NetSuite Spruces Up E-Commerce Apps

NetSuite hopes to raise the profile of its hosted business suite among online retailers with several enhancements to its e-commerce features.

Among capabilities the company added this week were Google Keyword-to-Purchase Tracking and Optimization, which provides e-tailers with analysis of leads driven to their site via the Google search engine; Multi-Channel Selling, for letting a merchant list their products on multiple comparison shopping engines; integration with the PayPal online payment system; a facility for helping companies figure out why a potential customer has abandoned an online shopping cart; and integration with the Fedex and UPS shipping systems.

NetSuite's special attention to the e-commerce community isn't surprising, given its existing customer base. NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson estimates that about one-third of the 7,000 companies that have adopted its technology are e-tailers. "It's an accident of our architecture," he said, referring to his software's ability, among other things, to automatically record information for Web orders directly into a company's accounting, billing and inventory systems.

Joe Giegerich, partner with Horizon Associates Group, a NetSuite Premiere solution provider in Marlton, N.J., said he's working on five different projects that combine the hosted software back-office capabilities with e-commerce.

"It's not so much the technology, it's the analysis that draws everyone," he said. "It's the real-nature and the fact that they can manage their business in real time," he said.

NetSuite said many of the new core e-commerce features will be added to its NetSuite and NetSuite Small Business offering for at no cost. The latter offering is priced at $99 per month for the first user and $49 per month per additional user.

More detailed site analytics and site builder modules are priced at an additional $199 per month. Merchants will pay a per-transaction fee for the PayPal service of 1.9 percent to 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per transaction, depending on their monthly sales volume.