I just reviewed Venda Enterprise, the ecommerce platform from NY-based Venda. Venda targets brand-conscious retailers and businesses selling direct to consumers with annual online revenues from $5 million to $100 million. To date, 140 of them have deployed their stores—hosted multi-tenant/SaaS style—on the platform. Many of Venda’s customers do not have large technology organizations. Business users can configure and do most of the set up for their Venda ecommerce sites. You’ve got to consider it seriously if you’re an online retailer.
I found an advantage to SaaS deployment in my research on Venda Enterprise. In addition to using the product documentation, speaking with customers, and speaking with developers, product marketing managers, and executives, I got “hands-on” the product. Venda gave me credentials to access a sample site that was a replica of the BBC shop. I used the Venda Control Panel (VCP) to create and modify categories and products, to manage promotions, to build Web pages—all the tasks that administrators and merchandisers perform to deploy and maintain a Venda Enterprise site. The experience took me back to when I installed and used every product I evaluated—RDBMS, app dev tools, and ecommerce platforms.
I found Venda Enterprise to be a very appealing platform. It supports most of the ecommerce activities that customers want to perform with packaged, configurable, or easily customizable services and data. It packages a wealth of the mechanisms that merchandisers need to influence customer behavior, not only the promotions and content targeting that we’ve come to expect, but also a recommendation engine and facilities to support affiliates and referrals. Venda Enterprise also packages an almost-complete Web content management system that includes a very large set of reusable Web content items. Web content developers might not be needed to deploy a store.
The platform is not perfect. It's missing reports that you need to monitor, analyze, and refine its rich services and merchandising. Also, it doesn’t support customer segments very well.
My evaluation is more than sixty pages long. Don’t be daunted. It contains the information and analysis that you’ll need to evaluate Venda Enterprise. Here’s my approach. First, I state the ecommerce requirements for supporting customer activities and merchandising activities. Next, I describe and then analyze the platform’s services, data, content, and customizable facilities that address those requirements. The result is a complete, comprehensive, and actionable evaluation. I take the time to understand the product. I don’t ask vendors to fill-out feature-function questionnaires. I don’t rely on their demos. I prove everything we state. No generalizations. No unsubstantiated statements. No fluff.
Venda Enterprise
Excellent Merchandising and Customer Service with SaaS Deployment for Retailers
By Mitchell I. Kramer, Sr. VP and Sr. Consultant, Patricia Seybold Group, February 11, 2010
build or fill business technology gaps based on your specific vertical, platform, target capability development and product direction. Cloud Computing was started from a non-traditional IT player. Amazon.com, the famous web based bookseller, has changed the traditional computer hosting model by offering hosted computers
management consulting
Posted by: | 11/17/2010 at 05:15 AM