What Ecommerce solution is best for apparel?

It's been interesting to see the cycle of e-Commerce solutions over the last five years, says Peter Booysen, Managing Director of iSyncSolutions.

We have seen a major shift in how mid-sized brands represent themselves online. Until recently, the majority of our customers were working with independent e-Commerce developers and either using Magneto or a custom developed e-Commerce system.

The range of development fees for developing a new e-Commerce store has in almost all cases been very high. Custom developed e-Commerce solutions are the highest risk and the scenario of a relationship with your Web development team turning sour and then leaving your brand stuck with no one to support your e-Commerce store is a more common occurrence than you'd like to think.

Several years ago, we (iSyncSolutions) developed an easy-to-use API for e-Commerce develops to plug into Sync, which allows for seamless transfer of catalogue, available inventory and orders between Sync and your e-Commerce store, thereby reducing duplication and improving the fulfilment of e-Commerce orders.

The biggest drawbacks of some custom development site is the huge cost. More importantly, the inherit SEO (search engine optimisation) that is required to get your brand to stand out in Google searches is by far one of the most important aspects that is overlooked. Google, after all, is one of the most important channels for directing 'would-be' customers to your new online store.

More recently, we have seen a major shift to pre-built solutions, specifically Shopify (www.shopify.com). I was sceptical at first, but now after seeing it implemented at a few of our customers, the results speak for themselves. Apart from an easy to use layout and a myriad of options and customisations available, we've seen clients' online sales literally explode when they moved from their custom e-Commerce solution to Shopify. A recent case was a brand whose sales shot up from roughly $15 000 p/m to $140 000 per month - within the first month of switching to Shopify.

Understandably, this is quite an extreme scenario but nevertheless it could be the same problem that your e-Commerce store is currently facing?

How can that be explained? It all points back to the inherit SEO that's built into the Shopify solution. Out-of-the-box your product just gets ranked better in Google. Other features like an easy-to-use checkout, multiple payment options and an easy-to-use layout also seems to have contributed. With most online customer having experience with Amazon, Zappo's or other major online retailers - it makes sense to have a similar layout and checkout procedure. There doesn't seem to be much sense in deviating away from what customers are familiar with.

We have developed an API for Sync specifically for Shopify which means that our Sync Apparel ERP and PLM system can be integrated with Shopify in less than 10% of the time required to integrate with a custom e-Commerce solution. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next five years!

Find out more about how you can streamline processes, increase efficiency and grow your business using Sync's Apparel ERP & PLM solution.