Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: AfterShip CEO Andrew Chan (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: When you look at the app stores of Shopify and BigCommerce, do you see opportunities for new apps or new services that new entrepreneurs could build?

Andrew Chan: Definitely. We’ve extended into after and before shipping. E-commerce merchants these days are using so many different solutions. Many SaaS solutions for e-commerce are not designed for e-commerce. I’ll give you an example. MailChimp is a great solution but is not really designed for e-commerce brands. Many solutions start to go back to email marketing solutions for brands. That’s an opportunity.

Sramana Mitra: What is it that a MailChimp doesn’t allow that an ecommerce-focused email system needs?

Andrew Chan: We also have an email solution. We plugin over a hundred carriers. We help the brands to notify the customers when the shipment is out for delivery. For MailChimp, it’s a very easy solution for brands but you need to do extra work if you want to plug into a shopping cart system for delivery status and product recommendation. It’s a little bit complicated. Merchants don’t have that much time. Even for enterprise, they won’t spend time on that.

Sramana Mitra: You’re saying that within the e-commerce ecosystem, there are opportunities to create domain-specific versions of basic tools like email marketing systems that have all those ecommerce-specific functionalities already programmed.

Andrew Chan: Yes, I think so. Many brands are still using MailChimp. We also work with email service providers. We send the data back to their system helping brands to do the emails. The email marketing platform has to be not just simple but also work with other service providers to get all the data back into one place so you don’t have to worry about situations like, “I’m using solution A and they have email. Solution B is product reviews. I want to send emails after delivery.” You don’t want to send the email too early. With that, you need to work with multiple service providers.

Sramana Mitra: Very cool. What you’ve provided in this interview are a bunch of different insights. One is that there is still quite a lot of opportunities to build SaaS solution that plug into different marketplaces. Also, you have touched upon the benefits of working with other products and other solutions.

Thirdly, you have provided insights on how even basic systems like email marketing need customization to work in the context of ecommerce.

Is there anything else you want to add?

Andrew Chan: Another trend is investors investing heavily in e-commerce SaaS solutions. There will be many interesting solutions coming out. One key trend that I want to mention is that e-commerce solutions are going to do more customization of solutions. Like we are customizing more solutions but focusing on marketing as well. Brands also want to use these solutions not only to track the package but also to engage with customers. There will be a trend of solutions extending. Brands are tired of using many solutions to do a few things.

Sramana Mitra: I really like Shopify’s strategy. Shopify has been able to expand their scope and range by using their marketplace. Instead of doing everything inside, they have leveraged a nice marketplace. They have really broadened their solution. That’s a really interesting strategy. From what I know, BigCommerce will try to follow the same strategy. Many other companies are trying to position themselves as PaaS.

You talked about Atlassian. Atlassian is definitely doing a PaaS strategy. We’re seeing a lot of that.

Salesforce is an example. Many SaaS solutions are doing something similar as well. It’s great for brands because they have more choices.

Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: AfterShip CEO Andrew Chan
1 2 3