Ecommerce Consultants: 8 Tips for Choosing the Best One

Many companies are beginning to realise that a well-planned and organised in-house e-commerce website is a very important factor in business success. International Data says US companies will spend $7 billion on e-commerce consultants this year, up from $2.9 billion in 1997. And another survey company, Zona Research, says 26% of executives now work on e-commerce because they believe success in the Internet business is too important to pass on to their staff (ecommerce consulting). E-commerce consultants help businesses generate nearly $4.5 trillion in potential e-commerce sales through campaign development, testing and refinement.

E-commerce consultants know which ticks and what needs to go away. They have a specific process for identifying the improvements you need to make to your online shop. Whether you have a Magento or WooCommerce shop or a shop on another platform, an e-commerce consultant will recommend changes that will increase your conversion rate.

Benefits for the online shop from the activities of a highly professional consultant:

1. Minimisation of time expenditure. The start-up procedure takes no more than half an hour. One employee can conduct up to 5 chat dialogues simultaneously, for comparison, one employee conducts a dialogue with only one client on the phone. This allows you to process more potential clients and increase the efficiency of employees’ work. Dialogs with visitors are much faster than by email.

2. Minimization of material costs. Installation of online-consultant does not require any specialized software. Cost of service is much less than telephone expenses. Free or demo versions of online-consultants can be found on the Internet, though with limited functionality, but it is enough for a start-up online shop.

E-commerce offers exponential growth opportunities for businesses and brands, but many will not succeed in capturing market share, positioning their products according to their customers’ preferences or starting an online presence at all. The goal of e-commerce consultants is to help clients develop the right e-commerce strategy and take advantage of the opportunities before them.

Many companies fail to launch the right platform or keep up with changing customer needs. For these businesses, e-commerce consultants can bridge the gap between institutional product business expertise and consumer niche and the specialised methods required for e-commerce.

Note that having an impeccable command of English or living in the US will increase the cost of your consultant. The same goes for consultants with experience with specific platforms (e.g. Shopify) or specific channels.

E-commerce consultants need to dive deep into business issues and take on the development process comprehensively, whereas web developers focus mainly on the technical part of the project.

The main professional task for an e-business consultant is to provide advisory services to all market participants on the Internet. This is broken down into a number of smaller tasks. This includes the e-business consultant’s responsibility to:

• Provide some form of information to stakeholders on all issues related to e-commerce – legal, technical, organisational, logistical;
• Develop recommendations on how to improve business performance in the online environment;
• Provide predictions of success before a project launches;
• Develop business strategies to attract more customers, including the use of social media;
• Analyse the success or failure of companies and draw conclusions from that information;
• Assist clients with the installation and use of specific e-business software.

CECT – Certified E-Commerce ConsultantT – Certified E-Commerce Consultant is a registered professional title for which the holder is issued a certificate. CECT is the industry standard for certification in e-commerce. E-commerce requires standards and methods for assessing the professionalism of candidates for e-commerce-related jobs. CECT deals with the assessment of such professional.