The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for NetSuite eCommerce Solutions!

NetSuite eCommerce Solutions

Narrowing down your list of eCommerce options is becoming an increasingly arduous task. Years ago, you had a handful of choices; today you have dozens! Even if you wanted to stay native to the NetSuite platform, you are about to have three different NetSuite eCommerce solutions to sift through. NetSuite released SuiteCommerce Advanced in 2013 and then quickly announced SuiteCommerce Standard at NSW17. Those newer options combined with their SiteBuilder platform, released back in 2003, allow for a lot of variety and balance. Similar to the Goldilocks fairy tale, you have not one, not two, but three chances to find the Porridge right for you, all without leaving the NetSuite environment. So let's break down these options!

NetSuite SiteBuilder

SiteBuilder is still around, believe it or not! Being natively integrated to NetSuite without many frills is worth it to plenty of NetSuite customers! NetSuite essentially provides you with the necessary functionality to run a web store: a semi-customizable website template, shopping cart technology, gateway functionality, and some shipping integrations...and that's about it. The customization is particularly limited, but you are good to start selling otherwise! Many people find this porridge too cold, they feel that the lack of functionality isn't worth the native integration at such a low cost, but to each its own, as long as you understand the trade-offs!

Pros:

• Price - comes in at $999 per month
• Native integration
• Has everything you need to get selling in one platform

Cons:

• SEO issues: template does not come responsive out of box and product/page URLs and meta data cannot be changed to target keywords effectively
• Limited Customization of template limits user experience
• No native marketing functionality: Cross-sell, Up-sell, coupons, sales, email integration, social integration
• Limited Sales data access

To learn more about SiteBuilder features check out the Data Sheet!

SuiteCommerce Advanced

SuiteCommerce Advanced was released in 2013 and promised to deliver the ultimate "omnichannel" experience. The platform is beyond robust; allowing you to integrate email, social, web, and in-store campaigns seamlessly, as well as build a web store from your heart and not a template. All sounds amazing, right? Well, customer reviews have been mixed. Some users found this porridge too hot. The platform is so robust that there still aren't that many users or partners that have figured out how to take advantage of all the platform fully has to offer, and with the price tag SCA brings, hitting the ROI can be a challenge. The native integration and functionality do appeal to some customers though, particularity those with large budgets, who want to give their customer the best, most unique shopping experience, and have access to a strong NetSuite eCommerce team.

Pros:

• Customization of pretty much anything is possible
• SEO friendly: Advanced web page architecture, built-in CDN, responsive out-of-the-box, able to customize all URL's and meta tags for targeted keywords.
• OmniChannel features and integration capabilities
• Native integration
• Marketing features of all kinds: Up-sell, Cross-sell, Coupons, Sales, Faceted Searches, Advanced Searches +++
• Built with modern web architecture and conversion principals in-mind

Cons:

• Price tag is $4,999 per month
• Implementing it is one thing, getting that 5k per month in value back is another. If you are going this route it is important to understand that a NetSuite partner with SCA specific experience is suggested.
• People have complained about the back-end lacking user friendliness

To learn more about SCA check out the Data Sheet!

SuiteCommerce Standard

I would like to start by saying as this is being written SuiteCommerce Standard or SCS is still in beta. So some of what I say here may just amount to forward-looking statements.

Now, if I were a betting man, I would bet on this porridge being the porridge most NetSuite users can get behind. NetSuite's focus here seems to be blending the best of Sitebuilder and SCA. And I must say, they did a good job. This platform allows you to be up and selling with no hassle, plenty of features, SEO friendly, and perfectly integrated with NetSuite.

NetSuite's "zero to hero" set-up reminds me of the Shopify approach to building a web store. You start with a modern and well-crafted theme, tweak it to reflect your brand, and voila you can start selling. NetSuite appears to give you options out-of-the-box but you can also purchase additional templates from a marketplace if you prefer. You won't be able to customize the website from scratch, but NetSuite did mention a drag and drop feature in the back-end, so the marketplace templates plus the edits they allow for should be enough to make everyone feel special, in my opinion.

Pros:

• Price Tag - $2499 per month
• Native Integration
• Every bit as SEO friendly as SCA
• Marketing features include: Cross-sell, Up-sell, Advanced and Faceted searches, email integration, Coupons plus more!
• Drag and Drop content editor**
• Built with modern web architecture and conversion principals in-mind

Cons:

• Lack of ground-up customization available to end-customers
• $2499 per month is still prohibitive to some.

To checkout the SuiteCommerce Standard Data Sheet Click Here!

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