With the rise of businesses in the online space, the competition between various eCommerce companies has been quite competitive. A company needs to step up its game and do something out of the ordinary to march past its competitors.

This is where collaborating with an eCommerce partner can work for your company’s benefit. According to a report from Forrester, “While the average business generates 18% of its revenue from paid search, high-maturity partnership programs generate 28%.”

An online eCommerce partner helps open up a whole new set of opportunities for your brand. Today, we’ll let you know about the various things that must be kept in mind while searching for your eCommerce partner.

Things to look for in an ideal eCommerce partner

With so many eCommerce partners out in the market, you might get confused as to who might be the best fit for your brand. 

The following are things to look for in an ideal eCommerce partner:

1. Location demographics

While looking for your ideal eCommerce partner, you should not restrict yourself to the partners nearest to you. In the present day and age, you can partner with huge brands from all around the world.

So, distance should be the least of your concerns while deciding upon your ideal eCommerce partner. Instead, you should focus on the fact that whether their business objectives align with you or not.

Also, at times, due to certain linguistic and transport barriers of your partner can prove fatal. So, sometimes, going for a partner near your region can work to your advantage as well. 

2. Business ethics

Before officially starting your partnership with a company, you must thoroughly discuss with them its company policies and objectives. This gives you an insight into their business ethics.

When choosing your ideal eCommerce partner, you must see if their business ethics match yours or not. Also, asking them questions about how they handle their clients and what basic marketing strategies they use, can further inform you about their business ethics.

3. Track record of business

With the rise of the eCommerce space, there has been a rise in eCommerce frauds as well. In fact, according to FinancesOnline, “Ecommerce retailers deal with an average of 206,000 web attacks per month.”

Therefore, you must thoroughly examine your eCommerce partner’s history before officially starting a business with them. To prevent yourself from getting scammed, you can access the brands that they have partnered with before and then contact them to verify it. 

Also, when you officially start your partnership, begin by giving your eCommerce partners low-priority roles before giving them the high-priority ones. This will help you test their loyalty and legitimacy.  

4. Type of service (in-house or outsource)

Before moving forward with your partnership, you should identify the type of service that they provide, i.e, in-house service or outsource service. Also, analyze how successful it has been for their business over the years.

After you find out the type of service an eCommerce partner provides, figure out if that type of service suits your business objectives or not. If it does suit your requirements, then accordingly move forward with the partnership. 

5. Divide time for both software and eCommerce partner

When you start working with a new eCommerce partner, you get introduced to some new software that has to be used to carry forward certain tasks. You need to learn your way around the software and how it can be used to maximize the growth of your eCommerce platform.

Also, you must be able to devote equal time to both your eCommerce partner and the software that you’re using for your eCommerce platform.

6. Examine their graphics team

A good eCommerce partner should have a creative graphics team. You must know about your own graphic requirements and should be able to communicate the same with the team. 

Good coordination with the graphics team of the eCommerce partner would help you come up with a content-driven and user-friendly design for your eCommerce website. Also, this would help you distinguish your eCommerce platform from the rest of the platforms in the market.

7. See who they integrate with

Your eCommerce partner platform should be able to integrate with all the industry-approved tools and applications required to provide eCommerce services. If not, it might result negatively in the overall growth of your own eCommerce platform.

Therefore, you need to be aware of the type of applications they integrate with. Usually, a good eCommerce platform integrates with CRM, OMSs, and PIMs. An efficient eCommerce partner integrates with various applications that are required for the success of a certain project.  

8. Check if it’s the right price

Sometimes, an eCommerce partner ends up asking for a hefty price for the services they provide. This is where you should be the most vigilant. You should research online for the price of the services they provide and verify whether it is viable or not.

Additionally, you should make a list of all the affordable eCommerce partners that fall under your budget. Then you can compare the shortlisted partners and see which of the partners provides the required services for the least price.

9. Analyze their maintenance and support

A good eCommerce partner indulges in a thorough and regular security and maintenance check of their websites. This results in their website being bug-free and up and running at all times. If they do not indulge in regular checks, their website could at times have unresponsive pages and be prone to attacks, which would then directly pose a threat to your platform too.

Also, see if the eCommerce partner is providing 24/7 support and close monitoring or not. This will tell you about their service level as a platform and whether they are suitable for you or not.   

Conclusion

Coordinating with a new business partner can be a bit troublesome during the initial days due to a lack of coordination and effective communication. However, once you get acquainted and start working together, it can lead to a fruitful and successful partnership.

We hope the above tips helped you find and choose an ideal eCommerce partner that best suits your business objectives.

However, if you’re in the business of supporting e-commerce brands, you should consider partnering with Helplama. We strive to provide excellent customer service and helpdesk solutions to e-commerce businesses.

Empower your business by earning up to 30% of revenue share for every referral that closes.