The nice drawing above is one of my favorites, the world famous Donald Duck. Donald is always looking for some activity that will make him a few bucks. However, Donald is not as lucky as his cousin Gaston, much less is a money magnet like his Uncle Scrooge.
But I believe the biggest problem is that Donald is a duck, yes, a duck. Ducks are animals that fly, run and swim but do not do any of these three activities excellently.
Legend has it that one day the forest was in panic because of a hunter who was terrorizing all the animals. On the edge of a lake, the fish, the eagle, the rabbit and the duck were talking.
With the exception of the duck, everyone was very worried. The fish said that as soon as it saw the hunter, it would swim with all its strength, the eagle would fly as high as it could and the rabbit would run without looking back. The duck with a certain air of superiority said he was very calm because he had all those skills.
One day the hunter appears through the trees. The fish plunged as deep as it could, the eagle took flight and quickly reached the highest of the mountains, and the rabbit sped away and not even its shadow was visible. And our friend Pato? Unfortunately, our nice friend paid the price.
The Complexity of being an excellent E-commerce Platform:
In the world of agencies and e-commerce platforms, and especially in the case of platforms, I have seen some examples of the duck syndrome.
In the Brazilian market, which has many particularities compared to the rest of the world, we have many options for digital agencies and e-commerce platforms and that is very good. Some agencies are exclusively e-commerce agencies, others offer a wider range of solutions, but in the case of agencies they are related activities and they manage to maintain an excellent quality of service.
In the world of platforms, this matter is a little more delicate and there is no room for Donald platforms. And for what reason? An e-commerce platform is made up of many details that are already complex in themselves. We have the database, the information architecture, the back end code that must be extremely optimized and many others of extreme importance.
But isn't having all the activities of an e-commerce with the same supplier much more comfortable?
A simple example of convenience is shopping at a mall. We have many options for stores, we have the food court, the cinema and everything else. But despite all this convenience, you will almost always end up paying more and have less choice. And the truth is that convenience doesn't match an e-commerce project.
A few years ago, there was a trend of companies' official websites being entirely linked to their Facebook fan pages. This was a strategic mistake that, luckily, was just a passing fad, as Facebook practically killed the organic reach of posts, and today, without paying, you can't communicate with your followers. In other words, the fan base (or customer base) belongs to Facebook, not you.
Below I list some points that should be in the hands of the eagles and not the duck:
LAYOUT
The layout is the first contact your potential buyer will have when accessing your online store. The layout of an online store must be personalized and exclusive, it must tell the story of your company in a unique way and with great elegance and professionalism. The information architecture must be clear, the products must be easily found, and the shopping experience must be delightful. Believe me, this will save you a lot of money as the conversion rate is one of the biggest challenges of any e-commerce and it is a fact that a well designed layout makes the store sell more.
In addition, the layout must have its codes optimized so that the loading time is agile and following all the best practices indicated by Google for better indexing in the ranking of the famous search engine.
And only a platform with a completely free CMS will give you the freedom to create through an e-commerce agency that specializes in creating customer interfaces. Can you imagine with every small change you are always in a queue of calls? Or worse, is the layout of your virtual store just one of many other competitors since it was a modified copy of other stores previously created by the platform? Your store deserves a personalized and exclusive layout, believe me.
EXTENSIBILITY
The e-commerce platform should give your agency the freedom to evolve its layout with tools that are exclusive to your online store. An example is the Flicka Kids store, which sells pacifiers with children's names, and parents have the option to see in real time how this personalization will look. See how it works by clicking here . This tool greatly increased the store's conversion rate and revenue. Something simple, but only possible due to the freedom the platform offers in the extensibility of its functionalities.
SUPPLIER ECOSYSTEM
An excellent e-commerce platform must have around it a large and capable ecosystem of partner companies, whether for the creation of a layout for the virtual store, an ERP system for the bureaucratic control of the company, passing through suppliers of methods of payment, freight, anti fraud and others.
This is because each company has its specialty and by negotiating separately with each one it is possible to obtain great competitive advantages that are lost when being in the hands of a single supplier. And freedom of choice is something we can't give up when we're talking about business.
Imagine that today the duck platform offers you everything for a very attractive price. It offers you the platform, the implementation of the project, the “layout”, yes in parentheses because in most cases it is a reused template and this is heresy when it comes to user experience, moreover, if you want to evolve this layout with an already known agency will not be able to, as no one can open the CMS black box and make the changes. The duck platform also offers you payment intermediation and anti-fraud and all you need to do is bring you tea on cold days. And the duck platform doesn't get tired, it also offers you Digital Marketing, yes, it's Super Pato.
But think about the following situation: You were not very happy with the layout of your store, or the amount charged for all this is unfeasible. Or worse, in addition to being expensive, anti-fraud is blocking most sales and its conversion rate is way below the national average. If you had the freedom to choose other suppliers, your problem would be solved since the fees charged by the card tend to be lower as sales happen and so with everything that involves the e-commerce ecosystem, the bargaining power must always be in the hands of the shopkeeper and not the other way around.
EVOLUTION
This is another point that should always be considered before choosing your e-commerce platform. An excellent platform is always evolving because it's no use being the best today, it has to be the best always and this requires continuous improvement and only a platform focused on keeping its core operating in wide evolution is able to deliver this excellence.
EAGLE OR DUCK? YOU HAVE TO DECIDE
In my humble opinion, it is a lot compared to a doctor, there are general practitioners who know how to be generalists and when faced with a more serious problem, they refer them to a specialist who can point out the best path to follow. I feel much safer in the hands of a good professional who studies and breathes a certain subject. The general practitioner is important but it is only part of the whole process. That's why we have surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and so on.
So before choosing your technology and digital marketing providers for e-commerce, think about whether you want to have the eagles or the duck by your side.
