The Partners of Ecommerce Companies

Satisfaction with services (“satisfactory” + “completely satisfactory”) in no case exceeds three quarters of operators thus leaving room in all categories for new entrants. Among the services where operators are most reluctant to change are payments (76 % average satisfaction), the Ecommerce platform used (70 %) and technology partners (65 %).

On the other hand, merchant dissatisfaction (“unsatisfactory” + “completely unsatisfactory”) is obviously more evident in Frontier Technologies (22%) where a continuous process of experimentation is normal, and in Marketing Services (16%) in order to reach their target customers.

The cluster of merchants who are attentive to novelty but are not necessarily looking for alternatives to current services are mainly related to Frontier Technologies (51%), Catalog Management and Marketplace (37%), CRM and Customer Service (33%), and Logistics and Shipping Services (30%).

When investigating what specifically are the services merchants are most satisfied with, the responses were very diverse with the exception of a few services mentioned repeatedly by Ecommerce managers such as Stripe, Shopify, BRT, DHL, Meta and Qaplá. These are all operators that have actually innovated their service a lot for online sales in recent years. The real game changers, however, are not always already known by everyone, and among the services mentioned are many SaaS plug and play services that can be quickly tested on the store.

Almost all operators plan to invest in new services in the next 12 months. Among the services that will receive investment outside the ordinary management there are Ecommerce Platforms (70% indicates “high investments” or “new investments”), Advertising Services (69%), Marketing Services (68%).
Operators are more conservative on Frontier Technologies (28% doesn’t foresee any investment), Payment Systems (21%) and Logistics and Shipping Systems (20%).

Evaluating the reasons why merchants look for new providers, the need for continuous innovation emerges (need for new services and functions was mentioned by 69% of merchants, and need for innovation by 51%).

However, there are problems also with currently used services such as technical problems or limits (42%), need to reduce costs (36%), low assistance (25%) and service deterioration (11%).

The obstacles and major difficulties in choosing a Ecommerce services or solutions provider are different and often related to the complexity of evaluating and comparing different providers proposing different technological solutions, post-activation support and development, but above all, lack of clarity on services offered by companies.

Other difficulties include cost, working methods, response time, response mode, operational flexibility, as well as the need for services customization and the ability to understand whether the company’s service will have an impact in the medium/long term.