows customers to The difference between B2B and B2C shipping and fulfilment:
choose their preferred shipping method

• Flat Rate: One of the most popular shipping options. But the trick here is to ensure that retailers B2B B2C
do not overcharge or undercharge the customers. This also works if the retailers have a standard
product but can get complicated if the retailers have a variety of products.
Fulfillment and Shipping takes longer to Can be same day shipping and/or free shipping
complete due to the costs involved and the
• Free shipping over an amount: Retailers can provide free shipping when the customer purchases
quantity Usually, shot term relationships
above a certain amount. Retailers would need to calculate that amount to provide this service

Requires one on one connection between the Business provides loyalty cards to retain
Shipping and fulfilment require team coordination both internally and externally. Shipping and
business and the client customers
fulfilment strategy should be shared with the entire organisation so that they are aligned. For
example, if the marketing team wants to send out a promotion where free shipping is applied, they
Usually, long term relationships Promotions and campaigns offer provides to
would need to align it with the shipping and fulfilment strategy and team to eliminate any negative
customers
customer experience.
Process can be long and complex
Basic rules can be applied
There are some e-Commerce best practises that be leveraged by retailers when deciding the
Strong rules need to be applied
shipping and fulfilment strategy such as:
Returns can be quick
Returns can take time
• The right team with the right people who have the skills required

• Setting goals for the teams to follow

• Selecting the correct shipping strategy which best suits the business

• Reviewing the strategy and reiterating as and when required

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Payment Gateways

There was a time when cash was the main source of transaction, • How strong is the security on the payment gateway? with the platform it is always better to see how it would appear
but the online world has taken over, where online payment on the storefront, what kind of experience will the customers get,
methods are replacing the old payment methods. Everything is • Will there be any impact on my storefront UX/UI? and is it user-friendly. Also, check the security of the payment
now online which makes things easier and more accessible, from cannot be compromised. A good, secure working payment
credit cards to e-wallet to bank transfer and so on. • How well does the payment gateway perform? gateway will boost customer experience.

A payment gateway is a form of a service that connects and • How is the support service of the payment gateway once
processes payments for e-commerce websites. Hence, it plays purchased?
a vital role in the customer buying experience and conversion
rates. A complete and complicated payment system has seen • Which payment gateway provider would suit me best?
to have a negative impact where customers have abandoned
the cart. It’s important to provide them with easy, user-friendly • Payment gateways assisting other functions such as calculating
payment system where even if one payment method fails, they tax, using geolocations, calculating service fee etc.?
have an alternative method to motivate them to complete the
purchase. There are some limitations of payment gateways that the retailers
need to be aware of such as:
Retailers need to select the best payment gateway that meets
their requirements. There are many payment gateways in the • Not all types of cards are accepted by payment gateways
market like Braintree, Stripe etc. But before the business can
decide the payment gateway there are certain questions to be • Some payment options might not be available for international
answered such as: shoppers

• What is my business requirement? • ecurity loopholes in the payment gateway. Customers do tend
to hesitate to place online orders due to security reasons
• Is it within the budget?
When the business decides to integrate the payment gateway

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B2B and B2C have a similar kind of payment system but are more steps involved in a B2B payment
as B2B payments have more rules, regulations and processes. B2B businesses tend to deal in larger
volumes compared to B2C.

In B2C customers purchase products or services for individual use where customers usually
pay the same price as other customers, there is no bargaining involved. Whereas in B2B various
stakeholders are involved which makes it more complex and expensive when it comes to approval.

In B2B customers have different orders and requirements which need to be processed and
approved by the sales representative or there needs to a sales representative involvement when the
customer purchases online using RFP or Purchase Order.

In B2C payments can be one-time and are of smaller value which is displayed on the storefront, the
consumer adds the product to cart and checkout using secure payment where the customer can pay
from their choice of payments such as credit card, e-wallet etc.

In B2B due to the high volume the payment for B2B there are different payment options besides the
standard such as checks, bank transfer, purchase orders etc.

Implementing the right payment options is based on the type of business and business
requirements.

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Pricing

The importance of e-commerce is growing Businesses can collaborate with the payment • Less effort required by the customer
rapidly. Consumers prefer to purchase products gateway teams to manage their transactions.
online as it can be accessed anywhere at any • Multiple payment options increase customer
given point in time. For an e-commerce site Also. there are various payment methods out experience
to grow it is essential to have a good pricing there in the market such as:
system in place. When a customer tries to pay • Secure gateway - security is a vital point
online and the transaction fails, most often • Credit and Debit Cards like Mastercard, Visa, in payments because customers will only
the customers choose a different payment American Express proceed to complete their transaction if they
method whereas, some customers abandon the feel safe to do so.
cart. Those customers who abandon the cart • Electronic Wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay,
have a negative impact on their e-commerce PayPal, Afterpay Given all this, businesses still need to select the
experience as they find the payment method payment methods and the payment gateway
complicated and confusing. If a business • Interbank Transfers by analysing aspects like the preference of the
chooses to have only one type of payment customer, setup costs, ongoing costs, security
method, it will most likely not provide the • Mobile Payments and business requirement. Not one business
expected level of customer service. Providing is the same, each business has a different
various payment methods will allow potential • Gift Cards requirement and is in a different phase - crawl,
shoppers to select the payment method which walk and run. The business requirement and
best suits their need which would in turn boost • Subscriptions the phase play a major role in the pricing
ROI. strategy
• There are many benefits of online payments
There are many 3rd party payment gateways such as:
such as Braintree, Stripe, Square etc. who
manage the online transaction processing • Easy shopping experience for customers
for the business. Typically gift cards are not
handled by payment gateway 3rd party. • •Swift and hassle-free payment

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Product Images

e-Commerce is entirely based on the online experience. Product images on a flat surface Product images with the product on a model
Customers visiting the website should be intrigued to purchase
the products available which will increase the conversation
rate. Many factors play a role in increasing ROI, once such a
factor is the product image. Product images play a major role in
attracting and convincing the customer as to why they should
purchase the product. Products images can be used in an
identical way for both B2B and B2C.

In real life, customers can feel and try the product but when
purchasing online they do not have an option to do so, thus it
is necessary to provide detailed information about the product.
Along with details, it is essential to have high-quality visuals of
the product like images and videos, this will help the customer
understand the product before they decide to purchase. Product
images are the first thing that the customer sees on the website,
even before the product description, name or price.

Different types of images can be used as per the requirement of

the business such as:

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Featured images Lifestyle type of images User images - images being uploaded by users

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Product packaging images Product Video • Naming convention - make it a rule in the team to follow a
naming convention for the product image which will help
to minimize the error of uploading an incorrect image for a
product and helps the team to easily manage the images

• Page load - do not upload images which will hamper the

page load time. If the customer must wait for the image to be
displayed, they might leave the site and move onto another

• Simple content - do not over complicate the content. Try to

keep the content simple and attractive where the focus is the
product e.g., one best practice is to have the product image o a
white background which enhances the product image.

• Real product image - when a customer purchases a product

online, they expect to see the product as on the website so try
Unboxed images Some best practices that can be followed by retailers
and avoid applying any filter on the product or enhancing the
are:
image which alters the way the image looks. It is important to
be transparent with the customer otherwise there could be a
• Demo the product - of the product have a defined purpose
high rate of returns is placed
then demo the product to show the function and features of
the product
Retailers need to remember that the goal of product images is to
show the customer what product it is, how it looks and motivate
• Promote user-generated images - users uploading their
them to buy it.
images with the product as a review which will motivate other
shoppers to purchase the product

• 360-degree view of the product - uploading a 360-degree

video or GIF of the product can provide a detailed view to the
customer which pursue the customer to purchase the product

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Checkout flows and process

Checkout is a critical part of online shopping. This is where the

real money is made. Retailers tend to focus more on the look
and feel of the website and overlook the checkout flow, but both
parts are equally important.

Checkout flow is like the finish line, where shoppers turn in

customers making transactions. But even a small hitch in the
checkout can have a huge negative impact on the conversion
rate and ROI, thus, improving the conversion rate even slightly
can help the increase ROI massively. Improving checkout flows
and processes starts even before the checkout page.

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There are various ways to improve checkout flows

and processes such as:

Product pages: • Payment concerned about security. To provide assurance • Create an account
to customers display site with:
• Try to keep all the information before the Implementing an easy and convenient checkout Do not enforce one type of option on the user
page fold such as product details, pricing, eliminates the risk of cart abandonment • Credibility accreditations such as Norton
product images, reviews, ratings etc. all the secured, MacAfee secure, Google Trusted Shipping options
factors that are needed for the customer to Visual checkout flow Store etc.
make the decision to purchase the product • Retailers should provide different shipping
Display a visual checkout flow where the • SSL certificates methods to meet the needs of different
• Add sections such as ‘You might like’ which shoppers can see the preview of the number of customers
displays products that are related to the steps involved to complete the purchase • Payment method logos
current product being looked at by the • Besides payment options, retailers can also
customer. This is a strategy used to make the Remove extras • Rating and Reviews provide options like Click and Collect
customer purchase more.
• Remove extra information such as the • Policies Payment details
Streamline checkout process: minibag, search, and/or navigation bar. This
helps the customer to focus on the checkout • Terms and Conditions • Should be placed at the very end right before
Try to have limited steps and fewer clicks on process rather can navigating to another page confirming place order
the checkout page to fast track the process. For Checkout options
example, the checkout needs to consist of: • Have clean and bold CTA buttons with a • Provide easy mode of entering payment
simple page design Provide different checkout options like: details like the name on the card, card
• Shipping number etc.
Trust • Guest User
• Billing • Provide an option for the user to save their
Customers shopping online are always • Registered user credit details for the next purchase

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Order summary

Provide detailed order summary before the user confirms the

purchase

Order confirmation

• Display a Thank you message with the order confirmation

details to provide the customer with the confidence that the
order has been successfully placed.

• Some retailers also provide promotion messages if the user

has checked out as a guest to promote signing up to be a
registered user

Emails

Always follow up the order confirmation with an order

confirmation email which outlines all the order details and
tracking facility

Checkout is a driving factor to increase the conversion rate to

in turn increase ROI. It is necessary to streamline the checkout
process to provide a user-friendly, quick and convenient
checkout experience. It is not one size fits all when it comes to
the checkout flow and process, hence, it is essential for retailers
to research, analyse and test the best-suited option.

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There is a difference between B2B and B2C checkout flows and processes.

B2C checkout flow and process (see Figure 7 below): B2B checkout flow and process:

• Able to change quantity • Able to change quantity

• Able to delete product from cart • Able to delete product from cart

• Simple checkout • Simple checkout

• Different payment options such as credit card, e-wallet etc. • Different payment options such as purchase order, bank
transfer, check etc.
• Able to add coupon code to checkout
• Simple process to reorder

Checkout is a driving factor to increase the conversion rate to

in turn increase ROI. It is necessary to streamline the checkout
B2B Checkout Flow and Processes - Figure 8
process to provide a user-friendly, quick and convenient
checkout experience. It is not one size fits all when it comes to
the checkout flow and process, hence, it is essential for retailers
to research, analyse and test the best-suited option.

B2C Checkout Flow and Processes - Figure 7

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Dynamic Pricing Management

Dynamic pricing is a responsive pricing strategy where the price changes based on the demand, willing to spend on the product?
supply, trend and competition in real-time. It is not a new concept; it has been around for a while
now but is surely taking over e-commerce. Dynamic pricing gives retailers the leverage to change Retailers would need to look at every aspect when working on a dynamic pricing strategy.
prices to have a competitive advantage. Like retailers can decrease the price of a product that does
not sell to well to increase the sales. Like any other strategy, dynamic pricing also has benefits and pitfalls. Some of the benefits of
applying a dynamic pricing strategy are:
Overall, it can be said there are 3 factors that drive dynamic pricing:
• Allows retailers to gain insights on customer purchasing behaviour and market trends
• Industry - Retailers need to check what is the most basic price of a product among other brands
• Retailers can set different product prices based on the most basic price set for the product by
• Market - What is the demand and supply currently, what is the predicted demand and supply? other brands

• Customers - What is the customer purchasing behaviour? What is the price the customer would be • Allows retailers to analyse what price would be most acceptable for the customer to spend

• Helps to maximise ROI

• Provides retailers with a competitive advantage

Some of the pitfalls of dynamic pricing are:

• Not regularly updating the price. Even though the software would be managing, it is essential that
human interaction is available constantly

• Fluctuating prices to often will confuse the customers, some customers might wait for the prices
to change again or some customers might lose trust

• Competition with other brands might increase initially when the strategy is applied

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Some best practices that can be applied when implementing Dynamic pricing differs from B2B and B2C
dynamic pricing strategy:
B2B should:
• Set a good pricing strategy which is more initial pricing
based. Initial pricing is straightforward, and it helps retailers • Provide customised pricing for customers
understand the market and the market pricing
• Automatic change in price based on the quantity
• Introducing a loyalty program can help to introduce different
dynamic pricing level for different types of customers B2C should:

• Analyse real-time demand for products when setting prices • Maintain consistency

• Apply a holistic approach when implementing dynamic pricing • Maintain price

because a product can be of different prices in different stores.
E.g., a Hot Dog in IKEA costs cheaper than buying a pack of • Display promotions and discounts
buns at the supermarket
• Terms and Conditions to be displayed
The most effective way to gain benefit from implementing
dynamic pricing is continuously learning about the customers,
competitors, and market

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Promotions

DWith most of the population moving to shop Each of the 6 P’s is equally important but to Each of these promotion levels has different • Product Sets
online, retailers need to be one step ahead in market the products, retailers need to use types of promotions such as:
providing the best to their customers, retailers promotion as a tactic to increase traffic on-site • Coupons
need to think what would be the best way to to lead to higher conversion rates. Promotion • Giveaways
get their products out there in the market? This helps to market the products and services • Promotional Emails
is where marketing strategy comes into play. In being offered by the brands. There are various • Flash Sales
a general aspect, marketing strategy consists of promotional levels such as shipping, product • Free Shipping
6 P’s: and order. • Free Samples
• Discount on shipping
• Product • Buy X for Total
Retailers face intense competition and to have
• Price • Buy 1 get 1 Free a competitive advantage, retailers need to apply
marketing strategies like promotions. Each
• Promotion • Bonus Products retailer will need to analyse which promotion
would best benefit them.
• Place • Multi-purchase

• People • Cross-selling

• Processes • Bundles

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Campaign Management

In e-Commerce, campaigns define a series of actions or tasks that are linked to each other which There are various types of campaigns which Differences between B2B and B2C campaign
contributes to benefiting the business vision and goal. These actions or tasks can be set-up in a way are structured in a way that best suits to meet management:
in which they are able to function individually, sequentially, simultaneously or in any combination. business requirements. Some of the campaigns
Campaigns play a major role in the business strategy. are: • Develop relationship: B2B uses campaign
management to build long term relationships
• Marketing whereas, B2C user campaign management to
build short term relationships
• Sales
• Branding: B2B campaign management
• Public Relations focuses more on generating leads whereas
B2C focuses on brand value
• Internal
• Decision Making: B2B make logical decisions
Campaigns need to be effective, to make a when creating campaigns whereas B2C are
lasting impact on the customers. Retailers emotional decision makers
need to make their presence felt in the market
as quickly as possible. To create an effective • Audience: B2B consists of multiple
campaign there are certain points that retailers stakeholders when creating a campaign
should refer to management whereas B2C create campaigns
targeting to individual end user
• The entire modal of e-commerce is set on the
website which means the storefront needs to Detailed, streamlined, smart and unique
be presentable, user-friendly, quick, secure campaigns which help e-commerce retailers to
and easy to use. improve customer digital experience.

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Lead Generation

In the e-Commerce industry, lead is anyone who shows interest There are some best practises when it comes to generating leads reposting to the comments on the posts
in the brand and its products. Be it clicking on the website, such as:
checking out an advertisement on social media, or exploring • SEO - Retailers need to have a good SEO in place as good SEO
products. Generating a lead in the e-commerce industry is a Unique Content - Retailers need to do their research and find ranking will improve the traffic on the site and the brands will
cortical part of the business because a lead today can be a out what customers like, are interested in and want to purchase. have a higher chance of displaying their content
customer tomorrow. Lead generation can is a long process and Content needs to be such that it grabs customer attention,
can take time and requires patience. intrigues them, and creates a bond with them. Content is not only • Paid Campaigns - Brands can focus on posting paid campaigns
limited to videos and images there is must to that such as using which will bring focus on the site
There is a simple workflow can that be followed by retailers for social media
lead generation: • Unhappy Customers - Customers who are not satisfied, brands
• Online Communities - Retailers can have online communication should try to reach out o them
such as an Instagram page or Facebook community where
people can post reviews, questions or concerns. The customer Though lead generation might not be easy nevertheless, it is
service team can actively be involved in on social media required if the brands want to sustain in the market and to have
a competitive advantage.
• Influencers - Influencers can be looped in to promote the
brand. Influencers have a fan base, a group of followers who
listen to them, which can be beneficial for the brands. Retailers
can either collaborate officially or send free products for the
influencers to promote.

• Social Media - The world today is attracted to the online world

and having a social media presence is important for brands
nowadays. Brands need to ensure they make their presence
felt but posting regularly, posting content to target different
customers, making sure the content is correct and always

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Lead generation is different between B2B and B2C:

• Sales Cycle: Lead generation for B2B are much larger compared to B2C as the contracts made in
B2B are for a long term compared to B2C. The price, time and resource allocated in B2B is more
whereas B2C sales cycle is much shorted and there is less time, money and resource involved.

• Content: B2B consumers usually have more knowledge about products as they research about the
product, they require whereas B2C customers typically purchase based on market trend content.

• Audience: B2C reaches out to a wide range of audience whereas B2B have specific audience

• Goal: B2C tends to attract customers from a market that is highly saturated whereas B2B builds
relationships with clients on trust. End of it both have the same end goal which is to increase ROI

• Interaction: In B2C customers make purchase decisions individually whereas there are multiple
stakeholders who are involved in decision making for B2B

There is no set method of generating leads but it is possible to increase lead generation by analysing
the methods that best suit the needs of the business and help to shape the organisation are
required whether is B2B or B2C.

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Reporting and Dashboards

Ie-Commerce fits well as a use case when it comes to reporting and dashboard. In e-Commerce, Every business has a different requirement and dashboards can be meet those requirements. For
everything is online which lets the retailers leverage the power of different tools to gather data and example, if the brand wants to track a specific promotion, they can create a specific dashboard to
analyse it to improve their business process, teams, offering and more. see the progress of the promotion such as how many people used the promotions, which products
sold the best, etc. They can also use the dashboard to track daily activities on the site, traffic,
conversion rate, bestselling product, worst-selling product, returns etc.

Some other features of reports and dashboards

• Tracks ROI which helps retailers to make decisions and monitor their progress

• Track Sales to understand what on their site is generating the most sales

• Traffic on the site can be tracked in real-time to visualise the information

• Able to measure the success of the features on the site and to improve them to enhance
customer service

• Monitoring KPIs of each team

There is so much going on in an e-commerce business, it can get difficult for the retailers to keep
track and that’s where reports and dashboard come to play. They consolidate all the data in one
place to give an overview of the business to everyone. Helps retailers to set new targets, identify
new opportunities and get a competitive advantage.

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Top 4 reports and dashboards that can be used by B2B companies Magento Business Intelligence (MBI) Adobe Analytics Foundation
are:
Seeking detailed transactional data: Seeking insights with rich behavioral data
• 1Company Profile: B2B businesses need to track the company profiles of
customers, orders & products to gain a across multiple channels, online and offline,
their clients to understand their purchase history like what products they
holistic understanding of how commerce to gain a detailed view of commerce customer

Why
purchased, the payment details, which channel they used to purchase and
operations are performing on a regular basis. and real time actionability
so on. This dashboard can help to identify any potential risks or issues.

• Catalogue: A catalogue report and dashboard can help a B2B business

to view the performance of each product in the catalogue, promotions,
inventory levels etc which can help them identify what kind of promotion • Centralizing vital commerce data • Behavioral insights across web and apps

Core Uders
best worked and which product is in demand. This will help them be
• Calculating business KPIs • Multi channel customer intelligence
one step ahead in terms of stocking up the inventory and give them a
competitive advantage • Automating & sharing commerce reporting • Advanced & unlimited segmentation

• AI & ML driven insights for predictive insights

• Quotes: B2B model works on quotes and pricing where the B2B business
needs to go through a process where they analyse the quote sent by the
client with the pricing so that they can either approve or negotiate. A quote • Complete data replication from any source • Tag management for data collection
report and dashboard will help them improve their quote conversion rate

Differentiating
Technology
• Hosed cloud-based data warehouse • Deep data drill down capabilities
by tracking the success rate, competition rates, performance and overall
customer retention • Full SQL query capabilities • Adobe Sensei

• Magento integration, auto dashboards • Integration into Adobe Experience Cloud

• Sales: Even though B2B business can work online but there is still a need
for a sale representative to get things moving along in terms of identifying
quotes that need negotiation, track quotes which are getting expired,
contracts which are up for renewal, track team performance and help to
Better together
streamline their day-to-day business activities.
If a merchant is using MBI and Adobe Analytics and is looking for a way to correlate behavioral data to transactional
commerce data so they can gain a more accurate understanding of how marketing activities impact core commerce
metrics.

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Customer Service

e-Commerce is digitally based and the only team who interacts with the real customer behind the Retailers need to be pro-active in terms of customer service as not only the brand name is at stake
transaction is the customer service team. Customers expect high-quality customer experience and but most importantly, its the customer’s loyalty. For retailers to be successful in providing the best
if they do not get that retailers could lose their customers. The highest number of calls, messages customer experience, there are some best practises can they can follow:
and/or emails received by the customer service is in the e-commerce industry compared to others.
• Multi support channel - Providing service just visa email or phone is not enough in today’s era.
Customer service needs to be provided on various channels such as live chats, emails, phone calls,
social media and or text messages. Each of these has their own pros and cons which retailers
would need to analyse and select which one or which combination would suit them the best

• Personalised service - All of the activity done by the customer is done online which the retailers
can track to understand the customer behaviour. For example, when a customer reaches out to
the customer service team, the team will have their information beforehand such as their name,
email, order history, returns etc. this helps not only the customer service to provide quick and
accurate service but also the customer gets a personalised service

• Self-service - Customers can also be provided with self-service such as providing FAQ’s, privacy
policy, terms and conditions, forums etc.

Retailers should put themselves in the customer’s shoes to understand their problem which will
help them provide the best customer experience. Customer experience keeps the customer loyal
and promotes the brand.

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Customer service is important for both B2B and B2C businesses, but concept of customer service
is difference between the two such as:

• B2B tend to have involves a lot of stakeholder’s and more complex issues which would take more
time and effort to resolve whereas B2C usually consist of regular issues

• B2B businesses have fewer customers but it is essential to provide the best customer service to
retain those customers. Also, B2B products can tend to be more complex and larger so there is
significant impact on the ROI

• In B2C the customer service team talks to one person who made the transaction whereas B2B
there are multiple stakeholders, so if there is any issue then the customer service team might
receive calls from different stakeholders from the client side

• B2B customer service team is required to make a bond with the clients to have a deeper
understanding of the client’s requirement whereas B2C businesses rarely have a relationship with
the clients

Retailers should put themselves in the customer’s shoes to understand their problem which will
help them provide the best customer experience. Customer experience keeps the customer loyal
and promotes the brand.

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SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a tool which helps to Paid (marked in orange below) SEO strategy includes:
optimise the website based on specific keywords so that the
site ranks higher in Google search results. Google ranks the Google shopping (marketed in purple below) • Keyword search - keywords used by customers to search
websites based on whether the brand has answered all the
search questions asked by customers. When customers search • Site architecture - research is done on the keywords
something on google they will find different types of results:
• SEO - Technical - ensuring SEO crawls the site
Unpaid (marked in red below)
• SEO on-page - Meta-tags and content is set Marketing content
- content used to attract customers

• Analytics - tools such as google analytics is used to message

SEO

B2B SEO campaigns are aimed to increase brand awareness and

lead generation which will lead to an increase in conversion rate
whereas B2C SEO aims to attract visitors to make immediate
purchase. SEO has different use and impact in B2B vs B2C. SEO
can help to increase traffic on the site which will in turn increase
sales and ROI. Set a simple SEO strategy to gain competitive
advantage.

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Email Marketing
Curated Email
Email marketing in simple terms is sending marketing messages Welcome Email
to leads and current customers through emails in order to
One of the best forms of email sent to customers as it allows the
promote, attract, and sell products to customers. e-Commerce making the first impression last is essential in an e-commerce
subscribers to learn more about the product and you can also
being a digital, email marketing team has full control of retrieving business If the first email sent to leads or new customers are
send curated emails based on customer segmentation
customer information to send controlled and personalised effective it will last in the memory of the customer. Try to keep
content via email. Email acts as a tool which helps to build a the design simple and original. For example, some brands provide
relationship between the customer and the brand. discounts in the email when the customer signs up

Why should email marketing be considered:

• Let’s you build a relationship with current and further

customers

• Helps in driving sales and increasing conversion rate

• Helps to multiply business growth

• Does not need a 3rd party such as Instagram or Facebook

Some examples of email marketing:

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Engagement Email Referral Email Discount Email Abandonment Email

emails can easily be overlooked by customers Word of mouth is one of the best marketing Offering discount via emails is an effective form There are times when customer abandoned
but if the emails are set as engagement emails, strategies. For example, sending an email to an of marketing strategy. Brands should offer the their cart due to various reasons such as high
the possibility of the email to be looked at existing customer such as ‘Refer a Friend and discounts to subscribers as it will help to retain shipping cots, return policy etc. But retailers can
without deleting is higher. Engagement emails Receive $10!!’. This will motivate the customer their loyalty try to convert those customers to successful
can be in a form of campaign where the users to spread the word around which would help shoppers. Retailers can send the user a
are being provided with a promotion such as the retailers gain more users reminder email about the product they left in
free shipping. the cart by providing them with offers such
as free shipping, discount or voucher for next
purchase. this will help increase the conversion
rate

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Order Confirmation Email Survey Email

Order confirmation email not only helps to boost sales but also gives the customer the confidence After the customer receives their order, retailers should send a follow-up survey email to
that their order has been placed which increases customer experience and loyalty. understand how the experience was for the customer and areas of improvement. Some retailers
also provide a gift voucher if the customer completes the survey as most of the time surveys are not
completed since there is no motivation for the customer to do so.

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Personalisation

The baseline of e-Commerce business growth is customer • Recommended Products - Recommend products based on the
loyalty. Keeping the customers happy is a combination of a customers browsing behaviour
lot of factors from products, content, checkout, customer and
service experience. Personalisation depends on AI which tracks • Search - Display personalised search results based on
customer information in real-time and delivers a personalised customers previous search behaviour
unique experience. Personalisation might not work for all types
of business but it’s an additional feature which helped to drive • Email - Send personalised emails about products if the
traffic on the site. customer has left the item in the cart or the product was out of
order to send a notification it is back in stock etc.
Personalisation should:
• Geo-location - Displaying multiple geo-location of the site, for
• Meet customer needs example, a customer visits the AU site, but the US site option is
also displayed to give the customer a choice
These are just some examples of personalisation. There are
• Provide customers with appropriate product recommendation
countless more features and capabilities that can be explored
based on their history • Discount Code - Display specific category discount codes to
as per the requirement of the business. Keeping up with the
promote products of a particular category
constantly changing market trends can be difficult but does help
• Segment their customers and products
to improve overall customer experience.
• Complementary Products - Display complementary products
• There are several personalisation examples such as: when the customer visits a product e.g., customer visits a dress,
and they can view complimentary products like shoes, bags and
• Customer Interest - Changing homepage and navigation based accessories that would go with the dress
on customer profile, for example, if the user has visited the
site previously and explored the women’s section then next • Personalised Homepage - Display a personalised homepage for
time when they enter the URL, they would be navigated to the the registered user to make them feel special
women’s homepage

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Click and Collect

10 tips that businesses should follow to deliver a good click and
Click and Collect has become an integral part of omni-channel
collect service:
strategy of any company as it promotes increase in footfall,
customer experience and ROI. Click and Collect is no longer just
for big supermarkets, it is in-fact become a part of both B2B and
B2C type of organisations. 1. Deliver
When deciding to implement click and collect, businesses need to consider how they will be delivering click and
collect to customers such as:

Services types:

• Online payment and collect in-store: The user pays for the product online and once the payment is confirmed the
store notifies the customer when the product is ready to be collected based on the customers store selection.
Collecting payment first helps to reserve the product.

• Reserve product online, payment and collection in store: In this service type the customer does not require to
pay online when booking the product. In this type of service, the customer can change their mind and might not
purchase the product.

• Integration: Once the delivery type is decided, businesses need to decide on integration structure. Where will
the orders be sent to, where the orders will be fulfilled. Stock can be fulfilled from either a central warehouse or
directly from individual stores

• Returns: Returns can be complex hence it is required that businesses need to have a clear strategy to manage
returns be it products delivered, or products ordered via click and collect. Businesses need to allow customers to
return the products they have orders via click and collect to provide end to end customer service

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2. Promotion: With the growth of mobile user, businesses should take into 9. Additional Cost:
consideration by designing the e-commerce website to be more
It is necessary that businesses market their click and collect responsive. Businesses should provide the same experience to Some brands charge additional service cost if the order is less
service. If no one is aware of the service, then it will be so no use customers on all devices than a value for click and collect but research has shown that
and will not generate the required return on investment. Even providing free click and collect increases footfall on the website
though click and collect services are usually the same it is still and increases conversion rate which in turn increases ROI
essential to explain to the customer the steps of click and collect. 6. Store Options:
Some stores of the businesses might not in easily assessable to 10. Collection In-store:
3. Stock Availability: customers hence it is a good option to provide other locations for
click and collect such as the post office, convenience store etc.) No matter if the business is B2B or B2C, they all need to provide
Businesses need to display real time stock level to customers the best customer service. It is essential to provide in-store
when they select click and collect while checking out a product. information to customers such as where in the shop is the
This will display the stock level to customers in their preferred 7. Fulfilment Options: collection point. Designate a well layed out section in the store
store. For this to function to work as per requirement it is for click and collect. Ensure customers do not have to wait long
If all the products being sold on the website aren’t available for
necessary that the warehouse and the e-commerce platform to collect their order. Also, some brands also provide click and
click and collect, then it is required that businesses display the
are integrated to keep the inventory levels in check to avoid collect parking, where the user enters the details for click and
shipping method provided for the product. This could be a bit
customer complaints collect parking and the order is bough out to them by the store
inconvenient for customers hence it is a better option to provide
employees
maximum products for click and collect
4. Store Locator: These are just some examples of personalisation. There are

Businesses need to ensure they display all the store information 8. Order Status: countless more features and capabilities that can be explored
as per the requirement of the business. Keeping up with the
from where the customers can collect their order through click
Communication is key for customer service even when it comes constantly changing market trends can be difficult but does help
and collect. The store should provide information such as store
to click and collect. Communicating the order status after to improve overall customer experience.
address, store timing – including public holidays and contact
purchase such as where and when they should collect their order
number.
and whether they require to bring any personal identification
when coming to collect the order etc. The status should not only
5. Mobile Friendly: be communicated via SMS or email but also on the site under
tracking order.

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PWA
PWAs run in a browser but give users the experience of a
native app through key features like:
The future of shopping experiences, Progressive Web Application
(PWA) is a next-generation web technology standard which
delivers app-like shopping experiences via mobile and desktop
• Access to the app through the mobile home screen
devices. Using PWA, merchants can build their own high
performance PWAs on top of their Commerce platform, which is
• Offline app access
proven to increase user engagement, boost conversion rates, and
diversify revenue streams.
• Push notifications

PWAs have been used by large enterprises to increase conversion rates and grow revenues, but also
small and medium businesses can take advantage of the same technologies to create an app-like
experience for their customers and expand their audience.

Why are PWAs so important to e-Commerce platforms?

• Reach a wider audience

• Reduce development costs and time

• Speed and accessibility

• Better conversion

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08.
Checklist
Within this section:

1. Maturity Checklist
1. Go live Checklist
3. SEO Checklist
4. Deployment Checklist

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Maturity Checklist
Item Client Rating Adobe Comments
The following lists highlight some specific high-level points; they are not meant
to be exhaustive but aim to give some pointers and provide a basis for your own
Leadership
checklists. You and your Adobe Customer Success Manager can use the first
checklist to qualify which of our recommendations from this document have been
Strategy
put in place.

Solution
On a scale of 0-5 please score your maturity based on the below topics addressed
in this playbook:
People
• Leadership Executive buy-in and support for the successful management of a
Process
Commerce platform.

Product
• Strategy Clarity and alignment around key business goals for evaluating digital
performance and Commerce operations.

• Solution Hosting and infrastructure evaluation for varying business and

Commerce requirements.

• People Resources, expertise, and the appropriate team structure to run

Commerce Operations effectively.

• Process Procedures, project management, and workflows for managing a

Commerce site effectively.

• Product General Commerce solutions, common integrations, and automations.

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Go live Checklist
Name Recommendation/Setting Status Due Date Assignmnet Note

Application Best Practices

Full page cache enabled

Full page cache auto generation enabled

JS merging enabled

CSS merging enabled

Magento log cleaning enabled to clean logs > 30 days

Flat tables enabled

ETags commented out in htaccess to

prevent FPC issue

Session Validation Settings lifetime: 2592000, cookie path: /

, cookie domain: .domainname.
com , Use HTTP only: Yes, Cookie
Restriction Mode: No

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Name Recommendation/Setting Status Due Date Assignmnet Note

Application Best Practices

Parralel Connections utilize different domains for media,

skin, and JS loadingenabled

Correct Magento permissions find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} ; find

. -type d -exec chmod 755 {} ;

Correct Magento ownership Webserver user should own the files

Magento cron setup Webserver user should have cron

setup. Example: sudo crontab -u
www-data -e

htaccess [devops to complete

SSH user group [devops to complete]

rsync (for load balanced [devops to complete]

environment)

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Name Recommendation/Setting Status Due Date Assignmnet Note

Application Patches Installed

Magento for known issue of sessions messages

not appearing on product pages

Magento multi-store patch for known issue of products

disappearing on sites with > 1 store

Magento admin product save

SQL error

BA cache clear module required for cache clearing to

work from admin in load balanced
environments

General Performance Settings

Gzip compression Enabled for text/plain application/xml

text/css text/js text/xml application/x-
javascript text/javascript application/
json application/xml+rss

Expires headers Setting an Expires header on assets

will prevent the browser from having
to revalidate on every request

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Name Recommendation/Setting Status Due Date Assignmnet Note

General Performance Settings

Minimize scaling image use Confirm not utilizing HTML or CSS to

scale down images on the page

Compress media directory Media and other images should be

properly compressed for the web
pre launch

CSS sprites Sprites should be utilized in order

to minimize the number of HTTP
requests when displaying images
across the site

Stylesheet placement Stylesheets should be loaded in the

HEAD tag or near the top of the page
so that they are loaded quickly

3rd party script placement Scripts should be loaded near the

end of a page as they can often
block the rest of the page from
loading

Minify JS and CSS Minifying JS and CSS will reduce the

total file size of the served files

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Name Recommendation/Setting Status Due Date Assignmnet Note

General Performance Settings

Redis/Memcache redis or memcache needs to be

utilized to store sessions, cache, and
full page cache

Utilize redis tag cleanup script [devops complete]

logrotate enabled for load balanced

environments

Database cleaning report_event and quote_tables

should be configured where entries
> 30 days old are removed

Software Settings

MySQL/Percona

Version Percona 5.5

Check that all tables are of type INNODB

INNODB

innodb_buffer_pool_size 41% Shared, 83% Dedicated

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Name Recommendation/Setting Status Due Date Assignmnet Note

Software Settings

MySQL/Percona

innodb_thread_concurrency 2 * [Number of CPUs] + 2

thread_cache_size 8-16

thread_concurrency 16-32

table_cache / table_open_cache 1024

query_cache_size 64M

query_cache_limit 2M

join_buffer_size 8M

sort_buffer_size 8M

MySQL Logging Disabled

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Name Recommendation/Setting Status Due Date Assignmnet Note

PHP

version 5.3+

maxvar [need devops]

memory_limit 256M

max_execution_time 1800

realpath_cache_size 256K

realpath_cache_ttl 86400

Extensions needed SOAP, PDO_MySQL, simplexml,

mcrypt, hash,GD,DOM,iconv2 [need
devops consult]

Apache

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Name Recommendation/Setting Status Due Date Assignmnet Note

Redis

Version [need devops]

daemonize yes

timeout 0

loglevel notice

rdbcompression no

maxmemory 8000000000 (8GB)

maxmemory-policy volatile-lru

auto-aof-rewrite-percentage 100

auto-aof-rewrite-min-size 64mb

slowlog-log-slower-than 10000

slowlog-max-len 1024

list-max-ziplist-entries 512

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Name Recommendation/Setting Status Due Date Assignmnet Note

Redis

zset-max-ziplist-entries 128

zset-max-ziplist-value 64

activerehashing yes

web nodes can communicate to

each other and DB

port open for redis

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Performance Checklist

Front-End Performance Checklist 20191 Be 20% faster than your fastest related to how fast you can start render most Make sure that the checklist is familiar to every
competitor. important pixels and how quickly you can member of your team. Every decision has
Below you’ll find an overview of the front-end provide input responsiveness. Prioritize page performance implications, and your project
performance issues you might need to consider Gather data on a device representative of your loading as perceived by your customers. Time would hugely benefit from front-end developers
to ensure that your response times are fast and audience. Prefer real devices to simulations. to Interactive, First Input Delay, Hero Rendering being actively involved. Map design decisions
smooth. Choose a Moto G4, a mid-range Samsung Times, First Meaningful Paint, Speed Index against the performance budget.
device, a good middle-of-the-road device like usually matter.
a Nexus 5X and a slow device like Alcatel 1X
Get Ready: Planning and or Nexus 2. Alternatively, emulate mobile Set up “clean” and “customer” profiles for Setting Realistic Goals
Metrics experience on desktop by testing on a throttled
network (e.g. 150ms RTT, 1.5 Mbps down, 0.7
testing.
100-millisecond response time, 60 frames
per second.
Establish a performance culture. Turn off anti-virus and background CPU tasks,
Mbps up) with a throttled CPU (5× slowdown). remove background bandwidth transfers and
Each frame of animation should complete
As long as there is no business buy-in, Then switch over to regular 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi. test with a clean user profile without browser
in less than 16 milliseconds — ideally 10
performance isn’t going to sustain long- extensions to avoid skewed results. Study which
milliseconds, thereby achieving 60 frames per
term. Study common complaints coming into Collect data, set up a spreadsheet, shave off extensions your customers use, and test with a
second (1 second ÷ 60 = 16.6 milliseconds). Be
customer service and see how improving 20%, and set up your goals (performance dedicated “customer” profile as well.
optimistic and use the idle time wisely. For high
performance can help relieve some of these budgets).
pressure points like animation, it’s best to do
problems. Build up a company-tailored case Curated by Vitaly Friedman. Permanent URL:
nothing else where you can and the absolute
study with real data and business metrics. Plan Choose the right metrics. www.smashed.by/perf-checklist. January 7,
minimum where you can’t. Estimated Input
out a loading sequence and trade-offs during 2019.
Latency should be below 50ms. Use idle time
the design process. Not every metric is equally important. Study
wisely, with the Idle Until Urgent approach.
what metrics matter most: usually it will be Share the checklist with your colleagues.

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SpeedIndex < 1250, Time-To-Interactive < 5s on 3G. you are getting results fast and you have no issues maintaining Not every project needs a framework, not every page of a SPA
your build process, you’re doing just fine. The only exception needs to load the framework. Be deliberate in your choices.
The goal is a First Meaningful Paint under 1 sec (on a fast might be Webpack which provides many useful optimization Evaluate 3rd-party JS by exploring features, accessibility, stability,
connection) and a SpeedIndex value of under 1250 ms. techniques such as code- splitting. If it’s not in use yet, make sure performance, package ecosystem, community, learning curve,
Considering the baseline being a $200 Android phone on a slow to look in detail into code-splitting and tree-shaking. documentation, tooling, track record, team, compatibility and
3G, emulated at 400ms RTT and 400kbps transfer speed, aim for security. Gatsby.js (React), Preact CLI, and PWA Starter
Time to Interactive < 5s, and for repeat visits, under 2–3s. Put Use progressive enhancement as a default.
your effort into getting these values as low as possible. Kit provide reasonable defaults for fast loading out of the box on
Design and build the core experience first, and then enhance average mobile hardware.
Critical payload chunk = 14KB, critical file size budget < the experience with advanced features for capable browsers,
170KB creating resilient experiences. If your website runs fast on a Pick your battles wisely: React, Vue, Angular, Ember and
Co.
The first 14KB of the HTML is the most critical payload chunk slow machine with a poor screen in a poor browser on a
— and the only part of the budget that can be delivered in the suboptimal network, then it will only run faster on a fast machine Favor a framework that enables server-side rendering. Be sure
first roundtrip. To achieve goals stated above, operate within with a good browser on a decent network. to measure boot times in server- and client-rendered modes on
a critical file size budget of max. 170KB gzipped (0.7-0.8MB mobile devices before settling on a framework.
decompressed) which already would take up to 1s to parse and Choose a strong performance baseline.
compile at 400ms RTT on an average phone. Understand the nuts and bolts of the framework you’ll be relying
JavaScript has the heaviest cost of the experience. With a on. Look into the PRPL pattern and application shell architecture.
Make sure your budgets change based on network conditions 170KB budget that already contains the critical-path HTML/CSS/
and hardware limitations. JavaScript, router, state management, utilities, framework and Optimize the performance of your APIs.
the app logic, thoroughly examine network transfer cost, the
parse/compile time and the runtime cost of the framework of our If many resources require data from an API, the API might
Defining the Environment choice. become a performance bottleneck. Consider using GraphQL, a
query language and a server-side runtime for executing queries
Choose and set up your build tools.
Evaluate each framework and each dependency. by using a type system you define for your data. Unlike REST,
GraphQL can retrieve all data in a single request, without over or
Don’t pay much attention to what’s supposedly cool. As long as

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under-fetching data as it typically happens with REST. accessible core content for legacy browsers), the enhanced Tree-shaking is a way to clean up your build process by only
experience (an enriched, full experience for capable browsers) including code that is actually used in production. Code-splitting
Will you be using AMP or Instant Articles? and the extras (assets that aren’t absolutely required and that splits your code base into “chunks” that are loaded on demand.
can be lazy-loaded). Scope hoisting detects where import chaining can be flattened
You can achieve good performance without them, but AMP might and converted into one inlined function without compromising
provide a solid performance framework, with a free CDN, while Revisit the good ol’ “cutting-the-mustard” technique. the code. Make use of them via WebPack. Use an ahead-of-time
Instant Articles will boost your visibility and performance on compiler to offload some of the client-side rendering to the
Facebook. You could build progressive web AMPs, too. Send the core experience to legacy browsers and an enhanced server.
experience to modern browsers. Use ES2015+ <script
Choose your CDN wisely. type=”module”> for loading JavaScript: modern browsers will Can you offload JavaScript into a Web Worker or
interpret the script as a JavaScript module and run it as expected, WebAssembly?
Depending on how much dynamic data you have, you might while legacy browsers wouldn’t recognize it and hence ignore
be able to “outsource” some part of the content to a static site it. But: cheap Android phones will cut the mustard despite As the code base evolves, UI performance bottlenecks will start
generator, push it to a CDN and serve a static version from their limited memory and CPU capabilities, so consider feature showing up. It happens because DOM operations are running
it, thus avoiding database requests (JAMStack). Double-check detect Device Memory JavaScript API and fall back to “cutting the alongside your JS on the main thread. Consider moving these
that your CDN performs content compression and conversion, mustard”. expensive operations to a background process that’s running on
(e.g. image optimization in terms of formats, compression and a different thread with web workers. Typical use case: prefetching
resizing at the edge), support for servers workers and edge-side Parsing JavaScript is expensive, so keep it small. data and PWAs. Consider compiling into WebAssembly which
includes for you. works best for computationally intensive web apps, such as web
With SPAs, you might need some time to initialize the app before games.
you can render the page. Look for modules and techniques to
Build Optimizations speed up the initial rendering time (it can easily be 2–5x times Serve legacy code only to legacy browsers (differential
higher on low-end mobile devices). serving).
Set your priorities right.
Use tree-shaking, scope hoisting and code-splitting to Use babel-preset-env to only transpile ES2015+ features
Run an inventory on all of your assets (JavaScript, images, fonts,
reduce payloads. unsupported by the modern browsers you are targeting. Then
third-party scripts, “expensive” modules on the page), and break
set up two builds, one in ES6 and one in ES5. Old browsers could
them down in groups. Define the basic core experience (fully
load legacy builds with script nomodule. For lodash, use babel-

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plugin-lodash that will load only using webpack-libs-optimizations that removes unused methods Policy (CSP) to restrict the impact of third-party scripts, e.g.
and polyfills during the build process. Add bundle auditing into disallowing the download of audio or video. Embed scripts via
modules that you are using in your source. Transform generic your regular workflow. iframe, so scripts don’t have access to the DOM. Sandbox them,
lodash requires to cherry- picked ones to avoid code duplication. too. To stress-test scripts, examine bottom-up summaries in
Are you using predictive prefetching for JavaScript Performance profile page (DevTools).
Identify and rewrite legacy code with incremental chunks?
decoupling. Set HTTP cache headers properly.
Use heuristics to decide when to preload JavaScript chunks.
Revisit your dependencies and assess how much time would be Guess.js is a set of tools that use Google Analytics data to Double-check that expires, cache-control, max-age and other
required to refactor or rewrite legacy code that has been causing determine which page a user is mostly likely to visit next. Note: HTTP cache headers are set properly. In general, resources
trouble lately. First, set up metrics that tracks if the ratio of legacy you might be prompting the browser to consume unneeded data should be cacheable either for a very short time (if they are likely
code calls is staying constant or going down, not up. Publicly and prefetch undesirable pages, so it’s a good idea to be quite to change) or indefinitely (if they are static). Use cache-control:
discourage the team from using the library and make sure that conservative in the number of prefetched requests. immutable, designed for fingerprinted static resources, to avoid
your CI alerts developers if it’s used in pull requests. revalidation. Check that you aren’t sending unnecessary headers
Consider micro-optimizations and progressive booting. (such as x-powered-by, pragma, x-ua-compatible, expires).
Identify and remove unused CSS/JavaScript.
Use server-side rendering to get a quick first meaningful paint,
CSS and JavaScript code coverage in Chrome allows you to learn but also include some minimal JS to keep the time-to-interactive Assets Optimizations
which code has been executed/applied and which hasn’t. Once close to the first meaningful paint. Then, either on demand or as
Use Brotli or Zopfli for plain text compression.
you’ve detected unused code, find those modules and lazy load time allows, boot non-essential parts of the app. Always break
with import(). Then repeat the coverage profile and validate up the execution of functions into separate, asynchronous tasks.
Brotli, a new lossless data format, is now supported in all modern
that it’s now shipping less code on initial load. Use Puppeteer to Where possible use requestIdleCallback.
browsers. It’s more effective than Gzip and Deflate, compresses
programmatically collect code coverage.
very slowly, but decompresses fast. Pre-compress static assets
Constrain the impact of third-party scripts.
with Brotli+Gzip at the highest level, compress (dynamic) HTML
Trim the size of your JavaScript dependencies.
on the fly with Brotli at level 1–4. Check for Brotli support on
Too often one single third-party script ends up calling a long
CDNs, too. Alternatively, you can look into using Zopfli on
There’s a high chance you’re shipping full JavaScript libraries tail of scripts. Consider using service workers by racing the
resources that don’t change much — it encodes data to Deflate,
when you only need a fraction. To avoid the overhead, consider resource download with a timeout. Establish a Content Security

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Gzip and Zlib formats and is designed to be compressed once the frei0r iirblur effect (if applicable) and moov atom metadata Lazy load expensive components with
and downloaded many times. is moved to the head of the file, while your server accepts byte IntersectionObserver.
serving. Be prepared for the AV1 format which has good chances
Use responsive images and WebP. for becoming the ultimate standard for video on the web. lazy-load all expensive components, such as heavy JavaScript,
videos, iframes, widgets, and potentially images. The most
As far as possible, use responsive images with srcset, sizes and Are web fonts optimized? performant way to do so is by using the Intersection Observer.
the <picture> element. Make use of the WebP format, by serving
WebP images with <picture> and a JPEG fallback or by using Chances are high that the web fonts you are serving include Also, watch out for the lazyload attribute that will allow us to
content negotiation (using Accept headers). Note: with WebP, glyphs and extra features that aren’t really being used. Subset specify which images and iframes should be lazy loaded, natively.
you’ll reduce the payload, but with JPEG you’ll improve perceived the fonts. Prefer WOFF2 and use WOFF as fallback. Display
performance, so users might see an actual image faster with a content in the fallback fonts right away, load fonts async (e.g. Push critical CSS quickly.
good ol’ JPEG although WebP images might get faster through the loadCSS), then switch the fonts, in that order. Ultimate solution:
network. two-stage render, with a small supersubset first, and the rest of Collect all of the CSS required to start rendering the first visible
the family loaded async later. Preload 1–2 fonts of each family. portion of the page (“critical CSS” or “above-the-fold” CSS), and
Are images properly optimized? Consider locally installed OS fonts. Don’t forget to include font- add it inline in the <head> of the page. Consider the conditional
display: optional and use Font Load Events for group repaints. inlining approach. Alternatively, use HTTP/2 server push, but
Use mozJPEG for JPEG compression, SVGO for SVG compression, then you might need to create a cache-aware HTTP/2 server-push
Pingo for PNGs — or Squoosh for all of them. To check the Delivery Optimizations mechanism.
efficiency of your responsive markup, you can use imaging-
heap. For critical images, use progressive JPEGs and blur out Load JavaScript asynchronously. Experiment with regrouping your CSS rules.
unnecessary parts (by applying a Gaussian blur filter) and remove
contrast (you can reapply it with CSS filters). As developers, we have to explicitly tell the browser not to Consider splitting the main CSS file out into its individual media
wait and to start rendering the page with the defer and async queries. Avoid placing <link rel=”stylesheet” /> before async
Are videos properly optimized? attributes in HTML. If you don’t have to worry much about IE snippets. If scripts don’t depend on stylesheets, consider placing
9 and below, then prefer defer to async. With defer, browser blocking scripts above blocking styles. If they do, split that
Instead of animated GIFs, use either animated WebP (with GIF doesn’t execute scripts until HTML is parsed. So unless you need JavaScript in two and load it either side of your CSS. Cache inlined
being a fallback) or looping inlined HTML5 videos. Make sure that JS to execute before start render, it’s better to use defer. CSS with a service worker and experiment with in-body CSS.
your MP4s are processed with a multipass-encoding, blurred with

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Stream responses. (DNS, TCP, TLS)), prefetch (request a resource) and preload Isolate expensive components with CSS containment. Make sure
(prefetch resources without executing them, among other that there is no lag when scrolling the page or when an element
Streams provide an interface for reading or writing asynchronous things). When using preload, as must be defined or nothing is animated, and that you’re consistently hitting 60 frames per
chunks of data, only a subset of which might be available in loads; preloaded fonts without crossorigin attribute will double second. If that’s not possible, then making the frames per second
memory at any given time. Instead of serving an empty UI shell fetch. consistent is at least preferable to a mixed range of 60 to 15. Use
and letting JavaScript populate it, let the service worker construct CSS will-change to inform the browser about which elements will
a stream where the shell comes from a cache, but the body Use service workers for caching and network fallbacks. change.
comes from the network. HTML rendered during the initial nav
request can then take full advantage of the browser’s streaming If your website is running over HTTPS, cache static assets in a Have you optimized rendering experience?
HTML parser. service worker cache and store offline fallbacks (or even offline
pages) and retrieve them from the user’s machine, rather than Don’t underestimate the role of perceived performance. While
Consider making your components connection-/device going to the network. Store the app shell in the service worker’s loading assets, try to always be one step ahead of the customer,
memory-aware. cache along with a few critical pages, such as offline page or so the experience feels swift while there is quite a lothappening
frontpage. But: make sure the proper CORS response header in the background. To keep the customer engaged, use skeleton
The Save-Data client hint request header allows us to customize exists for cross-origin resources, don’t cache opaque responses screens instead of loading indicators and add transitions and
the application and the payload to cost- and performance- and opt-in cross-origin image assets into CORS mode. animations.
constrained users. E.g, you could rewrite requests for high DPI
images to low DPI images, remove web fonts and fancy parallax Use service workers on the CDN/Edge (e.g. for A/B
effects, turn off video autoplay, server pushes or even change testing). HTTP/2
how you deliver markup. Use Network InformationAPI to deliver
Get ready for HTTP/2.
variants of heavy components based on the network type. With CDNs implementing service workers on the server,
Dynamically adjustresources based on available device memory, considerm them to tweak performance on the edge as well. E.g.
HTTP/2 is supported very well and offers a performance boost.
too, with Device Memory API. in A/B tests, when HTML needs to vary its content for different
It isn’t going anywhere, and in most cases, you’re better off with
users, use service workers on the CDNs to handle the logic. Or
it. Depending on how large your mobile user base is, you might
Warm up the connection to speed up delivery. stream HTML rewriting to speed up sites that use Google Fonts.
need to send different builds, which would require you to adapt
a different build process. (HTTP/2 is often slower on networks
Use resource hints to save time on dns-prefetch (DNS lookup in Optimize rendering performance.
which have a noticeable packet loss rate.)
the background), preconnect (start the connection handshake

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Properly deploy HTTP/2. that dual-stack support is provided across the network — it tools such as Report-URI.io. You can also use Mixed Content Scan
allows IPv6 and IPv4 to run simultaneously alongside each other. to scan your HTTPS-enabled website for mixed content.
You need to find a fine balance between packaging modules and After all, IPv6 is not backwards-compatible.
loading many small modules in parallel. Break down your entire Have you optimized your auditing and debugging
interface into many small modules; then group, compress and Is HPACK compression in use? workflow?
bundle them. Sending around 6–10 packages seems like a decent
compromise (and isn’t too bad for legacy browsers). Experiment If you’re using HTTP/2, double-check that your servers implement Invest time to study debugging and auditing techniques in your
and measure to find the right balance. HPACK compression for HTTP response headers to reduce debugger, WebPageTest, Lighthouse and supercharge your
unnecessary overhead. Because HTTP/2 servers are relatively text editor. E,g, you could drive WebPageTest from a Google
Do your servers and CDNs support HTTP/2? new, they may not fully support the specification, with HPACK Spreadsheet and incorporate accessibility, performance and SEO
being an example. H2spec is a great (if very technically detailed) scores into your Travis setup with Lighthouse CI or straight into
Different servers and CDNs are probably going to support tool to check that. Webpack.
HTTP/2 differently. Use Is TLS Fast Yet? to check your options, or
quickly look up which features you can expect to be supported. Make sure the security on your server is bulletproof. Have you tested in proxy browsers and legacy browsers?
Enable BBR congestion control, set tcp_notsent_lowat to 16KB for
HTTP/2 prioritization. Double-check that your security headers are set properly, Testing in Chrome and Firefox is not enough. Look into how your
eliminate known vulnerabilities, and check your certificate. Make website works in proxy browsers and legacy browsers (including
Is OCSP stapling enabled? sure that all external plugins and tracking scripts are loaded via UC Browser and Opera Mini). Measure average Internet speed
HTTPS, that cross-site scripting isn’t possible and that both HTTP among your user base to avoid big surprises. Test with network
By enabling OCSP stapling on your server, you can speed up TLS Strict Transport Security headers and Content Security Policy throttling, and emulate a high-DPI device. BrowserStack is
handshakes. The OCSP protocol does not require the browser to headers are properly set. fantastic, but test on real devices, too.
spend time downloading and then searching a list for certificate
information, hence reducing the time required for a handshake. Is continuous monitoring set up?
Testing and Monitoring
Have you adopted IPv6 yet? A good performance metrics is a combination of passive and
Monitor mixed-content warnings.
active monitoring tools. Having a private instance of WebPagetest
Studies show that IPv6 makes websites 10 to 15% faster due to and using Lighthouse is always beneficial for quick tests, but
If you’ve recently migrated from HTTP to HTTPS, make sure to
neighbor discovery (NDP) and route optimization. Update the also set up continuous monitoring with RUM tools such as
monitor both active and passive mixed-content warnings with
DNS for IPv6 to stay bulletproof for the future. Just make sure

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SpeedTracker, Calibre, SpeedCurve and others. Set your own • Serve legacy code only to legacy browsers with <script Commerce Platform Migration
user-timing marks to measure and monitor business-specific type=“module”>.
metrics. Checklist
• Experiment with regrouping your CSS rules and test in-body
You are seeking a new e-commerce platform to build your online
Quick wins • Add resource hints to speed up delivery with faster dns-lookup,
store. Or maybe, you might be on a mission to upgrade your
current shopping cart with the latest technology.
preconnect, prefetch and preload.
This list is quite comprehensive, and completing all of the
optimizations might take quite a while. So if you had just 1 hour If you run an active online store then even migration of a simple
• Subset web fonts and load them asynchronously, and utilize
to get significant improvements, what would you do? Let’s boil it store would require thorough planning, seamless execution and
font-display in CSS for fast first rendering.
all down to 12 low-hanging fruits. Obviously, before you start and a post-migration checkup to ensure minimum interruption for
once you finish, measure results, including start rendering time online shoppers and business overall. This checklist, with it’s 95
• Optimize images, and consider using WebP for critical pages
and SpeedIndex on 3G and cable connections. points, should provide you with all of the necessary steps to do
(such as landing pages).
so.
• Measure the real world experience and set appropriate
• Check that HTTP cache headers and security headers are set
goals. A good goal to aim for is First Meaningful Paint < 1 s, a
SpeedIndex value < 1250, Time to Interactive < 5s on slow 3G,
• Enable Brotli or Zopfli compression on the server. (If that’s not
for repeat visits, TTI < 2s. Optimize for start rendering time and
possible, don’t forget to enable Gzip )
time-to-interactive.

• If HTTP/2 is available, enable HPACK compression, and start

• Prepare critical CSS for your main templates, and include it in
monitoring mixed-content warnings. Enable OCSP
the <head> of the (Your budget is 14 KB). For CSS/JS, operate
within a critical file size budget of max. 170KB zipped (0.7MB
• If possible, cache assets such as fonts, styles, JavaScript and
decompressed).
images in a service worker

• Trim, optimize, defer and lazy-load as many scripts as possible,

check lightweight alternatives and limit the impact of third-
party

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STEP 1: Platform Selection

Validate the target platform vs. your core business processes:

Step Y/N

Shopper experience flow

Content and product maintenance

Order fulfilment

Customer service

Product promotions

Marketing communication

Customer services

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STEP 2: Migration Planning Checklist

General Store Configuration:

Step Y/N Step Y/N

Contact Phone PCI compliance requirements

Contact Email Up-time monitoring and alerts

Supported countries and currencies Security and malware scanning

Languages and local settings Data and content backup. Disaster recovery
processes
Time zone

Shipping options and rates

Tax rules and rates

Payment gateways and PayPal

Required custom e-Commerce platform extensions

Web site domain and your store URLs

SSL certificate

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STEP 3: Migration Planning - Product Catalog

Product Catalog Migration:

Step Y/N

Map all standards and custom product attributes for the import/
export process

Map old and new catalogue category structures

Related Products

Cross-Sell products

Ups-sell products

Price promotion rules

Per product tax group settings

Data feeds with POS inventory to other inventory systems

Data feeds to other market places (eBay, Amazon, etc.)

RSS Feed if any

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STEP 4: Migration Planning - Storefront

Storefront style and content:

Step Y/N Step Y/N

Branding style migration – logo, fonts, colours, Search results page

images and photos
Shopping cart page: cross-sell options
The site main and secondary navigation, calls to
action menus Other non-product content pages

Validate responsive theme design on mobile Digital assets (PDF, images, videos)
phones and tablets
Links to external content (Videos, Blogs, Documents on
Common page header third party sites) migration

Common page elements including fonts, icons, Sliders and banners

links, buttons, and content styles
Generic and custom widgets functionality mapping
Home page
Data feeds inbound and outbound
Main category pages
Product reviews module
Subcategory pages

Product detail pages

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STEP 5: Migration Planning - Checkout

Checkout Process:

Step Y/N

Guest checkout options

Shipping options

Payment options

Free shipping rules

Order and account related transactional emails

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STEP 6: Migration Planning - Data

Customs and orders data migration, validation and data QA:

Step Y/N

Customer account

Orders

Credit memos

STEP 7: Migration Planning - Policy Pages

Informational and Policy pages:

Step Y/N

Privacy policy

Terms of service policy

Return and refund policy

Customer service links

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STEP 8: Migration Planning - Integration

Third-party sites and services Integration:

Step Y/N

Shipping service providers

E-mail marketing providers (Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Bronto, Listrak,

Silverpop, etc.)

Amazon, Ebay, Rakuten, Play.com or other market places integration

Google Merchant Center data feeds

Google Shopping Campaigns with Google Ads

WordPress or other blog integration

Permanent URL mapping and 301 redirects

Search engine crawler settings - Robots.txt file

Keywords research and optimization

Google site maps

Rich snippets

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STEP 9: Migration Planning - Social Media

Social media content and integration:

Step Y/N Step Y/N

Facebook Reviews report

Twitter On-site search terms report

Pintrest Web analytics reports

Instagram Campaign reports

LinkedIn Special reports

Google +

Sales reports

Customer reports

Shopping cart reports

Product Reports

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STEP 10: Migration Planning - Customer Communication

Customer communication and proactive customer care:

Step Y/N

Email and online communication

Customer service training

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09.
Templates

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Requirements Pre-Workshop Questionnaire

Cover Sheet
Client Name of Client

Project Title Project Title

Project Sponsor Name of Client Project Sponsor

Project Managers • Name of Magento Project

• Manager Name of Client Project Manager

Version • This is a living document, and it is not formally version controlled.

• Accordingly, there is no formal sign-off of the document as a whole. Rather, the information
gathered in this document will be used to formulate the Project Charter.

• The Project Charter is version controlled, and it will require a formal sign-off.

Overview • This document describes the high-level requirements for the project. It specifies what the system
will do as opposed to how it will do it; i.e., it is not a technical specification.

• This document specifies only the changes to the Client’s e-commerce platform; it does not specify
existing functionality.

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Business
Information
Topic Question Client Response Person Interviewed Date Interviewed Complete

Project Goals What are the business goals for the new No
e-commerce platform?

Who are the executive stakeholders (roles... CIO,

No
Ecom Dir., etc.) from within your organization?

Project Staffing How many of your IT Project Managers will be

No
assigned to this project?

How many of your Business Analysts will be

No
assigned to this project?

How many of your Technical Analysts will be

No
assigned to this project?

How many of your HTML Developers will be

No
assigned to this project?

How many of your PHP Developers will be assigned

No
to this project?

How many of your QA Engineers will be assigned to

No
this project?

How many of your System Administrators will be

No
assigned to this project?

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Information
Topic Question Client Response Person Interviewed Date Interviewed Complete

Project Staffing How many of your Database Administrators will be No

assigned to this project?

Have any members of your team been trained on

No
Magento Enterprise Edition?

How many of your Developers are Magento

No
certified?

Documentation What documentation exists for current business

No
processes?

What documentation exists for current system

No
integrations?

What documentation exists for current process

flows? No

What documentation exists for current data flows? No

What documentation exists for current user

No
stories?

What documentation exists for current use cases? No

What documentation exists for “To Be” designs? No

What documentation exists for future-state

business processes?

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Information
Topic Question Client Response Person Interviewed Date Interviewed Complete

Documentation What documentation exists for future-state system No

integrations?

What documentation exists for future-state process

No
flows?

What documentation exists for future-state data

No
flows?

What documentation exists for future-state user

No
stories?

What documentation exists for future-state use

No
cases?

Project Dependencies Is this project dependent on other system

development projects? No

Are other projects dependent on this project? No

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Infrastructure

Question Client Response Person Interviewed Date Interviewed Information Complete

How is the current platform being hosted: Internal, hosting No

provider, private cloud servers, or hosted cloud servers?

Which environments does the current platform have:

No
development, QA, pre-production, production?

What was your total annual online revenue over the past
No
12-month period?

What was the average order value of all online transactions

No
over the past 12-month period?

Which region does the majority of your website traffic come

No
from?

How many unique domains do you expect to have in

No
production? E.g. “magento.com” and “magento.com/fr” are two
separate domains

How many peak page views per hour do you expect on an No

average day across all unique domains? Please don’t include
holiday and sale event traffic. Our proposal is built around the
largest moment of your average day, rather than the biggest
moment of your year.

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Question Client Response Person Interviewed Date Interviewed Information Complete

How many peak orders per hour do you expect on an average No

day across all unique domains? Please don’t include holiday
and sale event traffic. Our proposal is built around the largest
moment of your average day, rather than the biggest moment
of your year.

Do you expect to cross more than 500 concurrent visitors to No

your online store on an average day (outside of holiday or
other promotional sale events)?

If you answered “Yes” to the above question, how many No

concurrent visitors to your online store do you expect on an
average day?

How much higher is your web traffic on holiday/promotion No

days compared to an average day?

How many holiday/promotion sales events do you expect to No

have in a year?

How many total simple SKUs do you plan to sell across all your No
domains?

How many total complex SKUs do you plan to sell online? No

How many total simple SKUs do you plan to sell across all your No
domains?

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Question Client Response Person Interviewed Date Interviewed Information Complete

How many total complex SKUs do you plan to sell online? No

How many categories/sub-categories of products do you plan No

to sell online? Please include all levels of sub categories.

How much storage are you currently using for your production No
environment (not including copies of the site, database dumps,
backups, etc.)? Enter amounts in GBs

What percentage of the storage amount entered above is used

No
for media files (images, pdfs, other assets)?

How many concurrent back-office users will log in at peak for No

an average day?

Do you need to use your own SSL? For example, do you need No
an Extended Validation SSL Certificate?

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Feature function

Site Users /Customers Answers

Which languages will be available for users to view in?

Which currencies be available for users to view prices in?

Who are the primary Users of the site? How would you break them into segments
if you could describe each person?

Who are the secondary users of the site, if any? Do you market to more then one
audience?

What user data are you currently collecting?

Are your customer passwords currently encrypted?

Do you have any customer segmentation or group setups we need to be aware of?

Are we migrating any customer data beyond name, email, shipping address?

Are we migration promotions, group discounts? Etc.?

Is there anything else related to your customer we should know?

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Products Answers

What type of product configurations does your site need?

How many product attributes do you typically have per product?

Will products need to be migrated from another system? Name of system if

applicable.

Will the site need to integrate to other systems? Please list:

How many products will you launch the site with?

Do you allow pre or back orders?

Are you interested in utilizing promotions and marketing solutions in Magento

Enterprise?

Do you have wholesale pricing? Will a B2B site be part of the project?

Do you have any additional special pricing? Example: tiered pricing

Do you have any special compliance requirements for online sales?

Do you have downloadable products?

Do you have prepacks? Do you allow a customer to combine items to make custom
packs?

Do you do any product customizations? Ex: Embroidery, Logo’s

Is there anything else related to Products we should know?

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Shipping/Payments/Tax Answers

What shipping carriers do you foresee using? On the site? Examples: Fexex, UPS, USPS

Are there any unique shipping requirements related to your products? Example:
Dimensions, weight, handling fee’s, perishable items, controlled restrictions?

Do you ship internationally? What are the country/region restrictions? Any additional
restrictions for international such as carrier, products, etc?

Do you have an existing payment gateway? Examples: Authorize.net, PayflowPro,

Chase. Will this remain with the new site?

Do you accept Net 30?

Do you have any subscriptions or auto fulfilment programs? Please describe:

Is there anything else about shipping or payments we should know?

What is your tax strategy?

Are you in one state and collect tax at the state level? If you collect at the state level is
the tax the same statewide or is it determined by the county or city?

Do you have warehouse locations throughout the US? If so where are your warehouse
locations?

Are all products taxable?

Do you need VAT set-up?

Is there anything else related to taxes we should know?

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Integrations Answers

Will the site need to integrate to other systems? Please list:

Will we be intergrating with a order management/ ERP? Name and Details of system:

What do you use for your Digitial Marketing Campaigns (DMP)?

Do you have a separate shipping system we need to connect with? Name and details
of system:

Do you have a separate shipping system we need to connect with? Name and details
of system:

Do you have physical stores? How many?

Do you have a Point of Sale System (POS) we need to connect with? Name and details
of system:

Do you leverage 3rd party feeds or compariosn shopping engines such as Google
shopping, Bing Shopping, The Find, Shopzilla etc? Please list each feed:

Do you sell via resellers or affiliates? Examples: Amazon.com, Buy.com, Ebay.com,

Sears.com. Please list each one:

Who is your email service provider?

What anylitics package(S) do you use?

Will A/B split testing be a requirement?

Are you interested in Retargeting?

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Integrations Answers

Are there any other systems such as a CRM, help desk, of call center you want to
intergrate? Please list:

Are there any customer reviews, videos, or social networking integrations you want to
include in your website? Please list:

Search/UX Answers

Will the site need to integrate to other systems? Please list:

Will we be intergrating with a order management/ ERP? Name and Details of system:

What do you use for your Digitial Marketing Campaigns (DMP)?

Do you have a separate shipping system we need to connect with? Name and details
of system:

Do you have a separate shipping system we need to connect with? Name and details
of system:

Do you have physical stores? How many?

Do you have a Point of Sale System (POS) we need to connect with? Name and details
of system:

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Search/UX Answers

Do you leverage 3rd party feeds or compariosn shopping engines such as Google
shopping, Bing Shopping, The Find, Shopzilla etc? Please list each feed:

Do you sell via resellers or affiliates? Examples: Amazon.com, Buy.com, Ebay.com,

Sears.com. Please list each one:

Who is your email service provider?

What anylitics package(S) do you use?

Will A/B split testing be a requirement?

Are you interested in Retargeting?

Are there any other systems such as a CRM, help desk, of call center you want to
intergrate? Please list:

Are there any customer reviews, videos, or social networking integrations you want to
include in your website? Please list:

What redesign strategy are you interested in?

Do you have an inhouse graphic designer? Will they be working on the website
redesign?

Do you have a design/marketing firm managing your brand?

Do you have brand standards./guidelines?

Do you have product photography? Stock photography?

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Search/UX Answers

Binary Anvil typically creates designs for the home page, categroy page, product detail
page, and a genric content page. Do you anticipate a need for design comps outside of
these typical pages and if so which ones? Example: Checkout, cart, blog, forum, etc.

Do you plan to deploy multiple store fronts using Magento’s Multistore functionality?
Please list:

Is there anything else related to design we should know?

Additional Functionality Answers

Store Locator?

One Page Checkout?

Product Image Labels?

Authorize.net CIM Module?

RMA?

Rewards/Loyalty Progrmas?

Abandoned Cart Module?

Gift Registry?

Gift Cards/Gift Cerficates?

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Additional Functionality Answers

360 Degree Product Views?

Product Video’s

Left in Stock Flag

Pop-up/Mini Cart?

Virtual Catalog/Lookbook?

Affiliate/Ambassador Marketing?

Stock Notifications (Notify me when it’s back in stock)

Online Exchanges?

Discounts/Coupons?

Events?

Order Cancellation?

Store Credits?

Rebates?

Recommendations?

Ratings and Reviews?

Royalties?

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Additional Functionality Answers

Wishlists?

Upsell/Cross-sell?

Private Sales Events by Customer Group?

Newsletters?

Gift Wrapping?

Gift Message?

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Commerce Strategy Document

Document Control
Document Title Commerce Strategy Document. Document sub-title

Authors Deepthi Amirthagadeswaran

Document Purpose

Version Control

Verion Number Date Author Comments

1 7/27/2020 Deepthi

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References / Associated Documentationl

The table of references shown below provides a list of those documents that have been directly used to create this document.

Ref. Version Date Author/Sender Title/Filename

1 1.0 Adobe_experiece_cloud_
guidelines.pdf

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Executive summary please consult the Feature Matrix and Architectural Vision • “GA” means Google Analytics
deliverables.
• “KPI” means Key Performance Indictors
<Place Executive Summary text here, in the same format. Use
‘Paste in Destination Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option Definitions • “MAP” means Minimum Advertised Price or the lowest price a
while moving text into this section>
retailer can advertise a product
For the purposes of this document, the following definitions and
acronyms will represent the following:
Purpose of the Document • “MBI” means Magento Business Intelligence
• “3P” means Third-Party
The purpose of this document is to provide a contextual, strategic • “OOTB” means Out of the Box
point of view (POV), expound on features and use cases, and
• “AOV” means Average Order Value
convey additional details and clarification on specific topics • “PDP” means Product Detail Page
for a Commerce Strategy review based upon <CLIENT_NAME>
• “BAU” means Business As Usual
requirements, needs, and aspirations captured during the • “PIM” means Product Information Management system
Discovery sessions conducted during <DATE_RANGE>. During
• “BI” means Business Intelligence
this period, Adobe Commerce Strategy conducted a series of • “PLA” means Product Listing Ads
calls with various members of the IT and Management team at
• “CDN” means Content Delivery Network
<CLIENT_NAME>, which has provided a clear understanding and • “POV” means Point Of View
scope for a Commerce Strategy Review.
• “CRM” means Customer Relationship Management system
• “ROI” means Return on Investment
These interviews have led to a review of the developments of
• “CTA” means Call To Action
the company in past years, a view of its vision for the near and • “SaaS” means Software as a Service
longer-term future and for the foundation <CLIENT_NAME>
• “CX” means Customer Experience, which entails all touchpoints
requires in order to anticipate the desired growth and use the • “SERP” means Search Engine Results Page
with your brand, both online and offline, pre-sale and post-sale,
current technology set-up to achieve that growth.
and is inclusive of the User Experience
• “SOR” means System of Record
This document will offer functional recommendations, best
• “ERP” means Enterprise Resource Planning system
practices, and insights that should be considered for a renewed/ • “SSOT” means Single Source of Truth
revised Commerce Strategy. Specific topics and areas discussed
• “ESP” means Email Service Provider
in the document were purposely chosen, for a full list of • “TCO” means Total Cost of Ownership
requirements and customizations and the technical approach,

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• “UI” means User Interface • Processes additional resources that might be needed to perform revised
day-to-day operations or where resources will need to be
• “UGC” means User Generated Content • Data & Innovation reassigned or added.

• “UX” means User Experience • Resources Throughout this document we will concentrate on the areas
where Commerce Strategy Review has occurred, denote,
• “WYSIWYG” refers to a ‘What You See Is What You Get’ editor Figure 1 – Digital Transformation where valid, how the four (4) components listed above are
affected and offer recommendations, best practices, and future
Once companies embrace any kind of digital transformation considerations to contemplate. When one of the four (4)
Special Icons and review of its current setup and processes, it is not a project components from the Venn Diagram is mentioned within this
with a defined end date. As organizations continue to grow, document, it will be bolded to facilitate reviewing the document.
Throughout this document, there are special sections that
diversify, and evolve, the resulting commerce strategy approach
contain additional information. The corresponding icons below
can continue in perpetuity as new technologies emerge, and
denote the special area purpose:
eventually adopted. <CLIENT_NAME> Company History
<Place company history text here, in the same format. Use ‘Paste
Commerce Strategy Review When viewing the initial <CLIENT_NAME> Commerce Strategy
in Destination Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option while
project phase through the lens of the Venn Diagram (Figure 1.),
moving text into this section>
The Commerce Strategy Review, in this case, relates to the the first component Systems will be one of the primary drivers of
process of modifying, updating, and adapting business and the review.
organizational technologies due to the everchanging, fluid Engagement Overview
landscape in order to achieve a competitive advantage and to Next, when legacy systems are being replaced or new technology
ensure maximum scalability, sustainability, extensibility, and is brought in, this invariably requires Process changes from Reasons to Act
manageability. normal operational BAU.
<Place ‘Reasons to Act now’ text here, in the same format. Use
At Magento Commerce Strategy, we concentrate on four, Also, with any existing or newly implemented platform, which ‘Paste in Destination Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option
disparate, intersecting areas of a Digital Transformation Venn data is integrated and how the data is distributed and utilized while moving text into this section>
Diagram when developing Commerce Strategy Reviews & sub- becomes a major component of a successful strategy.
sequent strategies (as observed in Figure 1): <Highlight relevant Magento features/ stats. E.g. ‘Did
Lastly, Resources mostly points to people. There may be a need, you know Magento has a robust ecosystem of 315,000
• Systems for instance, for additional training on the existing systems or developers and a network of 1,150+ highly-trained
technology and solution partners?’>

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Challenges & Risks while moving text into this section>

<Place ‘Challenges & Risks’ text here, in the same format. Use <Sample chart – categorizing types of orders>
‘Paste in Destination Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option
while moving text into this section>

Critical Success Factors Table 1 – Order Types Chart <SAMPLE ONLY>

<Place ‘Critical Success Factors’ text here, in the same format.

Order Type Origination Type System of Record
E.g. Architecture & Technology, Using Metrics to drive actionable
Online Magento Commerce Platform
insights, Increase conversion & Customer acquisition, Focus. Salesforce CRM
Retail PoS system
Use ‘Paste in Destination Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ Salesforce CRM
option while moving text into this section>
Phone Entered into Salesforce CRM
Salesforce CRM

Products
<Summary of inferences & recommendations. E.g.
Recommendations of new systems & benefits of the same>

<Place ‘Products overview’ text here, in the same format. Use

‘Paste in Destination Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option
while moving text into this section>

Sales/ Orders
<Place ‘Sales/Orders Overview’ text here, in the same format. Use
‘Paste in Destination Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option

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Returns/ Refunds Email Marketing • Product Recommendations

<Place text here regarding how refunds & reruns are handled, <Place text here, in the same format, corresponding to the list of • Search
what are the departments/teams involved, the criteria, recommendations for email marketing. Use ‘Paste in Destination
mechanism to tie it back to Magento, customer payments Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option while moving text into • Browse
execution, followed by recommendations to improve the existing this section>
process. • Merchandising

Use ‘Paste in Destination Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ Transactional/ Operational Emails • Content
option while moving text into this section>
<Place text here, in the same format, corresponding to the list of
• Ability to personalize the User Experience (UX)
recommendations for transactiona/operational emails. Use ‘Paste
Omni-channel Order Customer Experience
in Destination Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option while
• Trigged Messages
moving text into this section>
<Place text here, in the same format, corresponding to the list of
recommendations. Use ‘Paste in Destination Format’ or ‘Paste as • Email or built-in integration to ESP
plain text only’ option while moving text into this section> Personalization
• Multivariate Testing (MVT)
E.g. Recommendations for one-click orders using Magento <Place text here, in the same format, corresponding to the list of
Commerce platform: recommendations for personalization. Use ‘Paste in Destination • Individual Customer Profile
Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option while moving text into
https://docs.magento.com/user-guide/customers/account- this section> • Chatbots
dashboard-requisition-lists.html
<BELOW ARE 2 SAMPLE RECOMMENDATIONS ONLY. TO BE • AI/PI/machine learning
Marketing REVIEWED BEFORE INCORPORATING IN A CLIENT DELIVERABLE>
• Flexibility to use automation or manually setup campaigns
Marketing operations is another area which can help drive Sample recommendations for personalization:
significant growth of both revenue and the double-opted-in Once a Personalization platform is selected and implemented,
customer database. As this will be key going forward, we have • Listed below are some basic product features in a it is certainly tempting to deploy as much of a Personalization
investigated a number of aspects, which are reviewed in detail Personalization platform: suite’s features immediately. However, we always recommend
below: ramping up slowly and employing a ‘crawl, walk, run, fly’

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approach. Otherwise we’ve found that retailers quickly

<Summary of best practices & recommendations along with
become overwhelmed and are unable to properly measure the
dependencies to be aware of for personalization. E.g. search
effectiveness of their Personalization program.
and browse should always be inextricably tied together so
that behavior on one influences the other. It is never good
When initially launching a Personalization campaign it
CX or UX when a customer is browsing for specific products
is recommended to test all new features and Customer
and then performs a search and the results are unrelated to
engagement to ensure they are leading to positive impacts and
their previous browse behavior>
your customers are interacting and adopting, before deploying
sitewide.

It would be highly recommended to test the newly added “Adobe Client Interaction
Sensei” AI technology that is now part of the Magento Commerce
technology. Deploying a personalized product recommendations <Place text here, in the same format, corresponding to the
campaign would not require any immediate UX changes but list of recommendations for client interactions. Use ‘Paste in
could prominently serve more relevant products to your Destination Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option while
customers with additional products and accessories listed to moving text into this section>
drive margin and sales.
<BELOW IS A SAMPLE CONTENT – TO BE REVIEWED BEFORE
Next, you can easily display different content and banners to INCORPORATING IN A CLIENT DELIVERABLE>
customers based upon their personalized results.
Part of the challenge of E-commerce is always that the interaction
Once Product Recommendations are working successfully, with the customer takes place online as opposed to in “real life”.
you might want to consider using a Personalization engine to However, there are many ways that this can be addressed:
merchandise your product listing and search results pages.
Using the Personalization platform’s algorithm to render product • Customer reviews
results will eliminate merchandisers having to manually prioritize
product and search results listing pages and offer much more • Customer forum
topical products based upon the user’s preferences, interactions,
and browsing and buying behavior. • Customer service support

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E-commerce Operational Readiness

This section offers a high-level review of your organization’s • E-commerce team • SEO/SEA specialist
operational readiness based upon the conversations and
interaction with your resources and operations. • Training • E-commerce Manager

Technology Readiness • IT Product Specialist

<Place text here, in the same format, Use ‘Paste in Destination E-commerce Team The product specialist is the person who should be responsible
Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option while moving text into for onboarding and enriching the online product data. It is vital
this section> Most of our clients do have a dedicated e-commerce team that you do have a person responsible for making sure not only
that oversees the day-to-day operations, innovation, future that all data is consistent across your Product Pages, but also
Infrastructure Readiness vision, maintenance, and are involved in decisions around the that the quality is good enough for delivery online. For instance,
technology stack. Whilst the roles described below are not vital the Product Specialist will make sure there are no missing
<Place text here, in the same format, Use ‘Paste in Destination for every organization and can be fulfilled to a degree by existing pictures, no missing or inconsistent copy, no varying data
Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option while moving text into staff. What you might typically see in an e-commerce team are formats and so on. It should be the product specialist’s role to
this section> the following roles: make sure the data was enriched to the right quality standard to
be put on-line.
Organizational Readiness • Product specialist
Data Specialist
<Place text here, in the same format, Use ‘Paste in Destination • Data specialist
Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option while moving text into The Data Specialist is responsible for building, personalizing
this section> • Campaign marketeer and optimizing the experience and going beyond “just product
data”. They will be defining target audiences, understanding
<SAMPLE CONTENT ONLY - TO BE REVIEWED BEFORE • Social Media specialist customer journeys, personalizing these journeys, A/B testing –
INCORPORATING IN A CLIENT DELIVERABLE> which message really makes sense for your target audience at
• Analyst this time. The Data specialist is responsible for ensuring that
This can be broadly broken down in terms of three components: not only your e-commerce team but also the wider organization

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(think Customer Service) has the right data to make the correct forecast of expected traffic so measures can be taken in advance online store. SEO is key as it does not necessarily need to cost a
decisions. or at least to create awareness and speedy responses regarding big amount of money and will highlight how well your branding
site performance if necessary. strategy works – however, SEA could generate a separate
Campaign Marketeer revenue stream bringing substantial revenue. SEA can also play
Analyst a big role in making sure the brand reaches the right audience.
The Campaign Marketeer will be handling marketing across Budgets should be carefully monitored to make sure no
all channels (such as via merchandizing, email marketing, paid A key role is that of an Analyst who captures and tracks core funds are spent, and messaging is actually reaching the target
media, print, promotion handling etc) This role should have the KPIs like Net Promotor Scores, returns, price comparisons with audience.
responsibility and budgets to make sure you are expanding competitors and the likes. He/she will be working closely with all
your advertising and work on increasing awareness to both the specialists and brings the data together. The analyst will be E-commerce Manager
your existing customers and the wider market. In addition, the able to constantly provide visibility of what is happening in the
campaign marketeer delivers an analysis daily of money spent on market and what is happening with <CLIENT_NAME> customers The E-commerce Manager will ensure the E-commerce team has
each of your channels vs. money gained through the campaigns and the growth and use of the (double-opted in) customer clear goals and clear targets every single day. The E-commerce
that are executed. database. Manager will make sure the team tests everything before it
goes live and that the team clearly understand the goals and
Social Media Specialist Separately – your data analyst should constantly be measuring objectives of that day, week, month and even year to come.
your key e-Commerce metrics, such as traffic, AOV, time between
Working closely with the Campaign Marketeer (initially this could orders, customer lifetime value, acquisition costs, etc., An <CLIENT_SPECIFIC_RECOMMENDATIONS_BASED_ON_ABOVE>
be a joint role within the team) is the Social Media specialist. example graph has been presented below (Figure 2) to show
This person will monitor and manage all social media channels, what type of metrics should be measured from year to year. Training
determine which channels are the most successful for <CLIENT_
NAME> products, determine where and when to place relevant Figure 2 – SAMPLE E-commerce Metrics Magento offers both functional business user and technical
social media Ads and manage influencers. Equally, the Social training through our online Magento U courses. During
Media specialist works closely with the Campaign Marketeer SEO/SEA Specialist COVID-19, Adobe has made all on-demand training free of
to make sure stories are aligned and timing is congruent. charge to our clients. We would therefore highly recommend
Lastly – both Campaign Marketeer and Social Media specialist Most companies will have someone that focuses specifically that the various departments working with Magento (IT,
liaise with the E-commerce IT Team to make sure the latter are on SEO/SEA. We have always preferred one team that focuses Creative/Digital Marketing, Customer Service, Product teams)
aware of expected peaks due to promotions. Ideally the latter specifically on this topic as it really supports the funnel of how would take the opportunity to really familiarize themselves with
communication is on a structured basis, such as a daily or weekly well your customers know where, when and how to find your the platform.

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<Place text here, in the same format, Use ‘Paste in Destination

Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option while moving text into
this section>

Reporting
The ability to have better visibility to reports, analytics, KPIs, and
metrics is a crucial goal of this Commerce Strategy Review effort.

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Format’ or ‘Paste as plain text only’ option while moving text into
this section>

<Summary of best practices & recommendations along

with sample options. E.g. Tools that are compatible with
Adobe Commerce Cloud>

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E-Commerce Platform Features (this is an example and is dependent on business requirements)

MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Portfolio Shop portfolio should be local on-site/store

level (affects P&A + check-out)

Search portfolio should be larger than Shop

portfolio and it should be common to all sites
(global)

Local Shop/Search portfolio should include

spare parts (AE Service + MHS)

Local Shop/Search portfolio should include

software products

Search Search by product name, part number or

material description (short-text)

Search by customer material number

Search by serial number (Mobile Hydraulics

Independent After-market, Eletric Drives and
Controls spare parts)

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Search Search by manufacturer part number

(Mobile Hydraulics Independent After-Market
materials)

Ability to handle indexing from two different

data sources (if search by serial number and/
or manufacturer part number required)

Search - Sort Sort by relevance (relevance is set

results automatically - can be changed by user)

Sort by product name and material description

Sort by service products (spare part, repair,…)

Sort by lead-time

Flexibility to optimize on-site search ongoing,

based on user feedback/analytics

Search - Filter products included in local Shop portfolio

Filter results (filter is set automatically - can be removed by
the user)

Filter by the delivery program (e.g. GoTo)

Filter by lead-time

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Filter results Filter by product group

Filter by service products (spare part, repair,…)

Catalog - Sort Sort by relevance (relevance is set

results automatically - can be changed by user; is
differnet then for search)

Sort by price (local recommended retail price)

Sort by lead-time

Catalog - Filter by product attributes/parameters, e.g.

Filter results diameter, etc.

Flexibility to optimize filter criteria ongoing,

based on user feedback/analytics (PIM and
front-end)

Catalog Automatic catalog management with PIM

(store views, languages, product assortment)

Seamless updating when products in the PIM

change

Good performance (fast load times during

filtering)

State of the art Google indexing

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Catalog Ability to optimize filtered navigation at every

level (category to attribute filtering), e.g. by
deleting filters, adding pictures, change order
of filters, or create new filter groups.

Ability to optimize carousels, for example

“recently viewed”, “frequently bought
together”, based on product or user

Ability to go straight from product filtering

results (“List”) to cart, bypassing the PDP page

Enable creation of customer specific catalogs

Enable possibility to offer information/features

based on log-in and or permission rights of
user

Product The display product name, part number,

details material description (short-text)

Display customer material number

Display serial number (Eletric Drives and

Controls spare parts)

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Product Display serial number and replacement for

details manufacturer part number (MH Independent
After-market) - hide cross-reference Rexroth
part number

Display CAD product info

Display similar products / spares / accessory

Suggest 1:1 alternative or inform regarding

planned phase-out

Enable material description (short text) of

certain spare parts (MH IAM materials) to
be displayed partially, according to set rules
(before login, after login+rights full display)

Hide material description (short text) of certain

spare parts (MH IAM materials) in source code

Enable use of different templates/layout/

features of PDP, based on product and local
requirements

PDP displays all information and download

options as specified in PIM (e.g.: download
CAD or datasheet), incl. what attributes should
be shown first

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Product Route part number/product not in local

details Shop portfolio to other DC catalog/tool e.g.
GoSelect, configurators, etc.

Allow user to give product reviews/ratings

Enable relevant PDP to be displayed via QR-

code scan

Display lead-time and related assortment

Product
data, if relevant (e.g. assortment class or
details -
max. quantity)
additional
information
Display in-stock / out-of-stock info for
products in local Shop portfolio

Display in stock / out of stock info for

products in Certified Partner inventory

Display recommended list price w/o login

Display pre-calculated net price to logged in

user with permission rights

If product not included in Shop portfolio,

show “where to buy” or “call us” or BOTH on
Product Detail Page

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Product Display list of Certified Partners to be

details - contacted for order/RfQ
additional
information Provide the possibility to request a Repair
((MHS + IHS + AE)

Display product hierarchy (from ERP

masterdata) ---> BE, ES, FR feature

Check P&A of products in local Shop portfolio

(ERP call & error handling required)

Allow stock handling on the platform via SAP

or API for in-stock/out-of-stock info and stock
sharing with Certified Partners

Allow collection of Certifed Partner inventory

information (Multi-vendor? Manual? Partner
Management?)

Allow flexibility in “out of stock” logic based

on site/country

Vizualization via explosions diagram to

support identification of spareparts

Enable logic to display lead-time of certain

products only to TPC based on product
hierarchy (after login)

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Lead-time list Upload/Download list of Rexroth part

numbers as .csv file to check lead-time from
Check lead- ERP table (AMS)
time of part
numbers in a Request to be notified in case lead-time of
list (TPC) part numbers in list changes

Add - to - cart Add-to-cart from store catalog (“list” and PDP)

Add-to-cart from Order History

Add-to-cart from external applications (e.g.

DC configurators)

Display mini cart on store pages to

summarize products in the cart

Quick-add part Quick-add via Rexroth material number

numbers to
the cart Quick-add via customer material number

Quick-add via ‘Import list’ (.csv/.txt files)

Quick-add via ‘Import list’ (.xml file) ---> not

standard

Quick-add via Rexroth serial number

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Cart (may Enable cart to handle configurable materials

affect also incl. Characteristics - transfer configurator
Add-to-cart, result to cart via web service
Quick-add,
Check-out) Enable cart to handle MH Independent After-
market material

- serial number and manufacturer part

number can be used as ordering IDs; Rexroth
cross-reference part number is hidden

- user may be required to add serial number

to order item

- all relevant IDs are sent to ERP (serial

number, Rexroth cross-reference number...)

Enable cart to handle relation between

main/sub-items (products must be bought
together, pricing results from both)

- transfer result (relation between main/sub

item) to cart via web service

Enable cart to handle MTpro kits

- transfer configurator result as a list to cart

via web service

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Enable cart to handle Ident numbers ---> DE

Cart (may
topic
affect also
Add-to-cart,
Enable cart to handle EGMS materials ---> DE
Quick-add,
topic
Check-out)
Enable cart to handle orders for parts which
are not included in local Shop portfolio (order
anyway)

Enable cart to handle RfQ process

Enable files to be attached to order (e.g.

documents, drawings)

Enable files to be attached to RfQ (e.g.

documents, drawings) - relevant for TPC and
NFC

Define maximum amount of order items

allowed (for performance reasons)

Enable download of items from cart incl.

data from simulation response (part number,
quantity, date, price)

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Enter/select date
Availability
information
Display lead-time and related assortment
(DC)
data, if relevant (e.g. assortment class or
max. quantity)
ATP info
Display delivery date resulting from ERP
order simulation (post goods issue date for
CA)

Inform the user whether delivery date is

shipping date or arrival date (depends on SAP
process, may vary per customer)

Display DC stock info (how many pieces) to

user based on permission rights

Display DC location from where product will

be delivered (plant, country)

Enable on store level for requested delivery

date to be restricted to a defined time range

Enable on store level for delivery date to be

hidden if not reliable - display notification
instead (today this is based on product
attribute TK2)

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Enable on store level for delivery date to be

Availability
hidden based on a product attribute (GoTo) -
information
display notification instead ---> NA feature
(DC)
Enable on store level for delivery date to
ATP info
be hidden if outside a defined time range
(notification is displayed)

Implement error handling based on ERP

simulation/store settings and display
notifications in cart

Display net price for single items (unit, total)

Pricing
and for complete order

Display additional pricing conditions (e.g.

discounts, freight, surcharges)

Auditable online coupons/discounts?

(separate from SAP sales deals)

Handle local tax calculations

Display additional freight charges for Express

delivery

Conditions to be displayed are defined on

store level (e.g. either net price only or list
price/discount/net price)

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Conditions are not defined on store level

Pricing
- they vary based on product attributes
(division, distribution channel) ---> DE, BE
feature

Condtions are defined on store level but

additional values can be displayed based on
customer attribute

Hide net price and do not allow order, if only

list price is maintained for the product ---> IT
feature

Do not display values returned from ERP

simulation if ≤ 0,00

Implement error handling based on ERP

simulation/store settings and display
notifications in cart

Price partner Select end customer in the cart from list of

(pricing price partner(s) defined in ERP
based on end
customer Display prices in the cart based on end-
of focus customer pricing (price partner) in ERP
customer)
Save price partner in ERP sales order

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Automatically replace old part number with

Replacement
the new one and display notification (1:1
product
replacement)

Save both part numbers in ERP sales order (in

case of order placement to DC)

Text fields -
Enter a comment on item level and save in
comments
configurable text field in ERP

Enter a comment for the whole order and

save in configurable text field in ERP

Text fields - Enter customer PO number in the cart and

PO number save in fixed field of sales order

Enter end customer PO number in cart - to be

saved in the configurable text field of sales
order

Text fields Request e-mail address of licence recipient

- Software for software products
products

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Display billing address from customer master

Delivery
(bill-to)

Display/Select delivery addresses based on

customer master (ship-tos)

Create a new delivery address - restrict

countries and include postal code validation
checks

Select partial or complete delivery (single

deliveries based on availability vs all items in
one delivery) - display info text if complete
delivery selected

Select shipping method, e.g. Express (based

on shipping methods enabled on store level)
- display info text if freight not calculated
automatically

Restrict selection of ‘Express’ delivery to

spare parts from a certain plant (Service
Nurnberg) ---> not an NA feature

Select option to buy-online-pick-up-in-store

(BOPS), i.e. at Dealer, to reduce shipping
costs

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Do not offer any payment method (pay on

Payment
account - payment handled via terms/process
defined in customer master)

Enable payment via credit card on store

level, if defined as payment term in customer
master (no selection in check-out)

Enable selection of payment method on store

level, based on store settings (e.g. credit card
or Paypal)

Enable guest user to pay via credit card or

other payment method

Integrate multiple payment vendors and

gateways

Flexibility to handle local requirements, e.g.

MX (Wire transfer – Bank info - flexible short
term credit limit for trusted direct customers
–Manual process (need to verify identity),
“buy now, invoice later” - for Non Focus
customers exception)

Order Define default sales area data on store level

simulation/ (sales org., division, distribution channel,
placement sales order type)

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Enable on store level for default sales area

Order
data to be overwritten (incl. sales order type)
simulation/
based on customer number/country
placement
Enable on store level for sales office and
sales group to be defined via mapping (e.g.
based on customer and/or division)

Enable on store level for cart to be split in

multiple orders, based on product attributes
(e.g. division and/or distribution channel)

Enable on store level for cart to be split

in case of complete delivery, if products
delivered from different plants ---> DE topic

Enable on store level for order type to be

defined based on product attribute (GoTo) -
could result in multiple orders ---> NA topic

Enable on store level for cart to be split in

multiple orders based on stock, i.e. one order
to DC and one to Certified Partner

Implement error handling based on ERP

simulation/store settings and display
notifications in cart/check-out

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Handle acceptance of Terms and Conditions

Order
before order placement
placement
Display order confirmation page incl. ERP
sales order number linked to Order History
(UPS could come from Partner)

Request order notifications/updates on

confirmation page (watch order)

Print order as PDF from confirmation page

Send order confirmation e-mail to user with

order details (header, item data)

Include link to Order History in order

confirmation e-mail

Enable guest user to place order (without

permission rights) - affects complete process
in cart/check-out

Enable guest users to register (for full

account with permission rights) from order
confirmation page

Enable internal notifications to be sent to DC

for specific features defined on store level
(e.g. in case of comments in sales order)

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Send RfQ to DC for products which cannot be

Request for
found on the site
Quotation-
RFQ
Send RfQ to DC for products which are
included in the local Shop portfolio (e.g. to
request better price)

Request for Routing from Platform (Non-focus customers)

Quotation-
Routing

Request for Route user data of NFC to buyRexroth.com/

Quotation- marketplace
Process
Route user data of NFC to Certified Partner

Enable logic to route RfQ to Partner based on

the territory

Enable logic to route RfQ to DC or Partner,

based on stock

Route RfQ to buyRexroth.com/marketplace

Route RfQ to Certified Partner

Enable logic to route RfQ to DC or Partner,

based on product

Save RfQ in CRM system of DC

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Define cases when simulation must be

Performance
repeated despite caching, in order to display
correct prices/dates

Enable calculation of total order values in

the cart (instead of from ERP), if chaching of
simulation applies

Registration Provide online registration process and

internal validation process

Automatically create lead/prospect in CRM

system of DC

Provide “easy” online registration process for

features which do not require validation, e.g.
download CAD or create wishlist

User mgt Define multiple roles and permission rights

for internal and external users

Enable internal users to act on behalf of

other users within the DC Shop (impersonate)

Enable external users to act on behalf of

other users within the DC Shop (impersonate)

Enable TPC to manage accounts of users

working for same company

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Add to wishlist from catalog/search results

Wishlist
Add to wishlist from cart

Add-to-cart from Wishlist

Create wishlist linked to user account

(“private”) - create, read, update, delete

Create wishlist linked to company account -

create, read, update, delete

Enable possibility to disable ‘Add to wishlist’

based on product type (e.g. serial numbers)

Enable possibility for wishlist functions to

be offered to users based on log-in and/or
permission rights

Enable OCI connection and transfer cart

Punch-out
content to customer ERP

Promotions Enable parallel simulation in the ERP

and Customer interface, so that simulation results are
Loyalty displayed in one go
features -
Performance Implement caching of simulation results
(e.g. prices) to avoid repeating unnecessary
simulation

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Handle multiple languages within one Shop/

Local content
store

Handle special characters in translations

Local format
Handle local date and currency settings

Handle local address fields (e.g. State or

Province in US and CA)

Site & Enable easy and efficient update of

Content Mgt translations through e.g. use of properties
and mass update

Display properties/technical labels to internal

users on test system to support translation
process

Enable download of products in Shop

portfolio incl. defined product attributes as
csv file

Provide event logs of each order/RfQ

(timestamp, user ID, customer number,
products….)

Provide error logs for errors displayed to

users

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Enable download of event and error logs as

Site &
csv files
Content Mgt
Enable publication of messages to inform
about e.g. unavailability of the system due to
maintenance

Enable content management (incl. Catalog

content management)

Provide automated testing for standard

features

Analytics OOTB features and dashboards (if they

satisfy requirements - user and customer
specific)

Possibilty to run reports / analysis (target

performance, competitive scoring)

Trace RfQ routed to marketplace/Certified

Partners and monitor results

Integration with CRM and Tealium to track

and personalize experiences (e.g. track
events such as “CAD downloads”)

Automated transfer of analytics data to

external system

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Automatically generate a Google sitemap

Search Engine
Optimization
Create search engine friendly URLs
-SEO
Take full control of URLs with URL rewrites

Enable detailed search results by

automatically adding structured data markup
to product pages

Architecture Accelerate site performance and defend

against DDoS attacks with Fastly’s Content
Delivery Network (CDN), which includes
generous bandwidth allowances

Cloud Automatically back up your code and

databases for easy restoration in case of any
incident

Manage performance with unrestricted

versions of New Relic APM Pro (performance
monitoring) and blackfire.io Enterprise
(performance testing) tools

Process transactions with confidence with a

certified cloud infrastructure

Get enterprise grade reliability and

availability with 99.99% uptime and a high
availability architecture**

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Store media files on a separate database

Performance
server or content delivery network (CDN) for
faster page load times

UX & Design Lean design with selfexplaining elements and

clear user guideance

Enable use also on other devices (e.g.

smartphones)

Easy login process and a direct possibility to

continue my work

Provide performant system with supportive

functionality (e.g. search)

Easy check out possiblity with all necessary

information

Representation of assortment (lead-time)

information in a trustworthy way

Possibility for the user to save current state

of the activity (e.g. shopping) in order to
continue later

Display minimum order surcharge in a

transparent way

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Provide possibility to chat to a Rexroth

UX & Design
respresentative directly without calling
(addressed as Integration topic)

Provide active guidance when the user is new

to the eShop on what to do next

Enable A/B testing across the platform

Replace old OI Application (OT, InvT, OIR,

History Appl. InqT)
General
Utilize the Rexroth Order Information
- Data Model to ensure customer-
friendly information and an online/offline
communication

Enable the use of different mobile devices

Enable easy and fast configuration of history

applications

Enable manage of personal settings to

control notification (frequency, amount,…)

integrate the History Applications into my

Rexroth

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

The ability to track the status of an order/

Order History
orders placed and completed in the past, to
have the possibility to inform myself about
the status

Display a list of the recent orders when

entering Order History

Search for his orders by using general

Search criteria (customer numbers (int.
only)/ purchase order number/ rexroth order
number)

Search for orders by using extended criteria

(time frame creation date/ Material number/
Header status/ delivery status/…))

Display general sales order Information in

search result (Header + Item; PO number/
Order Number/ Order Date/ Total Net
Amount/ Order Status)

Display details for a selected order (Header:

PO number/ Order Number/ Order Date/
Total Net Amount/ Order Status/ Payment
terms/ Contact person; Item: standard item
information / confirmation information /
delivery information)

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Mark sales order for push notification, in

Order History
order to be informed about future changes in
the sales document

Recieve a mail notification about changes

where done in the sales document

Enable to print the search result as PDF or

Excel

Enable to Download linked SAP documents to

the sales order (confirmation document pdf,
invoice pdf, delivery doc./picking list pdf)

Track the deliveries (all relevant data,

e.g. tracking information with carrier site
integration) within the sales order

Reorder whole order or line items from

previous placed order

Enable possibility to request an interaction

on order item (e.g. request to be contacted,
cancellation/return/non conformity, expedite
when overdue)

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

The ability to track status of quote / quotes

Quote History
Display a list of the recent quotes when
enteringt Quote History

Search for his quotes by using general

Search criteria (customer numbers (int. only)/
purchase order number/ rexroth quote
number)

Search for quotes by using extended criteria

(time frame creation date/ Material number/
Header status))

Display general quote Information in search

result (Header + Item; PO number/ Quote
Number/ Quote Date/ Total Net Amount/
Quote Status)

Display details for a selected quote (Header:

PO number/ Quote Number/ Quote Date/
Total Net Amount/ Quote Status/ Payment
terms/ Contact person; Item: standard item
information / delivery information)

Enable to print the search result as PDF or

Excel

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Enable to Download linked SAP documents to

Quote History
the quote (quote.pdf)

Place an order based on the quote.

Invoice The ability to track status of the invoices for

History previous placed orders, to be informed about
all relevant data to have an overview about
the payment status

Display a list of the recent invoice when

entering Invoice History

Search for his Invoice by using general

Search criteria (customer numbers (int. only)/
purchase order number/ rexroth invoice
number)

Search for his Invoice by using extended

criteria (time frame creation date/ Material
number/ Invoice Status)

Display general invoice Information in search

result (Header + Item; PO number/ Invoice
Number/ linked Sales Order Number/ Invoice
Date/ Invoice Status)

Enable to print the search result as PDF or

Excel

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Enable to Download linked SAP documents to

Invoice History
the invoice (invoice document pdf)

Repair History The ability to track the status of a repair

order / orders

Display a list of the recent repair orders when

enteringt Repair History

Search for his repair orders by using general

Search criteria (customer numbers (int. only)/
purchase order number/ rexroth repair order
number)

Search for repair orders by using extended

criteria (time frame creation date/ Material
number/ Repair status)

Display general repair order Information in

search result (Header + Item; PO number/
Repair Order Number/ Repair Order Date/
Total Net Amount/ Repair Status)

Display details for a selected order (Header:

PO number/ Order Number/ Order Date/
Total Net Amount/ Order Status/ Payment
terms/ Contact person; Item: standard item
information / confirmation information /
repair information)

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MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Mark repair order for push notification, in

Repair History
order to be informed about future changes in
the repair document

Recieve a mail notification about changes

where done in the repair document

Enable to print the search result as PDF or

Excel

Enable to Download linked SAP documents to

the sales order (quotation pdf, confirmation
document pdf, report of findings pdf, delivery
doc./picking list pdf)

Track the deliveries (all relevant data,

e.g. tracking information with carrier site
integration) within his repair order

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Architecture Integration
Integration

MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

Header / Footer Website specific / personalized Header Footer

Integration (push of navigation structure;
consumption of content and function)
considere UX and design based on Web UI
Toolkit including logged in status

Website - Cart Minibasket: Beside the shopping basket icon

Icon in the header of the DC websites the number
of items in the basket is displayed (only if > 0).
It has to be always up to date (refreshed after
add/delete).

Website - Product Provide a list of available Productgroups and

finder on local families from local catalog for local website
homepage

Branding Branding according to Cooporate Design

Domain / Channel / www.example.com/<language 2 digit>/

Language <country 2 digit>

Content Content consumption from WCMS (First

Spirit)

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Integration

MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Comments Evaluation of requirements
Relevant (Y/N)

CIAM CIAM (authentication; login with Example

ID) / Keykloack Integration (authorization;
Open ID Connect) / SSO

Tealium Integration of Tealium Tag Management (as

base for chat and google analytics integration)

SAP connection (order information; Customer

SAP master data; ATP; Leadtime; Pricing; Order /
Inquiry creation; IAM Business (Serialnumbers;
OEM Numbers); Customer material numbers;
Stock; Material master

PIM PIM Integration

MAM MAM integration

Partner finder Integration of Partner Data from central

global Content locator (as application or
snippetsintegration; see website of DC)

CPQ Integration of available CPQ systems (goto

configurator; add to / update cart; inclulding
configuration)

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Integration

MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Comments Evaluation of requirements
Relevant (Y/N)

RFQ Buyrexroth

Robin Transfere Inquiries of users from NFC to C4C

(including partner indication

Adyen Integration of Payment provider

Branding according to Cooporate Design

www.example.com/<language 2 digit>/
<country 2 digit>

Content consumption from WCMS (First Spirit)

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Search

MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Comments Evaluation of requirements
Relevant (Y/N)

Search for Material Transition scenario: utelize GUI from local

OEM and SN search function from e-Commerce solution;

Search for Material Provide sarch service for e-Commerce content

OEM and SN for search by Material number; type code;
OEM number; Serialnumber

Target scenario: utelize local search function

from e-Commerce solution

provide content provide “Cataloge” content to global search

index (mindbreeze)

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Information Architecture

MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Comments Evaluation of requirements
Relevant (Y/N)

dispatch user support user in transfere to right channel

in case of logged in according to user
authorization

TPC and NFC support TPC and NFC journey in CU Websites

journey (with full e-Commerce solution) and NFC
journey for rest of CUs’

Shopping list has to be channel independent

cross channel support cross channel cart (list of materials in

“cart” the cart)

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Authorization

MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Comments Evaluation of requirements
Relevant (Y/N)

Authorization Authorization is maintained in Keykloack; It is

concept distinguished between e.g. internal / external;
no ordering / ordering; distributor / no
distributor; superuser (impersonate)

System

MVP
Topic Use case / Feature Relevant (Y/N) Comments Evaluation of requirements

zero downtime deployment

Deployment

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Merchant Self-Site Assessment

Customer Experience and Usability

Does your overall customer experience help you sell?

Questions Y/N Questions Y/N

Can customers easily shop on your site on their mobile device? Is it easy to start and find during the customer journey?

Can they view product information without zooming and Does your website offer personalized product recommendations?
pinching?
Do you use machine learning/AI to generate recommendations?
Can they easily fill out payment forms?
Do your recommendations perform well with both new and existing customers?
Is the text large enough for them to read it easily?
Can customers easily find products?
Can they access all website functions without switching to the
desktop view? Do you offer an onsite search that has search recommendations?

Do you have FAQs and Shipping / Returns /Order Status details Can customers filter within category pages?
on your website?
Do your banners have clear Call to Actions such as ‘Shop Now’ or ‘Save 20%’?
Is it clearly labelled?
Does your website include social integration?
Is it searchable and easy to navigate?
Do customers have the ability to share and/or like your business page?
Can customers find what they’re looking for in two clicks or less?
Can customers register for your site via social login?
Does your website offer live chat?
Do you offer shoppable social media?

Do you have a customer loyalty program?

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Checkout and Payments

Does your checkout and payment experience help you sell?

Questions Y/N

Does your site offer a guest checkout?

Does your site allow customers to create an account easily during checkout?

Does your site offer different payment options?

Does your site offer Instant Purchase/One-Click Checkout?

Can customers checkout without completing more than two forms?

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Product Availability and Logistics

Does your product availability and logistics experience help you sell?

Questions Y/N

Does availability information appear on your product pages?

For sold-out products, can a customer sign up for product alerts when the product becomes
available?

Do customers on your website have a way to easily check the status of their order or shipping?

Do customer service representatives have the latest information about orders if a customer

reaches out via phone and/or live chat?

Does product shipping and delivery information appear on your product pages?

Are estimated shipping and delivery costs highlighted?

Is it obvious whether shipping is free or not?

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Use Case Template - Suggested Format

Use Case ID Main Flow Alternative Flow 1 Alternative Flow 2

Unique, numeric identifier
A step-by-step narrative of the user actions and • A concise description of an alternative flow. • A concise description of an alternative flow.
system responses that will take place during
Use Case Name the execution of the use case under normal, • A detailed description of the user actions and • A detailed description of the user actions and
expected conditions. system responses that will take place during system responses that will take place during
Concise, results-oriented name
the execution of the use case when user the execution of the use case when user
This is best done as a numbered list of actions actions create alternate process flows. actions create alternate process flows.
Use Case Diagram ID performed by the actor, alternating with
responses provided by the system.
Corresponding Use Case Document ID (Deep-
linked if desired)

User Story ID Post-conditions

Corresponding User Story ID (Deep-linked if
Describe the state of the system at the
desired)
conclusion of the use case execution.

User Story Exception

State the User Story
• A concise description of one or more
exceptions.
Preconditions
• Describe any anticipated error conditions that
Activities that must take place, or any
could occur during the execution of the use
conditions that must be true, before the use
case, and define how the system is to respond
case can be started
to those conditions

A person or other entity external to the

software system being specified who interacts
with the system and performs use cases to
accomplish tasks.

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Example

Use Case ID Main Flow Alternative Flow 1 Alternative Flow 2

UC001
• Customer browses catalogue • The customer chooses to Pick Up in Store • The customer chooses “Deliver by Mail”
delivery method
Use Case Name • Customer clicks product from the catalogue • Customer enters address
landing page • OMS sends a list of stores which have stock
Pick Up in Store or by Mail
for the product(s) in the customer’s order • Customer places order
• Customer clicks “Add to Cart”
Use Case Diagram ID • Magento displays store lists to the customer • Magento saves the order and sends to OMS
• Magento requests stock from OMS
UCD001
• The customer chooses store and places order • OMS routes order to appropriate warehouse
• OMS checks on-hand stock
User Story ID • Magento saves the order and sends to OMS • Warehouse ships merchandise
• Magento adds product(s) to the cart
US001
• OMS routes order to appropriate store • Magento creates shipment
• Customer checks out
User Story • The store holds products for pick-up and tells • Magento changes order status and emails
• The customer chooses the delivery method OMS the products should be counted as sold customer
As a shop manager, I want customers to be
able to order online and have a choice to
• Customer receives products • Magento changes order status and emails • Customer receives products
pick up their merchandise in-store or have
customer
it delivered to them so they can receive
their products by the method that’s most
• Customer visits store
convenient for them.

• CSR verifies customer

Preconditions
None • Customer receives products
Post-conditions Exception
Actors
The customer receives products from the • Products are out of stock
Customer, CSR, Magento, OMS, WMS
chosen method.
• No order received by store or shipped by the warehouse

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10.
Acronyms

Adobe e-Commerce Operational Playbook