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eCommerce Diligence™ is FitForCommerce's comprehensive and disciplined methodology and toolkit which enables eCommerce businesses to define and articulate detailed business, functional and technical requirements, benchmark against eCommerce best practices, and efficiently find 'best fit' solutions.
"Any e-retailer considering the monumental changes which accompany a switch in e-commerce platforms should undertake a careful process of due diligence and really understand what they need and what they're buying."
– Shael H. Wilder, President/CEO, SG Commerce LLC
The 3 key elements of eCommerce Diligence™ are:
Discovery & Design
- Articulating business objectives and requirements that impact the eCommerce channel
- Assessing your business's eReadiness or eCommerce preparedness, including net merchandising and net marketing strategy, data integrity, operational dynamics and dependencies
- Defining and articulating functional and technical requirements
- Designing key workflows and customer journeys
- Evaluating 'soft' requirements such as company culture, skills, business methodologies, service and support requirements.
- Prioritization of requirements against time and risk
Market Visibility
- Benchmarking against best practices in online retailing at the detailed feature level
- Access to industry expert opinions at the feature level
- Clearer visibility on market offerings by the multitude of vendors and service providers (platform and point solutions)
- Third-party verification of vendor capabilities and proof points
- User-generated feedback on vendor capabilities and engagement experiences
Best Fit Evaluation
- Comparison of your requirements against market offerings at the feature level
- Evaluating 'soft' requirements against vendors and service providers
- Scoring of 'best fit' vendor solutions
- Gap analysis of requirements vs vendor capabilities
- Vendor selection legwork and rationalization assistance
In addition to our unique process and toolkit, FitForCommerce Coaches and Consultants are available to guide you through eCommerce Diligence™ and provide eCommerce expertise – whether it's to answer questions about certain features or best practices or to help you create an RFP or to perform detailed requirements-gathering and analysis. Our Coaching/Consulting team can help ensure a successful undertaking and useful results.
Why is eCommerce Diligence™ important?
Like the legal and financial concepts of 'Due Diligence', we believe that any online business facing a potential change in technology or business direction owes it to itself and its customers to follow a comprehensive and detailed diligence process that includes meticulously articulating and analyzing its needs and making sure it knows what it is buying . . . and equally as important: what is not included in a solution.
Too often, in our experience, we witnessed online businesses rushing into the sales cycle without fully understanding their needs - especially dynamics around culture, skills, service levels, scalability and flexibility. Many online retailers have expressed their frustration at being 'oversold'. Meanwhile, many vendors and service providers complain that some of their clients weren't the right fit. The wrong fit costs everyone valuable time, resources and expense. No one wins.
eCommerce Diligence™ is meant to ensure that both consumers and suppliers of eCommerce technology truly know what they need and where to get it.
"As much as we believe we know what we're doing, it was incredibly useful to have an outside experienced team with no history or emotion come in and construct our business and technical requirements and workflows. The FitForCommerce team was very good at pulling valuable information and direction out of us that we might not have identified on our own; they asked us all the right questions and left no stone unturned. Their documentation was quick and thorough and their advice was solid. We saved time and money and feel more confident in our approach because of FitForCommerce."
– Miriam Lahage, CEO, Koodos
How can my online store or channel benefit from eCommerce Diligence™?
If your online business needs to make a strategic or tactical technology decision - whether you plan to buy, license, rent or build your own software - performing eCommerce Diligence will improve the quality and efficiency of that decision.
You will save time and effort by leveraging FitForCommerce to deliver:
- Full detailed functional and technical requirements
- Wireframes and site map designs
- Distribution-ready RFP or RFQ
- 'The Long List' of potential solution providers
- 'The Short List' of suitable solution providers
- 'Fit' analysis including understanding gaps
- Acceptance Criteria to use after a solution has been developed or delivered
You will save money from the saved time and effort, and you may save money from avoiding costly mistakes.
You will improve your outcomes and reduce your risk by leveraging our best practices and eCommerce experience.
You may not require the entire methodology and perhaps only need to define detailed functional and technical requirements. You may only need to create a suitable RFP. Or you may be overwhelmed by the mass of the vendor market and need help navigating your way. No matter what your objective or deliverable, FitForCommerce will help you master eCommerce Diligence™, benefit from the efficiencies and make the best fit choice.
"Within the first 10 minutes, the FitForCommerce analyst gave me 4 suggestions that helped improve the CX and SEO of my webstore. Then their rapid site eval - which took only a day and was very affordable - gave me more actionable suggestions. But it didn't stop there, they helped me prioritize the low hanging fruit and higher-impact changes."
– Jason Shaw, Co-Owner, MyPerfectColor.com & Breslow Home Design Center
