Upgrading to Websphere Commerce Version 7
Considering an upgrade of your Websphere Commerce platform?
There are many factors to consider including:
- Cost/Benefit
- New Features
- Existing version (5.6.1 or 6.0)
- Changes to your business model such as expanding to multiple store fronts
At some point an upgrade is inevitable if you want to maintain support by IBM. Customers currently on 5.6.1 are in this situation. However, if you are on version 6.0 you still have some runway left before being forced into an upgrade. Regardless of which version you are currently on, if you know an upgrade is in your future it is best to start the planning process sooner rather than later.
Upgrades can be very expensive and are highly influenced by the level of customization you have done and new features you want to take advantage of as part of the upgrade project. If possible, the fastest and most cost effective approach is to migrate your current site as-is to Websphere Commerce 7 and take on any refactoring of code or addition of new features in future iterations. An agile project management approach can be extremely useful to facilitate this.
Recommendations
- Plan on 3-6 months depending on the size and complexity of your online channel. If you follow the above recommended approach most of the time spent on the upgrade will be testing and setting up new infrastructure for the switch.
- Assemble a second team, or repurpose your existing production maintenance and support team. This advise was given to me directly by IBM Migration Services. The point is, if you attempt to have the same team performing the upgrade while they continue to maintain and support your current production system the upgrade will always get lower priority and will never get done. If you choose the latter option and repurpose your existing team be prepared for no additional changes to your production system for the 3-6 month upgrade window.
- Test, Test, Test! This is mostly an exercise in regression and performance testing. If you take on any new development during this process make it unit tests. Websphere Commerce 7 comes with a framwork for building unit tests using JUnit that did not exist in previous versions.
We are currently in the process of taking a customer through an upgrade from Websphere Commerce 6.0 to 7.0. As this project progresses I will continue to update this post.
IFeelGoods Integration
IFeelGoods.com is one of a new generation of start ups attempting to bridge social networking and e-commerce. By integrating IFeelGoods into your website you have the ability to offer Facebook credits to your customers when they place an order on your site. This is yet another tool to help increase conversion.
IFeelGoods has a respectable list of e-commerce sites using the platform, yet it remains to be seen how effective it is in influencing conversion. Much of this will depend on how popular Facebook credits become so in that sense IFeelGoods is somewhat dependent on the social platforms with which it integrates. For now that list only includes Facebook.
Is it effective?
We have done one IFeelGoods integration, so this is by no means scientific. Our experience indicated that only a small percentage of customers who placed an order proceeded to redeem Facebook credits. So we cannot say that it significantly contributed to conversion. However, much like SEO, it is a combination of many little things that get results. Furthermore, if the popularity of Facebook credits takes off it will make third party social commerce integrations like IFeelGoods more effective.
Here is how it works.
The integration is pretty straight forward and only requires an iframe added to your order confirmation page. IFeelGoods takes it from there. The user sees an IFeelGoods banner in your order confirmation page and when they click on it a new window opens and prompts them to login to Facebook. You are prompted to allow IFeelGoods a certain level of access which I was personally uncomfortable with and may be the reason we saw such a low redemption rate. See screen shot below. Once you are logged into Facebook and accept all the access requirements you are granted the Facebook credits and the transaction is complete.
Why should I care about the User Experience of my eStorefront?
Why should you care about your users’ (shoppers) experience when they visit your online store?
You may think your product or service is so indispensable to every shopper who stumbles onto your website that they will endure any hardship to complete the sale. You may think so but you are mistaken.
Not only will customers not suffer through a bad process, the bar has been continually raised to the point where shoppers insist on being whisked through the process as effortlessly as possible. Their expectations are shaped by their experiences with the very best shopping flows out there. This means your site had better keep up or quite simply you will lose sales to other vendors.
To provide the best user experience (which equates to the highest sales conversion rate) you must be able to adapt to your shoppers’ expectations and demands for a simple, intuitive and secure-feeling checkout experience.
In order to deliver this, you need a flexible and robust platform that supports changes to your presentation scheme without getting in the way. If your current system can’t adapt to these changes, it’s time to consider your options.
Most organically-grown or highly customized systems have hardened around business practices and often cannot flex to adapt to the fickle nature of your customers’ demands. Fortunately there are a number of solutions that are available to you- and many come with a price tag that most SMBs can afford… in fact, you probably can’t afford not to invest here. Your competitors are more than happy to demonstrate their flexibility by enticing and taking your customers away.
You’ll see many entries on the Global Era blog that describe specific tactical things you can and should do to retain market share. We’ll also talk a lot about strategic options to build a sustainable plan and system architecture so you stay at the top of your competitive space.
Multi Channel Commerce
Today, most companies sell goods and services through more than one channel and often support a single sale across multiple channels- engaging a customer in one, supporting in another and completing the sale in yet another.
The web channel alone can be quite complex. Your “Web” channel often means multiple branded storefronts. Affiliate models are being implemented that effectively mean still more channels to manage. Your affiliates may sell through multiple channels of their own. To complicate matters further, your affiliates may only offer a subset of your catalog, market your products or services as their own (white label), and may have different pricing and fulfillment arrangements.
How do you manage all of this?
Most e-commerce platforms were built to serve a single web channel. Most are incapable of even powering more than one web site, and if you have managed to pull this off, it is probably a hack. And that only deals with the storefront. What about all the back office systems? Armies of people are required just to keep all these transactions straight, get orders fulfilled, and manage the financial aspects of the transactions such as AR and AP.
ERP vendors have attempted to address these challenges with integrated storefront platforms, catalog management systems, and merchandising tools. This is often done through merger or acquisition, resulting software that is not well integrated. So the proprietary vendors have more software “products” to sell you, effectively extending their walled gardens and creating more vendor lock in.
You can mitigate this lock in and give yourself greater flexibility through a well planned integration strategy. This usually involves Service Oriented Architecture as the foundation and provides flexibility for future changes.