A successful business sets clearly defined goals before making investments. An external point of view helps bringing the project to a successful completion by being able to choose the right tools and by clearly defining the project’s sub-goals.

Quite often, the input from an industry pro provides the necessary incentive to optimally employ company resources (employees and budget).

E-commerce strategy

Recommending the right channels and a clear-sighted overall concept form the basis for efficient optimisation and sales increases.

Our solutions in this area:

  • Recommending a distribution channel strategy to increase online sales (based on as-is analysis, strategy definition, drawing up and assessing different options) including advice on product choice and appropriate marketing as well as an evaluation of the growth potential of other distribution channels
  • Drawing up an in-depth overall e-commerce strategy concept including an assessment of relevance and growth potential of e-commerce for online sales as well as competitive positioning and branding
  • Testing and evaluating suitable service providers and technologies through our evaluation matrix EVA using 37 individual criteria
  • Taking into account technological and sociological developments within e-commerce (trend scouting)
  • Conducting surveys, e.g. our own annual study “Trends in E-Commerce”
  • Market analyses and tailored advice based on buying patterns, target-group-specific trends and technological development
  • Analysis and recommendation of software that is suitable for your particular e-shop (and, if required, an external partner)

Conceptual design services

On request we offer conceptual design services that are limited to clearly defined project areas.

An overview of our conceptual design services:

  • Drawing up a list of requirements that specifies the functions and features of your e-shop and, if needed, the responsibilities of external partners
  • Drawing up a structured e-shop concept, including integration of innovative solutions allowing for specific conditions and functional range
  • Assessment of modular solutions for certain functions (e.g. for search or Web analytics) and advice regarding the employment and compatibility of specific software
  • Drawing up an implementation concept that defines the functions of the e-shop including a project schedule
  • Drawing up an overall concept for the e-shop including strategy and sustainability, implementation plan and quality management [›]
  • Strategic online marketing, market analyses, and assessment of online marketing channels for your company
  • Assessment of efficient combination of online and offline marketing campaigns

Semantic e-commerce

Elmar/P/Wach is involved in the Semantic Web research and thus knows the latest developments. Hence, we are your competent “Ontology and Knowledge Engineer” and profoundly offer the following services to lead your application to the semantic generation:

  • Evaluating the potential of semantic technologies and their use in your company
  • Developing and implementing ontologies according to W3C standards, e.g. to semantically describe your products
  • Modelling metadata and semantic enrichment (“annotation”)
  • Drawing up semantic user profiles
  • Creating adaptive and feedback-driven systems
  • Ontology Learning, e.g. to automatically construct knowledge models
  • Consulting on service-oriented applications and building Semantic Web Services
  • Optimising your application for semantic shopping assistants
  • Further ontology engineering tasks like transforming ontologies (“merging”, “mapping”, etc.) and maintenance
  • Utilising the comprehensive usability know-how of Elmar/P/Wach to fully exploit the potential value of semantic systems

Management services

A whole host of day-to-day tasks in your e-shop have to be executed in a standard and reliable manner.

We provide support in this area, too:

  • E-shop management, which involves updating price changes and changes to the product range as well as the maintenance of your e-shop
  • Search engine optimisation (good position on the search engine’s organic index)
  • Online editing, informing customers about product quality with well-written texts that are also optimised for the finding in search engines, and strengthening customer loyalty even in the case of complaints
  • Module services, which are used in individual cases (e.g. through the set-up and maintenance of a knowledge model in the search function, the zoom software, and for avatars)
  • Preparing your e-shop for a certified seal of approval
  • E-shop coaching with efficient as-is analysis on-site and appraisal and training of employees on company premises
  • Process consultation by analysing workflow and technical processes as well as the e-commerce system as a whole