
Ask HN: Is an ecommerce saas platform a good idea? - mirceasoaica
I am thinking about creating a saas ecommerce (like shopify, bigcommerce, selz etc.) platform and I would like to know some opinions from the HN community regarding the business model and features.<p>1. Do you think there is room for another player? There are a lot of platforms out there, some better than others and with different pricing and business model (fixed subscription, transaction fee etc.).
2. What are the main features that would convince you to ditch the platform you are using now (including OSS like WooCommerce and PrestaShop)?
3. What is the business model that would attract you? Would you pay more for a subscription and no transaction fee, or lower subscription and a small transaction fee (like 2%)?<p>Thanks!
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brudgers
What would be the perfect ecommerce platform? One that sent me very large
checks and required no work at all. No dealing with transactions, no listing
merchandise, no managing inventory, no dealing with suppliers, no upfront
costs, etc.

If that happens, I wouldn't care about rates...except maybe in some abstract
manner where money is a way of keeping score. The reason I wouldn't care all
those activities create first order problems when they fail and the rate is
only relevant once all the other pieces are working to the point I'm making
sales.

Further down the list of things that matter are the business model of the
ecommerce platform. I probably care about my business model many many times
more.

Anyway, what I see is that successful ecommerce platforms are successful not
due to their business model but because they solve problems for the seller.
Etsy, Amazon, Alibabba, Ebay, etc. solve problems related to transactions for
a specific type of seller. In the cases where logistics are important, the
platform has expanded to handle those.

Good luck.

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qaq
There is some room for Enterprise platform built on a modern stack. We were
actually planning to build one few years back but funding fell through. ATG,
Hybris & Websphere Commerce are all riddled with tech debt and take a very
long time to customize and deploy. You are unlikely to do this with VC funding
though it requires very sizable investment and it would take close to 2 years
to build an MVP.

~~~
mirceasoaica
I was thinking about bootstrapping business and target the small - medium
businesses. If I want to tackle the enterprise business it might take 2 years
for an MVP, but an alternative for a WooCommerce store shouldn't take that
long.

~~~
qaq
It's so crowded unless you have some special angle you will need to spend a
truckload on marketing

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onion2k
[https://moltin.com/](https://moltin.com/) are a YC company who have raised a
couple of rounds to do ecommerce in an interesting way, so clearly someone
thinks there's a market for new SaaS platforms in that space.

(I have no affiliation, but I've met them and they're nice guys.)

~~~
mirceasoaica
I know about moltin.com.

They basically offer you a backend and a set of APIs to create your store.
It's a great tool to use if you want to be in control of your store behaviour.
On the other hand it requires you to have some technical knowledge.

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pravula
Oracle is out with a version of this called Commerce Cloud
([https://cloud.oracle.com/commerce-cloud](https://cloud.oracle.com/commerce-
cloud)). It is based on their existing market leading ATG/Oracle commerce
product.

~~~
mirceasoaica
To be honest I don't really trust Oracle software. They are usually very
expensive and they kinda lock you in their products.

In the case of Commerce Cloud I don't see any pricing information, so I can
only presume it's going to cost a lot.

Also a few days ago Oracle bought NetSuite for $9.3 billion. One of their
product is SuiteCommerce
([http://www.netsuite.com/portal/products/netsuite/suitecommer...](http://www.netsuite.com/portal/products/netsuite/suitecommerce.shtml))

~~~
pravula
Agree with most of your points. I was only pointing out that Oracle now wants
a piece of that pie. BTW, they support both revenue share and number of click
model.

From [https://cloud.oracle.com/en_US/commerce-
cloud?tabID=14306513...](https://cloud.oracle.com/en_US/commerce-
cloud?tabID=1430651320096)

Usage Model - Tiered-pricing structure based on annual storefront page views
Revenue Share Model - Percentage of GMV

