Nemesis eCommerce – the why and the how

Countless statistics are proving it over and over again, illustrating the extent of rapid digitization. Even if we get the impression that everything is already online, the trend doesn’t seem to slow down and thousands of new eCommerce sites are popping up every year. There are still no data points to even suggest this could change in the foreseeable future.

But you are not reading this here by accident. You have found us exactly because the first paragraph is already obvious. Instead, what’s worth your while is information on navigating this hyper-competitive landscape. Simply going digital does not guarantee anything, except the necessity of constant evolution through differentiation and polishing the customer experience. 

This in turn means the true cost of an eCommerce solution has to take in factors such as platform flexibility, scalability and support. Here’s where picking the right solution becomes crucial. 

There are dozens if not hundreds available. For the purpose of simplification, let’s divide them into 4 categories:

1. Cloud-based SaaS (e.g. Shopify) – the most convenient and cheapest to implement. Intended mostly for typical B2C stores with standard functionalities. 
2. Open-source (e.g. WooCommerce, prestaShop) – still relatively quick and easy to implement, but allowing more personalization through extensions. Also perfect for typical  small-to-medium B2C shops.
3. Licensed open-source (e.g. Magento, Broadleaf) – rich in functionalities and with full publisher support. These require a development agency/dept. to implement, but the broad functionalities make it great for mid-to-enterprise B2B and B2C players.
4. Commercial proprietary solutions (e.g. SAP Hybris, ATG) – for the most demanding businesses with sizeable wallets.

Let’s focus on the latter, more complex solutions, which offer enough scalability and competitiveness, especially in the B2B sector. According to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce and The Forrester Wave B2C Commerce Suites, SAP Commerce Cloud remains at the very top. 

Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce, Source Gartner (April 2017)

The Forrester Wave: B2C Commerce Suites, Q1 2017, Source Forrester

Needless to say, the licensing and implementation costs of such a solution are correlated with its top position on the graphs. What is the alternative then, if our budget is less than a few million euro? 

The most obvious answer is the lower category of licensed open-source including Magento or Broadleaf, whose licensing fees most companies are able to afford. There is one more though. One worth considering and focussing on for the rest of this article. 

Nemesis was created with intent to disrupt and to bridge the gap between our third and fourth categories described above. Built following the thought-leadership and best practices set by the likes of SAP Hybris or Magento, Nemesis emerged as the underdog taking the fight to the giants.

Nemesis’ business benefits include:

Fast time-to-market:

• • Flexible and easy to manage data model
  • REST exposed data model
  • Management and scheduling of recurring processes
  • Search and navigation of huge amounts of data
  • High reusability of data and code
    

Low cost of ownership:

• • Flexibility of deployment – on premises / private / hybrid cloud 
  • Easy and affordable support and maintenance 
  • No hidden costs
  • Flexible license and pricing options

The platform architecture is set up for countless integrations allowing immense versatility in terms of custom functionalities:

What makes it so in technical terms?

Modular architecture:

• • Marketplace with more than 120 modules
  • Microservice or single application setup
  • Modules for commerce (B2C and B2B), telco, logistics, healthcare, banking, insurance, etc.
  • Integration with dozens of third-party software

Cloud native technology:

• • Deploy geographically close to your customers
  • Auto scalability and elasticity
  • One click setup of production / development environments
  • Options for deployments on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, etc

Easy learning curve:

• • Based on industry standards – Spring REST, Spring Data, Hibernate, etc
  • Based on the latest open source technology
  • Comprehensive platform documentation and users guides
  • Large pool of available java developers

Thanks to this, the feature list includes, but is not limited to:

Enterprise e-commerce features:

• • Merchandising
  • Dynamic pricing
  • Promotions
  • Multistep checkout
  • Order management
  • Dynamic search
  • Customer profile
  • Tax calculation
  • Customer service
  • Multi-site
  • Multi-catalog
  • Multi-language
  • Multi-currencies
  • 120+ more

B2B-specific features:

• • Purchase limits and budgets
  • Detailed client catalog for easy search/navigation
  • Department budgets 
  • Specific user groups/roles permissions
  • Customizable invoice templates
  • Quotes and negotiation modules
  • Order tracking
  • Order replenishment
  • Easy integration with third-party software 
  • And many more…

Considering all of the above, we believe Nemesis to be the perfect alternative to solutions such as SAP Hybris, without the gigantic budget strain as well as with little trade off in terms of capabilities or support. But then, you must be wondering why you should choose Nemesis over Shopify or similar solutions. The answer is simple: both Shopify-like solutions and Nemesis give you a great starting point to spin up your e-commerce quickly. The main difference is that Nemesis also provides huge potential for the future, allowing to tailor your e-commerce according to your needs. Great start and unlimited options for future customization – that’s a good definition of Nemesis. And an even better reason to give it a go.

http://www.nemesis.io/en