Lean EcommerceGet your ecommerce off the ground using the ‘Lean startup’

methodology

Alexandre Vandermeersch

E-shop expo 2015 – March 18 2015

About Odoo (ex- OpenERP)

o #1 Most installed Business software suite

(2,000 new companies per day)

o 2,000,000 users

o 550+ partners in 110 countries

o UK office opening in 2015!

About the ‘Lean startup’ movement

“A start up is a commercial structure organized by

people who are looking to create a new product or

service within conditions of extreme uncertainty”Eric Ries

And for Ecommerce ?

Ecommerce has more uncertainty than a

traditional ‘brick & mortar shop’:

• Global audience but…global competition

– even more differentiation needed

• Lots of operating model options:

purchase, assortment, delivery, service,…

• Lots of marketing options to get visibility

Key ‘Lean’ principles

MVP

VoC

‘Waste’

‘Kaizen’

• ‘Minimum Viable product’

• Listen to the Voice of the Customer

• Find out what IS adding value and

eliminate what is NOT adding value

to the customer

• Continuous improvement on rapid

iterations

So what you need to do:

MVP

VoC

‘Waste’

‘Kaizen’

• Find out potential customers and check whether

you add value to them…with something real in their

hand

• You business plan is full of very uncertain

hypothesis – you need to (in)validate them with real

life data

• You should conduct small experiments with a

feedback cycle of less than a month so that you

validate hypothesis, change them or pivot

• Do some research on frustrations/problems then do

something online, fast, to learn fast

1. MVP

Nick Swinmurn, Zappos founder:

• Didn’t know if people were

ready to buy shoes online

• Put up a simple site with an

agreement to buy from local

shops

• Found out people were ready

to buy IF the service was great

1. MVP

• Create a Website in a few minutes

with drag & drop

• Use ‘on page’ editing options to

test multiple scenarios

• Get your intended value

proposition out there

1. MVP - case

Boogaerts (Odoo Client) is producing heating systems for large

places (eg. Warehouse) – would people buy accessories online ?

1. MVP - Case

In a few clicks

part of his

inventory was

available online

from his Website

He could then

assess how strong

the real demand

was, at no risk

2. VoC – live chat & survey

70% of Odoo

prospects are

more likely to

buy after a

Webinar!

Live chat enables to convert more

visitors into clients than calling leads

2. VoC : crowdfunding

3. Waste - eliminate

Two types of waste:

• Doing something the

client does not care

about

• Taking too much

resources/overhead for

something the client

does care about

Find out the frustration,

make hypothesis, do a

small experiment: stop or

scale

‘Agile’ – avoid investing in

big consulting /

implementation and

overhead but favor rapid

iterations

3. Limit waste - Kanban

3. Limit waste - Inventory

Stock management can kill your business: start with light

options (e.g drop shipping) then move to more complex

management as you grow

3. Examples – ‘SEO’ pages

Optimize pages for Search results:

put keywords that people are

looking for !

Make sure you target ‘good’

volume with Low/Medium

competition (check Ad Words)

Odoo CMS SEO

AdWord keyword planner

3. Examples – A/B testing

Two versions of a page, with e.g: 50% of visitors view version

A, 50% version B:

• What converts best ?

• Where do people click ?

3. Measure!

3. Examples – Full tracking

Odoo Direct team is

based on ‘inside sales’ –

we sell mostly on the

phone to leads acquired

on the Website

(inbound)

All marketing

campaigns are tracked

within Odoo CRM from

their UTM (URL

parameters). After a few

months, we

kill/expand/adjust what

paid off and what did

not

Step by step

Is there demand ?

Limited investment to

test demand and learn

from it

1

2

3

Can I build a scalable

model ?

Optimise to start getting

volume: SEO/SEA,

assortment, service

Scale it!

Larger investment to

scale with the demand

Online site : off the shelf

integration

Optimized online site

‘On premise’, custom

integration

Odoo is used by small to large

companies online & on

premises and scale with you

Sponsored content

All you need to remember

MVP

VoC

‘Waste’

‘Kaizen’

…and Odoo!

Odoo

sales@odoo.com

+32 (0) 2 290 34 90

www.odoo.com

R&D and services office

Chaussée de Namur 40

B-1367 Grand Rosière

Sales office

Avenue Van Nieuwenhuyse 5

B-1160 Brussels

Thank YouSend your input at av@odoo.com or @alexvdm