Unknown Speaker 0:00 Oh Joshua Warren 0:06 because I've seen people get in over their heads and have problems where if their site goes down, and it's an on premise solution, while when you call the E commerce platform, they're gonna say, well, we don't call your hosting provider, you call your hosting provider. And depending on the hosting provider, they might say, well, this is a problem with your application, you need to call your ecommerce application provider, and you just get stuck on rounder Hanson, the Circle of Service, circle disservice service. Darin Newbold 0:39 Good day and welcome to Commerce Today. My name is Darren and I am here as always with Josh. And we are here to share a little bit about what's happening in the commerce world right now. So Josh, as always, how you doing today? Joshua Warren 0:53 How are we looking, doing good, doing good getting the hang of this whole live streaming thing, try not to just constantly look at our stats. So if you see me doing this exactly the stream? Darin Newbold 1:03 Well, I'm wondering if we're going to have to get another computer and three more monitors for you so that easily and definitely, foot pedals and stuff. It will be a whole flight console for you. And I know Joshua Warren 1:13 this is making for great audio for our podcast listeners. So Darin Newbold 1:15 apologies. And we will get right to the topic. And exactly and as you were saying right to the topic. So we've we were recently talking a time ago about e commerce platforms and the really crazy thing of replatforming. And what that's all about. And I think the big question then becomes what are the right questions to ask when it comes to choosing that ecommerce platform? And what does that look like? So kind of kick us off? And I think we probably have some some definitions, because you know, I'm definitely not the smartest one in this room. So yeah, help me out. You Joshua Warren 1:48 jumped ahead and started asking me to define these things earlier, Mike. No, no, no, no, this this is what the show is save it for the Exactly. So yeah. So there's, there's a lot of terms in the E commerce world. We love our buzzwords, we love our acronyms. And there's three I want to break down first, and that is SAS paths. And on premise SAS, you've probably heard of software. That's basically you're, you're purchasing a service provided by some software, but you're not really purchasing the software. So think Shopify, big commerce, you know, you're signing up for on a monthly basis. And you don't really have direct access to the code, you can't change the code, but it is code or software that is providing an E commerce site for your business. So then you have pass platform as a service, it's a little bit different in that you are paying more for a platform. So it's the the hosting environment, kind of like the SAS. But it's also a set of tools and tooling around customizing that software. And typically with that you do get access to the code. And then there's the one case where you basically always get access to the code. And that is on premise. And this is this is old, old, old school, like in the servers Darin Newbold 3:01 in the closet day. Exactly. Joshua Warren 3:02 And that's that's literally what that stands for. And here on premise, it's because it meant we're going to install it on a server that's on our premises that is running in our office. Nowadays, it's usually not used that way. It's usually in a data center in the cloud. I love the joke that you know, all the cloud is is somebody else's computer. It's all servers at the end of the day, somebody else's closet. Exactly. Amazon just has much bigger clauses. But yeah, on premise means typically that you have full access to and control of the code, and you're responsible for figuring out who's going to host it. Darin Newbold 3:39 Okay. All right. Well, there's also some other things that we probably need to need to talk about and understand. And that's one of them that's really, really had me curious because there's there's a piece of the E commerce questions and understanding the platform's about the single tenant and multi tenant. And what's that Joshua Warren 3:58 all about? Yeah, I noticed you kind of went straight to that on our list. Because it is it's a it almost sounds like you're talking about housing more than but basically what it means is single tenant means that it is an instance that is dedicated to a single tenant or a single business. So it means that you know, if Darren shoe company wants to start up an E commerce presence, and it's a single tenant instance, that means that that hosting environment is only running code for derivations. That makes sense, multi tenant, you can probably guess where I'm going with this. That is there's one copy of the code and it might be running. Darren shoes, Josh's shoes, Bob shoes, you have multiple people sharing the same hosting environment and sharing the same copy of the code. Darin Newbold 4:51 Okay, all right. Well, that makes a little bit more sense. But I guess now that I understand that, why is it matter? Why is it important? And then why Why are all of these things important as we look at, you know, as a merchants looking at this SAS pass on present single, double, triple quadruple? Exactly. So single tenant or multi tenant platform, I guess why does it matter? Like, you know, who cares? Yeah. Why should they care? Why better? Joshua Warren 5:21 They all care? Because that's what they're paid to do? No. Basically, we talked in the last episode that this is the year of replatforming. There's a record number of companies changing platforms. And what caught my eye in that report is the number one reported reason for changing platforms is very specific. And that was, ecommerce brands want ecommerce software adapted for us and hosted externally in a single tenant environment might wait a second, that's real specific. And what caught my attention as you can't usually get that with SAS with on premise or multi tenant. So that's kind of a narrow scope of potential platforms you're looking at. And it just pointed out to me, it's very easy for brand to accidentally select what feels like the right platform feels like the right choice, just find themselves replatforming like a year or two later, because they realize they're too restricted that the platform they chose, basically, if they chose something that's the opposite of that statement that is not hosted externally not adapted for them multi tenant, that sort of thing. It's easy to end up, fighting against restrictions meant having to reap lat form. So that's why I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about this today. And then, just like our last episode, apologies, I'm gonna put a disclaimer, a trigger warning like the start of every stream and episode. If you are in sales, please don't be offended. By but basically, there's a lot of cool new approaches. There's buzzwords like mock and composable commerce. And those are great concepts. We actually have episodes where we talked about composable commerce. But if you're trying to figure out is this a single tenant piece of software that I can customize, is it adapted for me? Is it hosted externally? And the only answer you're getting as well, but it's composable. Commerce. That's cool. Everybody, everybody's good. Exactly. And so I just I wanted to break it down what I ended up doing sometimes I feel like I'm a counselor, or mediator between platforms, and E commerce brands, the E commerce whisperer here. And so sometimes I'll just help brands out and say, Hey, here's some questions to ask, like, if you don't want to have me in the room. Or if it's not that level of engagement, that's fine. Just use these questions. And so I thought, a three questions that, in theory should cut through some of those sales terms and some of those new buzzwords and help you figure out if you're selecting a platform that meets those criteria that a majority of companies are looking for this year. Darin Newbold 7:55 All right. And since you teased it will bring up assuming I'm reading the great notes here and the right way. But first and foremost, will I have access to view the code that powers my E commerce site on your platform? Question number one, Joshua Warren 8:12 that is question number one. And if a platform says no to that question, typically you're looking at not only a SAS but a multi tenant SAS. Which means again, because it's running, Darren shoes, Josh's shoes, Bob shoes, they can't let you modify the code, because when Darren is modifying the code, right, that would be that would be bad. And I think SAS has a place like I'm not against SAS, we use a lot of SaaS solutions in our business. And it's great for hosting your blog. It's great for there's some great marketing software that is offered as a SAS. I don't think it's the best choice for E commerce, though. And so that's why this this question can help you kind of cut through that Darin Newbold 8:51 ride. And I think he kind of thought felt that I mean, unless you're just a small maybe barely just starting out, that's where it could but otherwise, otherwise, they need to steer away from it. So all right, question number one. Now to question number two, will I have access to modify or add to the code that powers my ecommerce site on your platform? That kind of similar to question number one, in a way, but what do we look at there? Joshua Warren 9:16 So this is it's similar, but there's a couple of distinctions. Basically, this is we're trying to keep the salespeople honest. And so on this one, if they say yes to this question, the way it's worded, at least if they're, they're listening closely, you're looking at either a single tenant pass, so it's platform as a service, and it's running just your code, or an on premise solution. So basically, it means you're going to be able to customize and control the user experience, you'll be able to integrate it in with your other systems. It's going to meet those criteria we mentioned earlier that most brands are looking for this year. Darin Newbold 9:54 So all in all, this is a good thing. So we want to we want to, you know, do Just because we're reviewing as we go, we want to avoid the no for question number one. And then we definitely want to yes for question number two. So now, question number three. Hey, I love this question. Joshua Warren 10:13 Oh, yeah, you got to deal with this. You have a meeting tomorrow. Question? Yes. Darin Newbold 10:20 All right. This could be said in so many different ways you have structured it in a very politically correct and nice way. But who do I call that my site is down? Joshua Warren 10:31 That's a fun question. And this can really help you dig into the details of past solutions, platform as a service solutions. So some past based ecommerce platforms are going to have their own support center, their own response team for site outages, others will refer you directly to the underlying hosting provider. So some of these are setups a on Amazon, AWS, they might send you straight there. If they've answered yes, that yes, you're gonna be able to view the code. And yes, you'll even be able to modify the code. And then they say they are the company you would call if your site's down. Chances are you're in that sweet spot, you're you found that commerce software that's adapted for your brand, and hosted externally in a single tenant environment, that'll give you kind of the best of the most flexibility without going into systems that are just gonna have a lot of overhead and expenses for support. Darin Newbold 11:26 Good. And the reason I am you probably see me I'm kind of brewing my brow as I might say, because as I'm thinking about this, giving, given the kind of direct situation that I get to enjoy tomorrow and stuff around this, but isn't there also or couldn't, there also be advantages to and I guess, I'm not sure exactly how this would be characterized, but maybe it's characterized as an on prem type of situation. But yet, it's a platform that the platform's hosted on, you know, in that on prem play, so you have a difference. Basically, the short of this is you have a different person, you're not calling the platform, in the sense of it's down, you're calling the hosting. So those are two different places. Joshua Warren 12:11 How does that and that typically is, yeah, that typically would mean that you're dealing with an on premise solution that you've selected a hosting provider for. And I do think there there are kind of the the two ways I would look at are the two things I would look at is, depending on your business, you either would want something where it's a pass, and the platform is taking care of everything in there the place you call, or you want an on premise solution, where you get a copy of the code, and you select where it's hosted. Now the differences in that really comes down to is your team technical? Do you have an IT team? Do you have someone at least that can help you make the right choice as far as where to host it? Because I've seen people get in over their heads and have problems where if their site goes down, and it's an on premise solution, while when you call the ecommerce platform, they're gonna say, well, we don't call your hosting provider, you call your hosting provider. And depending on the hosting provider, they might say, well, this is a problem with your application, you need to call your ecommerce solution or your ecommerce application provider, and you just get stuck on rounded hands Darin Newbold 13:17 in the in the, the Circle of Service, that is not not a happy circle disservices service. Thinking, think of the word that was yesterday. Joshua Warren 13:28 But with the right platform, and with the right hosting provider, and kind of the right resources, either on your team or with a partner that you trust, you can find a sweet spot, and Darin Newbold 13:38 you can find that sweet spot. Okay. But ideally, what you're looking for is is the is the answer yes, on this that basically the same, said the platform that you're speaking to is the same place, you're going to call if everything goes, everything goes down. So all right, that makes sense. That makes sense. Well, just a quick review. For those keeping score at home. You know, the three questions Will I have access to view the code that powers my ecommerce site on your platform? Will I have access to modify or add to the code that powers my ecommerce site on your platform? And then last but not least, who do I call? If my site is down? Those are your three primary questions that as you're as you're looking at choosing an ecommerce platform, those are real good place to start. Joshua Warren 14:27 Yeah, I agree. Those are the three that will help you cut through all the different buzzwords and composable commerce and mock and all these different things and get kind of the heart of it. Still, of course ask questions that relate to your business your specific needs like this, your your whole complete list. And one other thing thinking of that fun little experience you're having talked to some references or ideally, it's pretty easy these days to figure out what ecommerce platform sites using dig around find two or three current clients for a platform you're considering. Especially if it's The past where they they provide the service and just ask how the service is and just get some references. Do some checks there for sure. Darin Newbold 15:08 Well, what I was kind of thinking of is also not to say that a salesperson and I am a reformed salesperson. So I can say this with all the truth in my heart. But at the end of the day, what could be some ways that this could get confusing? Or basically, what words could I say, as a salesperson to you, Josh? That while I couldn't say him to you, because you sniff it out, but to someone that's not you, maybe to me who doesn't maybe have all of the sophistication? What could they say that around these things that might confuse me or cause me to think one way when it's maybe something else? One thing I hear a lot of from the, from the multi tenant SaaS platforms is if you say, can I modify the code, they'll say you can customize your site however you want, you have lots of ways to customize your site. Like that's different than modifying the code. That is that is and then when you dig into it, it turns out, oh, there's limited customization options via web view type thing, or there's plugins, you can purchase third party services you can purchase, but you can't actually modify the code. Interesting. Well, that's good to know. I thought that might be something that's helpful. Well, anything else around around these questions for your when you're choosing your ecommerce platform? Joshua Warren 16:24 No, I would just say if anybody listening or watching has other questions as they're struggling or trying to select a new platform, if there's questions that have helped you in that selection process, or if you don't even know where to start, reach out to me, I would love to kind of add those we do a weekly email newsletter where I'll sometimes write some articles or send out some things in the newsletter answering those things, so that'd Darin Newbold 16:47 be fantastic. And that's a great idea. Great idea. So yeah, definitely reach out to to Josh, all the informations in the show notes, all of those groovy things. So as always, we really appreciate you being here. Love to hear from you as appropriate. And as always, take care. Have a great day. Transcribed by https://otter.ai