The importance of CMS vs. e-commerce

For any retail business, one of the key components of securing business success is by providing a good customer experience. This certainly rings true for e-commerce businesses as consumers are increasingly looking for highly personalised shopping experiences.

As web technologies progress and online behaviours change, online consumers are beginning to expect an improved shopping experience and, if retailers don’t deliver, potential customers will simply shop elsewhere.

Improving and personalising the customer experience relies heavily on providing consumers with rich content. The benefit of rich content is that it enhances the user-experience, providing users with relevant content can compliment marketing efforts, such as brand building, SEO, PR etc. Content really is king!

However, the requirement for personalisation is more prevalent in some sectors than others. On-Line fashion consumers, for example, have come to expect rich content, such as style advice and information on the latest trends. However, not far behind are sports, health and nutrition as these sectors are also beginning to make the shift.

If the requirement is there, why don’t all retailers do more to give the customer a personalised online experience?

One of the biggest hurdles that online retailers face is the lack of technology available to provide the ‘rich’ online experience potential customers expect. In our experience, very few platforms that are able to provide a comprehensive CMS, whilst also providing a stable and functional e-commerce system. On the face of it, it seems like a fairly simple ask, but it appears that it’s really not that easy to find the right balance of CMS and e-commerce functionality.

Online retailers are therefore left with the task of weighing up the importance of CMS vs. e-commerce and choosing a platform that fits with their priorities. Perhaps the easiest way to think about this is to ask the question ‘how important is it for your business to interact with the consumer on a long-term basis?’ vs. ‘how important is it for your website to make the ‘quick sale’?

Luxury brands already place greater emphasis on providing the user with rich content. This is simply because luxury brands often want to retain customers for the long haul and this encourages them to provide more rich content but, therefore consider it less important to provide a seamless shopping experience.

The luxury brands might focus on providing the user with in-depth product information, attractive brochures or even lifestyle advice, whereas less-exclusive brands want to make it as easy as possible for users to make a purchase — the hard sell is the priority.

What options are available?

Once priorities have been established, there are 5 options for online retailers to choose from.

1. E-Commerce platform only 
   Most common option for many online retailers is to find a suitable e-commerce platform with integrated CMS function. CMS functionality can often be limited but, online stores are still available to provide the user with rich content.
2. E-Commerce platform for sales and CMS runs a separate brand site 
   Brand and sales efforts are separated with this approach. Retailers can provide a rich shopping experience and provide rich content albeit on separate sites. The process becomes disjointed and marketing efforts multiplied. SEO activity on one domain will have little or no impact on the other, so SEO efforts will essentially be doubled. In addition, there is a risk associated with relying on click-throughs between two sites.
3. E-Commerce platform runs the site, CMS used as a content authoring tool 
   This is very similar to the previous option — the CMS allows rich content to be published, whilst the e-commerce platform runs the store. Although, the two platforms are more closely linked together. They will appear to the user as one unified site. However, although this option allows for rich content to an extent, there are limitations as to how much shop pages can be customised. Having the rich content and shop pages on one domain is great for marketing purposes, but for some retailers the shop pages are extremely important and require rich content.
4. CMS runs the site and calls the e-commerce platform via interfaces for shopping function 
   This is perhaps the most complicated option and requires a great deal of development expertise to implement successfully. The concept is relatively new and there are few sites running with this option at present. This option provides a high standard of customer experience and ecommerce functionality, but this is by no means a cost-effective solution.
5. CMS only 
   More commonly seen with luxury brands where ecommerce functionality is a secondary focus. Many CMS offer simple transaction functionality, but the focus is primarily on delivering rich content.

So, which is the best option for you and your business?

Before making the all-important decision of which option would best suit your online business, the pros and cons of each should be given considerable thought. It is really a case of understanding the needs and wants of the customer and providing a suitable platform to satisfy those needs. Every business has different requirements and not all businesses will benefit from the same combination of e-commerce and CMS functionality.

If you are still in doubt, get in touch with the team at Red Snapper. We’ll provide you with some expert advice.

Red Snapper is London’s original web agency. We’ve been building websites for household-brand names since 1995. We understand Magento inside and out and you can see examples of the end result by visiting our portfolio page. For more information about how we can design and develop the ideal e-commerce site for your business, get in touch with the team at Red Snapper today.

Further reading

Boomerooming

by Leo Kyrkos