Still, a one-stop provider that would attract customers, close sales on abandoned carts, analyze marketing campaigns, transact globally, and integrate a business' e-commerce operations with its accounting, warehouse and service departments was more of an ideal than a readily available service.

But business management software provider NetSuite, (netsuite.com) recently introduced a collection of new features that deliver these advanced e-commerce capabilities to online retailers.

"NetSuite approaches [e-commerce] beyond what most see as first generation e-commerce - which focuses mainly on the Web site and Web store," says Sean Rollings, NetSuite's senior director of product marketing. "NetSute applies second generation e-commerce capability, which includes a lot of self serve capabilities, such as a customer center, partner center, vendor center and online support."

This newly functions contribute to a single system that manages global e-commerce transactions from start to finish, providing the tools required to integrate with multiple online channels and optimize search engine rankings.

"The whole idea is to run the entire business on one system, but to offer the bells and whistles you would expect for an e-commerce site," says Rollings.

NetSuite has reached deep for those bells and whistles, starting with its Google keyword-to-purchase tracking and optimization tools.

Designed specifically for Google, these tools are designed to improve a customer's Web site search engine ranking. NetSuite also provides enhanced search marketing with its closed-loop analysis of both paid and organic leads driven by the Google search engine.

The new multi-channel selling capabilities enable merchants to broaden their marketplace by tapping into any online channel, exporting their products into comparison-shopping engines such as Google's Froogle and eBay's Shopping.com.

NetSuite has also integrated a PayPal option, which allows merchants to accept payments in multiple currencies, and their customers to choose their own currency.

"A lot of other people are adopting [PayPal] because it gives a guaranteed capability and is more straightforward to manage compared to credit cards," says Rollings. "It takes away a lot of the complexity, both from a consumer and a vendor side."

Merchants now have the ability to examine abandoned shopping carts through NetSuite's new advanced search capabilities and email marketing tools. This allows merchants to keep track of which shoppers have abandoned their carts, what items were in their cart, when the items were added, and subsequently, activate direct email marketing programs to close those sales.

Finally, NetSuite has fully integrated UPS and FedEx into its delivery methods, enabling all merchants to provide rate generation, thermal label printing and automatic tracking number capabilities.

Rollings says that the company's second-generation e-commerce services have already had success drawing in a substantial number of new clients.

Around this time last year, the San Mateo, California-based company had a client base of roughly 1,000 businesses.

Just a year later, nearly 1,800 small and medium-sized businesses rely on NetSuite services - an 80 percent customer growth.