Tech Solution: E-Catalog Software

The ability to publish catalog items online continues to gain importance in a world where every competitor has e-commerce capabilities and 35 percent of orders arrive via the Web. Equally important, consumers are now using the Web as a vehicle to view and shop for items before making the purchase in-store. E-catalog systems are enabling companies to design and manage visually enhanced interactive online catalogs that categorize items, offer targeted promotions and sales, and drive revenue both through the Web and to brick-and-mortar outlets. BroadVision E-Commerce Delivery Model: installed software Price: Pricing starts at $75,000 and is based on a per-CPU pricing model. Business Benefits: At the heart of BroadVision's E-Commerce suite is the Kona Framework, which allows a catalog/product manager to create and maintain one or more product catalogs, including creating multiple product catalogs per customer, per contract, or per store. A user can create, update, and delete products from any catalog, including filtering of products for geography or account type. Functionality: Kona Framework is a J2EE-based applications platform for building e-commerce sites and provides out-of-the-box functionality, data schemas, and tools. For Kona Framework, BroadVision offers a series of add-on services for increased catalog management functionality. Commerce Service is one such module, which provides configurable catalog management, pricing, shopping cart, checkout, and order management capabilities. Process Services delivers configurable workflow capabilities, while Staging Services lets users control how content flows through development and production. Contact: BroadVision at 350-331-1000; or visit www.broadvision.com. NetSuite ECommerce Delivery Model: Web-based Price: Pricing for NetSuite, which includes NetSuite ECommerce, starts at $499, plus an additional $99 per user. Business Benefits: Companies can manage their business and Web store via one preintegrated e-commerce/CRM/ERP system. Companies can see increases in revenue and build customer loyalty through the use of promotional codes, volume discounts, varying price structures, and catalog sales, as well as support for multiple currencies. Users can stay abreast of real-time changes to inventory levels by tracking individual SKUs, thereby optimizing inventory levels and reducing costs. Functionality: Users can categorize and publish a list of catalog items to a Web site by season or holiday and then export those lists of catalog items to a publisher, comparison engine, or other external tools. They can organize items into multiple categories and create different pricing structures for each, or support volume discounting to target specific customer groups based on demographics. Finally, support for multiple currencies allows customers to do business abroad. Contact: NetSuite at 650-627-1000; email at info@netsuite.com; or visit www.netsuite.com. Oracle iStore Delivery Model: installed software Price: Pricing starts at $100,000 per licensing fee. Business Benefits: Oracle iStore enables companies to build, manage, and personalize scalable Internet storefronts. Companies can increase Web ordering by offering personalized content and lower order entry error rates from self-service ordering. IStore also supports both B2B and B2C selling models. Functionality: The solution comes with preseeded templates and a configurable user interface. When used with Oracle Web Analytics, users can create segmentation models for targeted pricing, discounts, and specials. Customer companies can publish quotes to customers and track orders and invoices. IStore also integrates a company's e-commerce capabilities with other enterprise business apps and processes like marketing campaign planning and execution. Contact: Oracle at 800-633-0738; or visit www.oracle.com. Contact Assistant Editor Colin Beasty at cbeasty@destinationCRM.com.