The Truth About E-Commerce Platform Selection

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The Strategic Value of Unbiased Platform Guidance

By Brent W. Peterson

The Hidden Truth About E-Commerce Platform Selection

Most businesses are making costly platform decisions based on biased advice. When hiring consultants or speaking directly with vendors, merchants rarely get recommendations that truly serve their best interests.

System integrators push platforms where they have the highest profit margins and existing expertise. Vendors recommend based on current sales quotas and commission structures. Both approaches limit your options and can cost you significantly more than necessary.

The real cost isn't just licensing fees – it's the hidden app costs, implementation overruns, and operational inefficiencies that emerge after you're locked in. These monthly expenses can quickly exceed self-hosted alternatives by 3x or more.

A better approach exists: research hundreds of platforms first, narrow to 3-4 options based on actual business requirements, then have platforms introduce qualified partners. This methodology helps companies save 40-60% on total platform costs while achieving better requirement alignment.

The key questions to ask: What does our business actually need? What's the advisor's financial incentive? What's the total cost of ownership over 5 years? Who benefits most from this recommendation?

Platform selection impacts your business strategy for 5+ years. Getting unbiased guidance that puts your success first isn't just smart – it's essential for sustainable growth.

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Join our weekly livestream discussion Effective Content in Commerce on your favorite platform

Content in Commerce 101: Three Core Areas We’ll Cover
1. Why Your Product Pages Are Starving (And What Actually Feeds Them)
Going beyond “more content is better” - we’ll examine what specific content elements actually drive commerce decisions vs. what just adds noise
2. The Content Ecosystem That Makes Products Sell
How blog content, video, social proof, and supporting materials work together to guide buyers from discovery to purchase - with real examples of what works and what doesn’t
3. The Content Supply Chain: Your Commerce Content Operations Blueprint
The end-to-end workflow that gets the right product content to the right customer at the right time - from ideation and creation to distribution and optimization

What “The Content Supply Chain” Actually Means:
The content supply chain is the systematic process that manages your commerce content from conception to conversion. It’s not just about making content - it’s about orchestrating the entire workflow:

• Planning & Ideation: What product content needs to be created and why

• Creation & Production: Actually making the descriptions, images, videos, and supporting content

• Management: Organizing and storing assets so teams can find and use them

• Distribution: Getting content to customers across all touchpoints (website, social, email, marketplaces)

• Optimization: Measuring what works and feeding insights back into the process

Think of it as the behind-the-scenes operations that ensure your product content actually reaches customers in a way that drives sales, rather than just creating content that sits unused in folders.

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