WHIR tv caught up with Sören von Varchmin, vice president of sales for ecommerce platform provider ePages (www.epages.com) to discuss the market opportunity in selling ecommerce tools to SMB hosting customers, and how a host can incorporate those tools.
Von Varchmin discusses the market opportunity for ecommerce tools among SMBs, suggesting that only a small percentage of SMBs are currently selling online, and that percentage should grow as more small businesses incorporate the Internet into their selling strategies.
The ePages solution is designed to be distributed through channel partners, says von Varchmin, and service providers are the company’s most important channel. He also discusses ePages’ fairly unique practice of working to make connections between partners, which include payment gateway providers and delivery and fulfillment services.
He offers payment gateway provider Sage Pay (www.sagepay.com) as an example of one such partnership, and describes a deal through which that company was offering sign-up credits that customers were using to fund joint marketing efforts.
He says shared hosting providers typically see adoption of ePages’ solutions by about 10 percent of their customers, and tend to offer a system of tiered packages with an eye to up-selling – features and capacity increasing with price.
While the company’s efforts are focused on Europe, it also has plans to expand its operations into North America.
The interview was conducted outside at WebHosting Day 2010 in Germany, and there really wasn’t a completely quiet spot to be had. There is a bit of background noise, but it shouldn’t be too disturbing, and hey, that’s one of the risks you run when filming run-and-gun in Germany.
