Magento

Magento recently appointed Michel Goossens as vice president and general manager of Magento’s EMEA operations and Jary Carter as vice president of N. America sales operations. Michel and Jary bring extensive industry experience and knowledge to Magento and both are strong and innovative leaders. We asked Jary and Michel a few questions so you can get to know them better and find out what they forecast for the world of eCommerce.

1. What eCommerce trends do you see will have a big impact on the retail industry in the next 12 months?

JC: You are seeing a few key trends that are causing real shifts in how companies think about eCommerce. Probably most important for a merchant is that consumers are expecting a more sophisticated online interaction which makes personalizing the user experience even more important. Second, moving into mobile will provide a better ability for merchants to interact with their customers. Companies that quickly figure out an effective eCommerce strategy will have a competitive advantage.  

MG: We are definitely seeing an increase in the number of businesses who want an eCommerce offering. At the same time, we are also seeing many businesses that went live with an eCommerce offering in the early days and now need to review and update their solution in order to remain competitive. As Jary mentioned, mobile or multi-channel reach, with a rich user experience, has become increasingly important. And looking to the future we will see more on the “cloud” effect in eCommerce with SAAS (software as a service) and PAAS (platform as a service) giving merchants even more choices for their eCommerce presence. 

2. What advice would you give to merchants entering the world of eCommerce today?

JC: I would say jump in, the water is warm. It’s a great time to enter the world of ecommerce. Merchants have never had more options in ecommerce than they do right now. Open-source platforms like Magento, SAAS and hosted options have really expanded the opportunities for merchants to provide a top-flight user experience in a cost-effective way.   

MG: That’s so true. It’s also very important that a business choose the right technology and the right implementation partner. It is also important that any internal IT staff is well trained on the chosen technology.  

I recommend that merchants look for a solution that not only solves today's problems but that can grow with their business and offer a set of features that can be added over time to support future business goals and the ever increasing sophistication of the eCommerce user. 

3. As VPs of Sales – what are your primary goals and objectives for the coming year?

MG: Our most important goal is that every customer is a happy customer. As a company that is experiencing explosive growth we will pay special attention to our processes to see if we can improve or streamline operations to ensure that the Magento experience for our Partners and customers is the same wherever they are located and that they always have a satisfying experience. As far as Europe goes, we will augment the presence and coverage of Magento in the European markets. 

JC: We will be working hard on a number of fronts including initiatives to make our ecosystem stronger in terms of knowledge, access to information and support and to make procurement easier. And both Michel and I will be talking with lots of customers and Partners to make sure that we have a first-hand understanding of their needs. 

4. What attracted you to join Magento?

JC: It was pretty easy to be attracted to Magento - a well-engineered product with tremendous uptake in the market, a dedicated and growing community, a strong ecosystem of smart and experienced partners and an internal team that is committed to the success of customers. After I spent time with members of the team, I saw first-hand the extent to which Magento is revolutionizing the eCommerce market. To top it all off, they are having a lot of fun doing it. I wanted to be part of that.   

MG: Magento has unique technology with products that are creating a revolution in eCommerce. There are hot products in the pipeline plus a very talented team who are all really great people. It simply felt like the perfect match for me. We all share the same vision and objectives for building Magento into a world class company.

5. What do you like to do when you are not at work building the eCommerce ecosystem?

JC: My wife and I have four kids, so on the weekends I find myself running between soccer games and other activities with them.  When we aren’t doing that I enjoy cycling and swimming.   

MG: I spend time with my family and enjoy cycling, swimming, skiing and yoga/ pilates. And if times allows I love to sail and fly airplanes.  

For more information on Jary and Michel please see the press release.

In anticipation of Magento’s forthcoming mCommerce product announcement, this post is part of Magento’s mobile-commerce insight series, where we review emerging mCommerce developments & best practices.  We also invite you to follow us on twitter at @magentomobile.

With all the excitement surrounding mobile commerce this year, we wanted to provide our community with some key insights on where the industry is headed and how online retailers should be thinking about everything from the iPad to integrated mobile-commerce solutions.  So we sat down with one of the industry’s leading eCommerce and mCommerce analysts, Brian Walker from Forrester Research, to discuss these topics and more.  For retailers looking to build the right mobile-commerce strategy, or merchants who are already establishing their mobile presence, this interview is a must read. 

The Industry

Magento:  Let’s start with the basics.  Why should merchants invest in mobile as a channel for their business? 
Brian:  Well, it’s a good question. The basic answer is that consumers are already there, and the numbers are increasing as the experience improves.  As smartphones and web-connected devices grow in use, customer expectations change.  We have data showing typical retail traffic from mobile devices is already averaging between 3-5%. At that point it becomes meaningful. We see many retailers already driving meaningful results through mobile – with revenues in the 2-4% of eCommerce range. As a result, nearly seventy-five percent of retailers are focused this year on defining their mobile commerce strategy and starting to execute against it. Revenues from mobile are already in the 2-3% range for many larger scale retailers, and we are early.

Magento:  And how would you define “mobile commerce” or “mCommerce”?  What is the breakdown of the industry?

Brian:  There are essentially three buckets I focus on. First and foremost is the mobile web – accessing Web sites through mobile devices. The second is of course the use of applications to deliver content and commerce to consumers in a device specific way. And the third is digital content sold for use on the device – media content and software such as casual games or productivity apps. But it is important not to get wrapped up in the mCommerce label. We are really talking about commerce here, and mobile is another touch point we need to optimize for the consumer – just as we have been doing with stores, call centers, and the web for years now. Yes, the tools are different, different technology comes into play, and the consumers tasks may be different – but the most successful businesses will be focused on an integrated approach where mobile is another of many touch-points with the consumer and not thought of as a standalone channel. Customers don’t see it that way, so businesses shouldn’t either.

Magento:  Are all types of retailers investing in mobile, or just a few?  Do you see any differences in how a online-only merchant might invest in mobile commerce vs. a multi-channel retailer? 

Brian:  We see multichannel retailers getting very serious about mobile, and of course pure-play online retailers have a great opportunity in mobile to compete in-stores with price comparison, product information, and reviews. But we also see financial services, media and entertainment, publishing, and travel companies getting very focused on mobile. I also have worked with a number of B2B-focused companies who are exploring mobile commerce as an important area for growth and differentiation. So there is a wide range. No question though that retail will drive much of this.

Magento:  How is technology evolving in the mobile space?  Are there any noteworthy advances in IT to support mobile-commerce around the world? 

Brian:  This is a really good question. We are seeing more experimentation with location based features, advertising, social features, and applications for mobile devices in the US now. In Asia we are seeing more experimentation with near-field communications and payments. In Europe we are seeing mobile used as a way to skip traditional distribution challenges. Lots of innovation happening, keeping us all very busy. 

Magento:  What are some of the major pain points for merchants that want to invest more in mCommerce? 

Brian:  For many, the issues are really fairly simple.  First, how to organize around mobile – is this an extension of my eCommerce operations, a separate channel, or a marketing initiative?  Second, how can I best leverage my existing assets – technology, people, operations – to drive mobile commerce efficiently.  Maybe third, how do I measure this?  And certainly having the expertise in-house or through partners to optimize sites, use CSS effectively, and develop applications across platforms.

Magento:  How about these recent success stories that we’re hearing about, in particular eBay, which is anticipating $1.5B in revenue from mobile this year.  Some think that Amazon’s mobile revenues might be even larger.  Are these sales cannibalized from their web stores or are these actually from new and lapsed customers? 

Brian:  Well, it is not all incremental. But as we know from research into multichannel retail that you have a multiplier in terms of customer value if you can get them to interact and transact with you across multiple channels. But really, the argument should not be about cannibalization or not. The issue is whether your customers are trying to interact with you via mobile or not. If they are you better be thinking about this, or else you may lose them entirely. That’s the risk. This will not be important for all, but will be for many.

Building an Effective Mobile Strategy

Magento:  What are two or three device(s) that a merchant needs to establish an mCommerce presence on right now? 

Brian:  Well, I would start with just making sure your sites are optimized for mobile browsers. That is not necessarily easy for everyone, but it is critical whether you are going to build apps or not. In terms of apps, the place to start for now is the Apple ecosystem. iPhone, iPod-Touch and iPad now collectively represent the largest and easiest platform to focus on. Next would be Android, which is coming on strong. Lastly would be RIM and the Blackberry ecosystem. Even though RIM has a big market share – something like 20% now – the mobile web experience is not great for the consumer, and the apps are too hard to develop with each device having a variation on the operating system. For some, depending on the market and consumer they want to reach Symbian may be important, but not for the US. 

Magento:  You mentioned the Apple ecosystem.  How should merchants think about the iPad? 

Brian:  Merchants should recognize that the most important feature of the iPad for them to be focused on is the web-browser. Make sure your site is usable and that your content is accessible and your site shoppable via the web-browser on the iPad. This is certainly not isolated to the iPad. Applications can be important too, especially if you have a sticky site with lots of loyalty – think Gilt Group, eBay, or even Amazon. – but won’t be important to all. But as the next gen iPhone apps are built, they should be built in a universal fashion so the iPad user can effectively take advantage too. We are also hearing merchants interested in the iPad as a sales assist or POS replacement, very interesting to see where that goes.

Magneto:  Smartphones also seem to offer a lot more in terms of unique features.  How are new mobile-specific features such as augmented reality and digital coupons affecting the shopping experience?  Are these features important for retailers right now? 

Brian:  Not yet. But I expect we will see some advancements and experiments that will change that in the next few years. Mobile couponing is beginning to see some traction, but the adoption thus far is small. A lot depends on your category and customer here at this point. 

Magneto:  How about unique metrics for the mobile channel?  Are there any new KPIs for mCommerce? 

Brian:  Good question. For the most part we see the same KPI’s that are important to eCommerce being important to mobile. Revenue, traffic, conversion rates, average order value, repeat visit are all critical KPIs for mobile commerce. But we also see merchants tracking reach with the number of downloads of apps, opt ins for SMS marketing and coupons, and even some looking at mobile site/app satisfaction closely.

The Future of Mobile Commerce

Magento:  What will the next 2-3 years look like for mCommerce? 

Brian:  Time to get out the crystal ball, eh? Well I expect we will see the traffic and revenue numbers for mobile commerce climb steadily. I expect we will see more multichannel merchants looking to link their channels together with mobile – product research, info, service. And I expect location based and social tools like Foursquare and Gowalla to bring a whole new group of businesses “online”, driving eCommerce and mobile commerce even further. Consumers are going to get comfortable transacting through their phones and more and more of us will just expect it. Lastly, I expect this will go beyond retail and consumer facing business and become important to commerce as a whole. It should be interesting to see where we are in a few years. I think we are set to go through a few generations of mobile commerce initiatives and implementations, much like we did with eCommerce.

Magento:  Thanks so much for your time.  Where can our readers go to learn more about the intersection of eCommerce and mCommerce? 

Brian:  I post actively on my Forrester blog, which is open to non-subscribers.  You can also follow me on twitter.

The SitePoint Podcast this week has a one-on-one chat with Roy Rubin, CEO of Magento. Topics discussed include Magento Connect, Open Source licensing, product roadmap and more. Check it out!

Magento Enterprise, being a flexible, feature rich and cost effective platform, was exactly what we needed to get the site up and running, without breaking the bank...

Richard Jackson, Leftfield Digital

Can you tell us a bit about your company and Planet Organic?

Leftfield Digital is a London based Creative Digital Agency and Enterprise Magento Partner. We design, deliver and manage innovative, flexible and creative web solutions based on commercial open source platforms. We work with a varied range of SMe and blue chip clients in the UK, Europe and the Middle East including AIG UK Ltd, Nakheel PSJC, MBC.net, 188BET.com, Alibaba.com, Fred.Olsen Cruise Lines, UK County Councils and several Government/Public Sector organizations.

Planet Organic is the leading Organic Supermarket chain in the UK, offering organic and environmentally sensitive products to a knowledgeable and discerning audience. Planet Organic’s founder, Renee Elliot is a prominent spokesperson for the UK’s Organic Industry and a member of the Soil Association. With five UK supermarkets (in and around the London area), Planet Organic are looking to extend their reach across the UK as well as offering a broader range of Organic/Environmentally sensitive products to the widest possible audience.

Why did you choose Magento for the project?

Being the authority on organic products and issues, Planet Organic already had a strong online presence but lacked any form of online retailing to capitalise – missing a huge volume of potential sales from target customers that identified with the brand but did not have access to a retail outlet. It was clear that online retail was required and Magento was recommended for two core attributes; cost effectiveness and flexibility.

Cost is an important factor; whilst Planet are an established and successful business, any serious ecommerce operation requires a significant investment in front and back office systems – and that investment needs to be as cost efficient as possible to provide the fastest possible return. Under those conditions Magento’s functionality vs pricing dynamic made it the only realistic choice.

Secondly, flexibility was (and will continue to be) important to the project for a number of reasons, not least that the site roadmap has to retain the ability to be genuinely adaptable. Planet Organic has thrived on being adaptable and responsive to changing market conditions and environmental considerations; therefore the ecommerce platform must retain the ability to respond accordingly. This flexibility will help keep them at the forefront of their sector.

What technologies are currently implemented / integrated in the frontend and behind-the-scenes?

One of the key aspects of the new site was to capitalise on the search engine presence that the existing site had established, and the wealth of highly targeted content that had been published via the blog. We integrated Wordpress with Magento, added Single Sign On and migrated the content over into the new blog. A customisation around the product tagging then dynamically pulls relevant article summaries onto each of the product pages. This provides the products with context and in time, should attract traffic, relevance and conversion. As more products and content are added, the deeper and richer this product/content association will become and we expect this organic (no pun intended!) traffic and long-tail SEO traffic to become a key provider of prospective customers.

Behind the scenes, the site management is being handled predominantly by the Magento back office with a simple stock integration to a central management function. So from a systems perspective the site is relatively straightforward (aside from the Wordpress article and product tagging method mentioned above). In the second development phase, further integration with existing systems will be required but that will be based on meeting specific commercial targets to justify the growth and expansion.

Do you have other projects that you work on using Magento?

We are about to launch PicStop.co.uk – a migration from an old, inflexible proprietary system that the business had simply outgrown – to Magento. We’re also in the process of delivering Magento for a global leader in the Gifts and Flower Delivery sector and have been commissioned to implement a pan-European installation for a leading entertainment organisation – with 80 stores running from a single global catalogue.

Would you recommend enterprise companies use Magento?

The current economic situation is driving home the point that the flexibility and commercial benefits of commercial open source is there and many more organisations are viewing applications like Magento as credible alternatives to other (often vastly over spec’ed) systems with prohibitive licensing costs to match.

The number and types of organisations that are now actively engaging Magento is clear indication that the message is being received loud and clear; there is now an alternative enterprise level ecommerce option in the mix.

What are your future plans with Magento?

Leftfield continue to build a strong relationship with Magento and will be continuing to actively participate in the community and partnership programs where we can. We’re also currently planning a series of seminars with guest speakers (including Roy from Varien and other key organisations we partner with) to further promote Magento to the Enterprise sector in the UK. Watch the blog for details!

Any recommendations for people evaluating Magento?

The landscape has changed; don’t be constrained by what you think an Enterprise grade site may cost to develop. Magento has re-written the rules on what can be delivered within budgets that previously wouldn’t have even covered the licence costs of some of the mid/top tier ecommerce applications. It’s worth evaluation for that reason alone.

Secondly, make sure that you’re talking to a Enterprise Magento Partner that understands and shares your vision. As a Magento project has the potential to develop in any number of directions, you’ll need a partner that understands the wide range of considerations that make a genuinely successful project.

Any final words of wisdom?

Magento offers a real alternative for organisations that require Enterprise functionality - without much of the initial investment and ongoing cost normally associated. So, when you’re evaluating Magento against some of the more established Enterprise solutions, my words of wisdom would be – don’t look much further than the Total Cost of Ownership.....

Our good friend, Andrew Warner from Mixergy.com interviewed Roy Rubin, Varien CEO to learn more about the Magento Story. The 40 minute interview reveals how Magento got off the ground and some of the ambitious plans for the future.

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Doing consulting work revealed problems in the market

We worked in the space for a long time and understood very well what the platforms and the market could do and couldn’t do. We had clients calling us all day long and we had a name in the market and the clients called and said “you know what, here’s what I want to do and can OS Commerce do it?: and we said “well it can, but its just going to be very difficult to do that.”

Varien decided to create a solution, Magento

I had a couple developers that were basically saying “we’re bored of what we’re doing and we want to do something different,” and I had to occupy them because they were great and they’re a tremendous asset to the company

I said, “you know what? Why don’t I give you this little side project. Spend a couple months, and see where you are after that.”

They kind of sold this opportunity and this project to me and then I ended-up buying it. So I Ended-up saying “You know, let’s really go all-in. Let’s put everything we’ve got into this.”

Blogging helped establish their reputation

We blogged to establish Varien as a strong player in the market that developed an expertise and educates the market about the best practices we saw as important and trends we saw happening in the market.

We sometimes promoted our work, but it wasn’t the focus. I can tell you it was probably the minority of the posts on the blog if that even. It was rare that we wrote about our own work, initially at least. But we did work very, very hard to get posts up and to get them daily to make sure that people saw Varien at the top of their RSS feed and thoguht about what Varien was doing. And thinking.

Their community grew — and grew loud

You really have to disseminate between different types of stakeholders in the market and what they really want and what they can contribute back.

I don’t have some checklist formula to that. I listen to a lot of people and I’m very receptive to feedback and learning from their experiences. But I think at the end of the day, deep-down I have a strategy and I have a vision and I know that it takes a collective effort from our team to execute. I know what we can do and I know what we can’t do. Within those constraints and within the vision of the family that I have moving forward, I’m pretty confident that I’m making the right decisions.

The feedback that we get obviously helps kind of build that vision and the strategy. So it’s not like this is the direction we’re going to go and we’re going to just put our head down and go through the wall until it happens, it’s a vision that evolves and it’s a strategy that continuously changes based on the market opportunities.

The hours were (and still are) “nuts”

It’s monumental. The amount of hours that we put into the company today is just… it’s nuts.

At some point we hope that’s going to slow down. But I can tell you that in the eighteen to twenty-four months since we started the project, it’s been the exact opposite. I’ve always thought that, hey with the next release I think we’re going to be okay and maybe I can, you know, let go of the foot on the gas but no. It’s the exact opposite.

The mission is big

It changes as the opportunities change and as we start to make headway in various areas. But, I think the mission for us is really to, first and foremost, disrupt the market in a way that democratizes ecommerce.

The open source platform, robust and growing community support, flexible architecture, and many 3rd party plug-ins made Magento an easy choice ....

Brian Grady, Gorilla

Can you tell us a bit about your company?

Gorilla is an ecommerce services firm located in Chicago. We work with multi-channel retailers and brand manufacturers helping them with creative, strategy, marketing, and platform implementation.

What technologies are currently implemented / integrated in the frontend and behind-the-scenes?

For the front end of Lodgerfootwear.com, we integrated custom promotional features, slide shows, "mega" dropdown menus, and rich product viewing tools using custom jquery and ajax. All work done on the back end is based on Magento with custom php development to add functionality not found off the shelf. Custom features include a "My Wardrobe" section of the Account area showing all products purchased by a customer as well as items in their wish list; a rich promotional banner series on the home page tied directly into the Magento CMS system; a "Shoe of the Month" configurable product category in which products are available for a month at a time, then "expired" to a gallery of past shoes of the month; and more.

Why did you choose Magento for the project?

After an initial bad experience with offshore resources, Lodger had a very short time frame, a compressed budget, and needed to have a powerful, but elegant "luxury oriented" solution up quickly. Magento met all their needs including inventory and order management saving the client from having to procure an ERP tool. The open source platform, robust and growing community support, flexible architecture, and many 3rd party plug-ins made Magento an easy choice over OSCommerce and other platforms that were more common at the time.

Would you recommend enterprise companies use Magento?

Yes, depending upon the specific requirements.

What are your future plans with Magento and the site?

Gorilla has developed a practice area around Magento and will continue to grow our relationship with Varien. We are excited about the advances Magento has made over the last year and look forward to continued maturation of the platform. We continue to add to the site around the business and marketing requirements of Lodger.

Any recommendations for people evaluating Magento?

When choosing a platform, take strong consideration into the road map and life cycle of that platform over the next 2-4 years. You need to be in it not only for the features and functions the tool offers now, but the long term viability and growth of the tool in the years to come. Choose something with the momentum to grow along with your organization.

With the most common eCommerce requirements like product catalogues, stock control, reporting etc prebuilt into Magento, it saves us a lot of valuable time.

Usman K. Sheikh, Managing Director, Brilliant UK

Can you tell us a bit about your company?

Brilliant UK are a London based creative digital agency specialising in eCommerce and CMS based websites. Our clients include Universal Music, Ikea, Tesco, Ubuntu and the English Tourism Board.

What technologies are currently implemented / integrated in the frontend and behind-the-scenes?

For each website that we develop, our primary focus is always on what our client is trying to achieve. Once the objective is clear then we look at the available technologies like Flash, jQuery, AJAX and our good old CSS to develop a frontend which accomplishes the task. For Space Craft, we have used a combination of these technologies.

Why did you choose Magento for the project?

Magento provides an excellent platform for most eCommerce requirements. Before Magento was launched we were used to developing bespoke eCommerce solutions for our clients. However, now we can concentrate our efforts more on developing new features which enhance the user experience and increase conversions for our clients. With the most common eCommerce requirements like product catalogues, stock control, reporting etc prebuilt into Magento, it saves us a lot of valuable time.

Would you recommend enterprise companies use Magento?

I think that’s hard to say without looking at individual requirements. Each company is unique and so are their requirements. As I said previously, Magento comes standard with majority of the most common features required for any eCommerce website. If you’re looking for a solid eCommerce platform which is supported by the open source community, then I don’t believe there is any other system superior to Magento currently available in the market.

What are your future plans with Magento and the site?

We, as an agency, are backing Magento as our main eCommerce platform and are planning to develop custom modules and add-ons which enhance the core functionality provided by Magento. Space Craft International are a fantastic client to work with and we intend to have a long-term relationship with them developing their online presence in the years to come.

Any recommendations for people evaluating Magento?

I think Magento pretty much speaks for itself! If you look at the versatility in the websites developed using this platform then you will get an idea of its potential. I would however recommend that if you want to get the best results then it’s best to use a specialist agency both for the implementation as well as the hosting environment. This would ensure that your website is delivered for optimal performance.

We chose Magento because it is a well-built and feature-rich system that will allow us to scale our business. It is the only platform on the market to come with out of the box solutions for multi-store strategy.

Thomas Hennequin, Jekyll & Hype

Can you tell us a bit about your company?

Hype Co. is a subsidiary of a century old French textile manufacturer, and our goal is to make our textile products available to the general public online. Our first project to launch is Jekyll & Hype, a site dedicated to French design in men's fashion, in particular men's sport shirts. This is the first of many e commerce sites the company plans to launch in 2009.

What technologies are currently implemented / integrated in the frontend and behind-the-scenes?

For the front end we integrated Flash modules on the homepage that allow us to enhance our product promotion. In the back end we added custom modules to help our management of prices and special offers.

Why did you choose Magento for the project?

We chose Magento because it is a well-built and feature-rich system that will allow us to scale our business. It is the only platform on the market to come with out of the box solutions for multi-store strategy. We plan to expand our online business so this was a feature we felt was crucial.

Magento was recommended to us by our partner Synolia, a French e commerce consultancy. We have great trust in Synolia's expertise in this field, so we knew their recommendation must be the best choice. We needed strong e commerce experts to help us launch our first site, and we found them in Magento and Synolia!

Can you talk about the scaling and performance challenges associated with the project (and how you overcame them)?

It was important to us to enhance our customers' shopping experience by having fast response time on our site. This was achieved by setting up the platform on dedicated servers and using accelerated caching such as APC.

Would you recommend enterprise companies use Magento?

Yes, Magento is great for ambitious projects because it offers so many features. The platform can provide a lot of value for companies with the willingness and resources to take full advantage of everything it has to offer.

What are your future plans with Magento and the site?

We plan to use Magento's multi-store functionality to launch 2 new stores by the end of 2009.
For Jekyll & Hype, we plan to migrate to the latest Magento version and integrate an iPhone optimized theme. We also plan to open to the English language market in the next few months.

Any recommendations for people evaluating Magento?

When selecting a platform make sure to consider your long terms needs. We want to be able to easily upgrade our site as newer Magento versions are released, so we chose not to modify Magento's standard architecture. Also, make sure to seek out expert partners who you can rely on for trusted advice.

Magento is such a robust platform that we recommend taking the time to understand all the possibilities and solutions it has to offer. Once you do, you can create really fantastic results!