Whether it is a replatform, or building an online store from scratch, a successful ecommerce project is only as good as its planning.
Developing an ecommerce website requires significant investment, and costs can quickly add up if proper planning is not in place. This includes timelines, development process and methodologies, risk mitigation strategies, and key metrics with which to measure success against.
Understanding the customer
To understand what your ecommerce client needs from their online store, first you need a solid understanding of their business and needs.
This includes identifying the target audience, competition, selling and delivery process, and the retailer's long-term goals.
So your fact-find should start with top-level questions like:
What does the company do?
Why do you think you do it better than anyone else?
What are the biggest challenges you are facing?
What sales channels are currently working best?
Who are the company's biggest competitors?
What are they doing right?
What is the company's audience?
What is the value proposition of your product and/or service?
How does your company define success?
Asking these questions has another benefit beyond helping your agency understand the client’s situation and needs. It also shows the client your intent and thoroughness in getting the right outcome for them, setting the tone for your future relationship.
If you rush this stage or ask only surface-level questions, you won’t have the necessary information to deliver what the client truly needs. The time for granular is later.
This is also a time to speak to your client’s audience, wherever possible. They’re the end user of the site, so their input carries a lot of weight. Aero partner agency Red-Fern Media explain how they place understanding user needs front and centre, and how their fact-finding process reflects that:
When designing a store, the main aiding factor for us is user stories. We always prioritise user experience. If the customer has a poor experience, it's likely that the store is going to perform badly. In that case, user experience needs to be spot on - which is why user stories are so crucial in the design phase.
Assessing the scope
Now you’re armed with information about your client’s business and needs, use it to develop an assessment of what they need from a solution.
This allows you to put forward a suitable range of options that meet their technical needs and take into account their financial considerations.
Think about the following areas in your assessment of a client’s ecommerce needs;
Do they have complex requirements that will require your agency to consider more extensible solutions?
If they only have very basic requirements and/or a smaller budget, would a cloud solution be a better fit?
What will their future needs be? Might they potentially outgrow a particular solution?
What are the long term cost implications of a particular solution?
Consider how to bake the user experience into the design process, necessary integrations, and allocate enough time for quality assurance and testing to ensure the store works correctly on all devices ands browsers.
For bigger projects, experts recommend including an user testing phase where members of the public within the site's target demographics are recruited to carry out different tasks, such as finding and ordering a product, make a payment, request a return.
Understanding costs
Making sure both you and the client understand the financial implications of different decisions from the get-go helps foster a culture of transparency and ensure all parties are on the same page, helping reduce the risk of scope creep later on.
Common cost considerations include:
Hosting costs
The cost of hosting on some platforms can have a massive impact on retailers’ bottom lines.
Storage, bandwidth and traffic volume all influence final hosting costs. Additionally, security features, domain registration, and renewal rates can quickly add-up, especially as site complexity and traffic grow.
Licensing fees
This involves analysing total cost of ownership beyond just the monthly subscription. Consider transaction fees, growth-based pricing changes, and hidden operational costs.
Other considerations include selecting the right pricing model, such as per-user, usage-based, or revenue-based fees, ensuring the platform can scale without punitive costs.
The cost and time impact of changes
Some platforms are significantly more complex and costly to develop on, making any necessary changes and updates much more resource intensive.
Platform upgrades
Many retailers have been stung by having to upgrade to a newer version of a platform just to stay secure, with a hefty price tag attached.
Having a clear understanding of a platform's roadmap and ease of upgrading can help you mitigate this, or at least be prepared for it.
The cost of external applications
If a platform has limited functionality and needs numerous add-ons, these costs can quickly escalate and impact not just profit, but site speed and performance.
Presenting your plan
With your assessment of your client’s needs and clear picture of the scope, you’re now in a position to put forward a proposal for their online store build.
Your pitch should address the market problem, ROI, and a clear, actionable plan, rather than just technical features. Clearly articulate your value proposition, showcasing how your approach solves the customer's pain points, and show you understand the landscape with numbers that illustrate potential growth.
Aero partner Total Processing advocates agencies taking an integrated view of retailers’ needs, so that savings in one area can be redirected to the other demands of the business. Cameron Lee, CEO of Total Processing, advises;
Agencies can position themselves as a resource hub for clients by offering a range of options, like the use of an in-house payment provider. Then, when ecommerce clients need to make crucial decisions, your agency will have solutions which provide the benefits of immediacy, lower costs and not needing to involve additional stakeholders.
While different businesses will have differing needs, there are a few essential elements that are common to any ecommerce project: mobile and checkout optimisation, high scalability, how customer data will be used to create personalised experiences, and site security.
When presenting, consider your audience. Use technical jargon sparingly and only when necessary, and keep it visual. Focus on benefits over features, explaining how technology improves conversion rates and customer experience.
And most importantly, listen. A good proposal should feel like a conversation. Allow for questions and actively listen for concerns.
With that said, don’t be afraid to challenge your clients on their ideas and perspectives. Sometimes, clients will have preconceived notions of how they want their store to look or feel, based on previous experience or advice from others.
This can be valuable input, but if they have mistaken beliefs about specific apps or functionality, it's your responsibility as the expert to nudge them in the right direction.
Most clients will appreciate this honesty, and it shows that you have their best interests at heart.
Execution considerations
Once your proposal has been signed off, it's time to build the online store.
Jonathan Leafe from Leafe Consultancy explains:
The main recommendation here is to slow down and take your time to get it right. If you set a project off in the right direction at the start, the chances are it’ll go a lot more smoothly. The end result will be better and lock you into the client for additional services long into the future.
Having documented, repeatable processes will take you a long way, ensuring consistency and removing uncertainty on your end. More traceability also helps improve transparency, helping foster trust and credibility amongst your retail clients.
The Aero approach
We want all agencies partners to be able to make the most of what Aero has to offer, so that retailers get an online store they’re proud of and that delivers the functionality and results they need.
That’s why we empower Aero agencies with full training and support, from dedicated dev channels, to access to the platform’s source code and immediate support.
We even help agencies win business, from introducing retailers and providing sales and marketing collateral to joining in on pitch meetings.
Get in touch with Aero to learn more.
