Business software provider NetSuite recently released a new version of its e-commerce cloud platform, SuiteCloud, which incorporates new social media and search engine marketing (SEM) capabilities that are fast becoming critical to the success of any e-commerce business.

 

NetSuite's (News - Alert) tightly integrates the features of SuiteCloud with its leading end-to-end e-commerce business management suite, which brings together applications for e-commerce, customer relationship marketing (CRM) and financial / accounting, and this makes the new capabilities powerful. With the new platform, clients can reap the full benefits of cloud computing - powerful interactive online experience, real-time customer information, dramatically improved return on investment (ROI), cost reductions, IT savings and productivity gains.

 

New, scriptable checkout capabilities ensure that merchants can support a limitless range of custom processes as a purchase is committed. And because the new platform offers open access to third-party developers, NetSuite can offer a peerless ecosystem of specialized sales, marketing, merchandising and payment capabilities. Shipments can be quickly allocated to the right warehouse to meet cost or service considerations based on each shopper's address or other key order characteristics.

 

NetSuite is the only fully-integrated cloud computing platform which can directly correlate content from blogs, forums, product reviews, gift registries, and live chat with complete customer activity and purchase history, and tie that information directly to a complete CRM system and product database. This makes NetSuite the world's only actionable social commerce platform. Capabilities provided by NetSuite partners such as PowerReviews, Fluid, LivePerson (News - Alert), and MyRegistry enable companies to market, sell, and support customers based not just on purchase history, but the complete social trail left by that customer.

 

Companies merchandise better when they understand thoroughly how their customers are responding to their purchases. Merchants can analyze trends in forum, blog, and comment discussions about needs, wants, and preferences, and recalibrate marketing campaigns and inventory to match customer demand. NetSuite enables companies to take direct steps to profit from participating in the conversation.

 

Closed-loop marketing and actual profitability measurements track true lifetime ROI of every marketing campaign. With NetSuite, each campaign is tied in real-time to the revenue generated and the cost of the goods sold, providing true profitability analysis. Campaigns are also tied to lifetime revenue, as each shopper's purchase history is tracked seamlessly across all sales channels.

 

More dramatic is the introduction of goal-driven search engine marketing campaigns. After defining targets, such as visitor generation, revenue, or product sales, the NetSuite E-commerce platform, working with KENSHOO technology, can automatically realign keywords and change spending patterns in order to reach those goals. MyDIALS provides direct feeds of Google (News - Alert) AdWords campaign success to the NetSuite dashboard, enabling managers and executives to evaluate the profitability of campaigns in real time.

 

Business software provider NetSuite recently unveiled NetSuite Advanced Revenue Recognition, the first revenue recognition product designed to help companies automate the highly complex processes that are required to comply with new Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rules for multi-element sales, known as EITF 08-01 and EITF 09-03.