NetSuite, a Web-based application provider, today announced that it has reached the 1,000 e-commerce customer milestone. What's particularly impressive is how quietly it has attracted those customers. While the integrated hosted application suite has long featured e-commerce tools that integrate with back-end systems and business applications, the company hasn't really highlighted those functions the way it has trumpeted its NetCRM and NetERP brands.
With the secret out to at least 1,000 businesses, the San Mateo, Calif.-based company announced NetCommerce, which adds new analytics and site building modules. Still, the move is largely about marketing and positioning as most of the features and the deep integration have been present "and we probably won't be selling it as a standalone product," said Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite. However, it demonstrates that NetSuite realizes just how important integration among accounting, inventory, CRM, and Web store is to business efficiency these days.
When it comes to integration from the Web store to customer service to marketing to inventory to accounting, few companies offer the end-to-end integration of NetSuite. "We are in the second generation of e-commerce," Baruch Goldwasser, senior product manager at NetSuite, said. "The focus is now on multichannel integration, customer self-service and integrated end-to-end processes."
More and more, Goldwasser said, a business' Web site and storefront is its face. "Customers want a single point of contact. They expect a company's physical store and Web site to communicate."
The NetCommerce Era Begins
NetCommerce Analytics is designed to incorporate both trend and customer-specific behavioral data, according to the company. Marketing reports measure revenue and traffic generated from all channels, campaigns and keywords. In addition to a macro view, you can also drill down to individual customers' behavior to track shopping cart activity, how many times they have visited, what pages they viewed, when they viewed each page, and how they found your site and so on.
New cart-abandonment reports are designed to provide both aggregate and detailed information on shopping patterns. Overall abandonment rates can be measured for any date range and on an per-item basis. You can choose to have abandonment reports e-mailed to you several times a day, highlighting unusual shopping patterns.
NetCommerce Site Builder is designed to enable companies to build and manage customizable sites created with any tool
(such as Macromedia Dreamweaver) and integrate with NetSuite's accounting, inventory and customer management
capabilities. It also enables companies to sell on-line in any language, and
in any currency chosen by the Web shopper.
Also part of NetCommerce Site Builder are new search tools designed provide merchants with customizable search forms that can query any item field in the database, determine the result fields, and limit results based on any criteria such as price or manufacturer. Multiple search forms can be published to a Web site, further targeting results, according to NetSuite.
NetCommerce Analytics and Site Builder will be available for an additional fee, which has not been determined, according to the company. Features offered in the basic NetSuite's NetCommerce service include the following:
- Ability to generate template-based Web sites complete with pricing and inventory data held in NetSuite.
- Transaction capabilities including purchase orders and real-time credit card payments.
- Order management with fulfillment and billing workflow.
- CRM capabilities to record all transactions and interactions.
- Customer self-service portals to track shipments, view orders and manage support issues.
- Affiliate and E-mail marketing tools and reports to manage marketing
campaigns including click-through rates, ROI of each campaign and revenue generated from each partner.
- Personalized price lists and content
The NetCommerce Analytics and NetCommerce Site Builder Modules will be available in the
summer.
Dan Muse is executive editor of internet.com's Small Business Channel and EarthWeb's Networking & Communications Channel.
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