This document provides guidance on building an e-commerce business, including choosing a business, creating a plan, marketing online, and reviewing case studies. It discusses choosing a unique business idea, creating a business roadmap that includes channels, building a website, marketing, and analytics. It also covers online marketing challenges and opportunities, like the importance of testing and learning. Finally, it reviews a case study of an existing retail business that generated $14,000 in its first month of online sales by launching an e-commerce store and emailing current customers.

1. Building an E-commerce Business
an approach for a Web 2.0 world
02.18.2011

2. Curriculum
✤ Choosing a Business
✤ Creating a Plan
✤ The E-commerce Iceberg
✤ Road Map to Launch
✤ Running it
✤ 3 quick Case Studies: Small, Medium, Big - How they were Successful
at Growth

3. Choosing a Business
✤ Is Your Idea Unique?
✤ If Not...
✤ Online is more Crowded than Offline
✤ Competing in a Google / Affiliate / Drop ship / eBay / Amazon
world (POV)

4. Creating A Plan
e-Business Roadmap
Research Channel Build Market Measure
Selection Repeat
e-Bay Advertising
Focus Grps Design, Build
Affiliate Offline
Order Management Scorecard
Ad hoc calls Website Online Analytics
Fulfillment Regular Review
Customer Interview Mobile Search
Competition Accounting
Kiosk PPC
Ops
Partner Social
Mobile App
CRM

5. The E-commerce Iceberg

6. The “New” E-commerce Roadmap
e-Commerce WEBSITE Roadmap
Fulfillment Channel Build Market Measure
Selection Repeat
e-Bay Advertising
Design, Build
Product Sourcing Affiliate Offline
Order Management Scorecard
Inventory vs Drop Ship Website Online Analytics
Fulfillment Regular Review
Storage / Warehouse Mobile Search
Accounting
Order Management Kiosk PPC
Ops
Partner Social
Mobile App
CRM

7. The “New” E-commerce Roadmap
e-Commerce WEBSITE Roadmap
Fulfillment Channel Build Market Measure
Selection Repeat
e-Bay Advertising
Design, Build
Product Sourcing Affiliate Offline
Order Management Scorecard
Inventory vs Drop Ship Website Online Analytics
Fulfillment Regular Review
Storage / Warehouse Mobile Search
Accounting
Order Management Kiosk PPC
Ops
Partner Social
Mobile App
CRM

8. The “New” E-commerce Roadmap
e-Commerce WEBSITE Roadmap
Fulfillment Channel Build Market Measure
Selection Repeat
e-Bay Advertising
Design, Build
Product Sourcing Affiliate Offline
Order Management Scorecard
Inventory vs Drop Ship Website Online Analytics
Fulfillment Regular Review
Storage / Warehouse Mobile Search
Accounting
Order Management Kiosk PPC
Ops
Partner Social
Mobile App
CRM

9. The “New” E-commerce Roadmap
e-Commerce WEBSITE Roadmap
Fulfillment Channel Build Market Measure
Selection Repeat
e-Bay Advertising
Design, Build
Product Sourcing Affiliate Offline
Order Management Scorecard
Inventory vs Drop Ship Website Online Analytics
Fulfillment Regular Review
Storage / Warehouse Mobile Search
Accounting
Order Management Kiosk PPC
Ops
Partner Social
Mobile App
CRM

10. Building the Business
Dunkin' Donuts
Projects for March 2007
Improvement
Hours
Project Estimate Launch Description
Database Server Move
Dunkin' Donuts 4 MQ Agent Research
Implement Phase 1 of Business Requirements 15 ASAP Adding $100 cap on U.S. Mail Orders & Generic Site Messaging
Shopping Cart Issue Detailed Hours Report for January 2007
8 ASAP Find fix for all items showing up under "Suggeted Items"
Digex Maintenance 8 Ongoing Ongoing
Hours
Comprehensive Shipping Changes 20 TBD Completion of 2 lingering issues regarding US Mail Options/ P.O. Box
Project Estimate Launch Description
Free Iced Coffee Day Emails 16 27-Mar Design/Deploy two emails
AS400 Migration 3 TBD Support/Testing
Free Iced Coffee Day Graphics/Detail Page 12 27-Mar Main Feature Graphic, Store Locator Graphic & Detail page
JetBlue Side Bar Graphic 5 7-Jan Design/Deploy side bar grahpic for JetBlue
Admin Tool Performance Issues 10 Ongoing Debugging
U.S. Ski Team Graphics & Detail Page 17 10-Jan 2 Large side feature graphics, store finder graphic and detail page
Dashboard Report 15 Ongoing Snap shot of metrics and sales numbers: weekly and monthly
Franchising Updates 4 12-Jan Updating copy, sidebar graphic on DD.com
Other Fixes/Issues 5 Ongoing Customer Issues, other small issues
Homepage Updates 8 18-Jan Remove Holiday graphics, update logos & background
Weekly Status Calls/Communication/Planning 13 Tuesdays 5 status calls with an avg. of 2 participants from Mnet, future project lists/planning
Contests & Promos Page Update 4 22-Jan New Use It Win It graphic, remove all old promos
Cycle
Nutrition/Small Site Updates 8 Ongoing Nutrition & other small updates
Scholarship America Detail Pages 6 28-Jan Update & Deploy Scholarship America Detail page
TOTAL HOURS 134
WCFY Homepage Graphic 5 Design/Deploy grahpic
Update company info page 1 Copy update
Spelling Errors & Shipping Confirmation Emails 4 Fixing spelling errors/updating copy on confirmation emails, remove copy re: ship date
Ship Date Error - Order Fixes 3
Final Budget Order Processing 4 9-Jan Final Round of Budget orders, unsettled orders/Restart windows service
Refund Process Change/Order Adjustments 12 1-Feb Assisting with the Refund Process Project, call/communication, testing
DD.com Biz Requirments Audit 4 6-Feb Report detailing how DD.com handles shipping and order business rules
USPS Parcel Post Recap and Report 3 31-Jan Report detailing the impact of the discontinuation of USPS Parcel Post Shipping Method
Admin Tool Performance Issues 2 Ongoing Admin tool performance is slower than normal
Maple Cheddar Sandwich 10 28-Jan Design/Develop Detail page and supporting graphics Dunkin' Donuts Weekly Dashboard
Week of 2007 Feb 12 to Feb 18
Dashboard Reports 14 Ongoing Snap shot of metrics and sales numbers: weekly and monthly
Other Fixes/Issues 15 Ongoing Customer Issues, other small issues , sever/application maintenance
Weekly Status Calls/Communication/Planning
Nutrition/Small Site Updates
18
8
Tuesdays
Ongoing
5 status calls with an avg. of 2 participants from Mnet, future project lists/planning
Nutrition & other small updates Sales
DASHBOARD ANALYSIS %! 2006 Totals DD Card Non-DD Card 665 Boylston Street, Floor 4
Boston, Massachusetts 02116
TOTAL HOURS 150 Sales net of shipping $120,654.60 21% $95,299.11 $16,660.00 $103,994.60 T 617.859.7900
Analytics Review
Average Order (#Dunkin’ Dounuts
of Products) 4.03 0% 4.03 4.75 3.79 F 617.249.0665
May 2007 Web Performance
Average Order ($ of Amount)$38.25 0% $38.32 $12.13 $34.57 dashboard@maintainnet.com
maintainnet.com
Customer Count 1026
KEY FIGURES
Sales per Visitor Session $0.96
Regular Refills % of Total Sales 52.81%
Sales 1lb ground and whole bean
Top Ten
21%
Lb. Coffee Sales Daily + Weekly*
6%$54,703.55 *includes
$1,200K
1. 1lb Gound Original Blend
(in Thousands of Dollars)
Increase in IncreaseWhole Bean Original Blend
3. 5lb in
Sales from Sales 2oz Ground Original Blend - 48 pack
2. from $960K
2006 YTD Apr-06Certificate, $1 - book of 5
4. Gift $989K
$910K
6. 1lb Whole Bean Original Blend
$720K
4. Dunkin Donuts Card, Denomination
38M 19%7. 1 lb Ground Dunkin Decaf
$480K
$647K $663K
$602K
7. 1lb Ground French Vanilla $583K $570K
Total Page Increase in
$560K $540K $536K
$514K $511K
9. Dunkin Donuts Card, Denomination (25 cards min.)
Views in New10. 1lb Ground Hazelnut
Orders $240K
YTD 2007 from YTD
Planning planning
2006
Card 1/29- 2/4 2/5-Jun
2/11 Jul Aug 2/12- 2/18Oct
Sep Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
Sales Sales from 1 Year-Ago
Total $ Sales of Cards $18,760.00 $27,155.00 $16,660.00
Total # of Cards Sold 1840 2929 1373
Monthly Sales
Average $ Amount of Cards Sold $10.20 $9.27 $12.13 Yearly Sales
Registrations 14,766
May 2006 %! 4,852 2007
Apr %! 4,388
May 2007 2006 YTD %! 2007 YTD
Sales (Net of Sales (Net of
Site Performance Shipping)
$552,285 9% $569,687 6% $601,819
Shipping)
$2,316,115 21% $2,801,462
Page Views Regular Refills % of
1,751,626 Regular Refills % of
54% -5% 52% 0% 52% 52% 0% 52%
Visits Total Sales 125,342 Total Sales
Average Visit 4:58
Customer Count/ Customer Count/
3,986 16% 3,673 26% 4,638 18,996 19% 22,613
Median Visit New Orders 2:10 New Orders
Views per Session 13.97
Search Referrals Average Order $39.40
54,460 3% $42.30 -4% $40.64 Average Order $39.27 1% $39.72
Repeat Visits 6,314
Sales per Visitor Sales per Visitor
$1.06 -21% $0.98 -14% $0.84 $1.00 -23% $0.77
Session Session
Execution
Current / Last YR MO Current / Last MO YTD / Last YR YTD
Site Performance Total Visits & No Referrer Visits
May 06 Apr 07 May 07 2007 YTD 1,500K
Page Views 6,113,193 6,249,402 7,023,433 38,717,592
1,200K
Visits 519,826 581,657 713,088 3,840,945
1,105K
Average Visit 0:04:45 0:05:00 0:04:39 0:05:14 900K
859K
Median Visit 0:01:58 0:02:06 0:02:01 0:02:17 785K
600K 713K
MNET Page 2 of 2 582K 582K
Views / Session 11.76 10.74 9.85 10
503K 480K 476K
471K 498K 495K
300K 438K 449K
385K
Search Referrals 239,369 246,115 290,895 1,452,931
Analytics Review
300K
231K 221K 209K 246K 254K
190K 193K 211K
Repeat Visits 10.19% 9.75% 9.65% 10.22% Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
Visits No Referrer
!
web
analytics
email
Constant Improvement Cycle

11. Online Business Marketing
✤ Confusing number of marketing venues increases day-by-day
✤ Test and Learn - exhausting and labor intensive but use it to prove a
business model that fits your budget
✤ The Facebook Effect -critical for consumer-facing companies
✤ “Long Tails” have opportunity for small and niche businesses
especially B-to-B

12. Online Business Marketing
✤ Confusing number of marketing venues increases day-by-day
✤ Test and Learn - exhausting and labor intensive but use it to prove a
business model that fits your budget
✤ The Facebook Effect -critical for consumer-facing companies
✤ “Long Tails” have opportunity for small and niche businesses
especially B-to-B

13. Online Business Marketing
✤ Confusing number of marketing venues increases day-by-day
✤ Test and Learn - exhausting and labor intensive but use it to prove a
business model that fits your budget
✤ The Facebook Effect -critical for consumer-facing companies
✤ “Long Tails” have opportunity for small and niche businesses
especially B-to-B

14. Case Study: Barrington Outfitters
✤ 25 year old retail business with no website
✤ $0 - $14K in online sales for December, 2010
✤ “Instant” Commerce - BigCommerce Store with pre-made template
✤ Email blasts to 750 notebook signers generated 80% customers
✤ KEY TO SUCCESS: Established retail business - email current
customers. Carried “high demand” brands like Ugg.

15. Case Study: Barrington Outfitters
✤ 25 year old retail business with no website
✤ $0 - $14K in online sales
✤ “Instant” Commerce - BigCommerce Store with pre-made template
✤ Email blasts to 750 notebook signers generated 80% customers

16. Case Study: Cloudveil
✤ Owners purchased a niche brand for low cash down including
customer base of 4K
✤ Reduced cost of online platform / kept branding elements / lowered
cost of online biz ops
✤ Online sales increased from $0K - $1.6mm on total e-commerce
investment of $100K
✤ Key to Success: Bought niche brand cheap / kept development costs
and operating costs to a minimum using SaaS products

17. Case Study: Cloudveil
✤ Owners purchased a niche brand for low cash down including
customer base of 4K
✤ Reduced cost of online platform / kept branding elements / lowered
cost of online biz ops
✤ Online sales increased from $0K - $1.6mm on total e-commerce
investment of $100K

18. Case Study: Poliquin International
✤ Small to medium business growth online in 16 months
✤ Fitness & Nutrition Supplements
✤ B-to-B and B-to-C Components
✤ Online sales increased from $68K - $650K PER MONTH in 16 months
✤ Key to Success: RELENTLESS content creation and social engagement

19. Case Study: Poliquin International
✤ Small to medium business growth online in 16 months
✤ Fitness & Nutrition Supplements
✤ B-to-B and B-to-C Components
✤ Online sales increased from $68K - $650K PER MONTH in 16 months

20. Summary: Key Success Factors
✤ Pick a business carefully, do your research, consider
purchase or partnership. The online world is more crowded than the
offline world
✤ Expose the “Iceberg” and develop a plan for product
fulfillment, order management, customer service BEFORE you design
your site
✤
building an
Building the business almost always requires
“ecosystem” of website, Facebook, Twitter,
and blogging updates - creating and sharing content on a
regular, timely basis