Consideration of expensive technology alternatives is often required to navigate the expansion of ecommerce storefronts. Merchants often overlook the more cost-effective, efficient and effective options that are already available in their tech stack.
KreplingOne such solution is an ecommerce platform. It’s designed for merchants in the mid-market who want more control over their workflows and tools. According to projections, e-commerce will generate $8.1 trillion in sales by 2026. Krepling, a new platform that simplifies the scaling of online businesses, is a great example.
Krepling, a no-code Platform for merchants to build and maintain increasingly complex ecosystems throughout the tech stack.
Over 600 merchants are represented in over 35 countries. The integrations can be chosen by these firms without any coding knowledge, allowing for a seamless process.
The software developer, founded by Liam Gerada with his brother Travis, will be incorporated in 2020. They employ a team consisting of 10 people to run the business. The Gerada brothers launched a retail company about four years before they founded Krepling.
We discovered through this journey that ecommerce has evolved into much more than just selling via a website. Liam told The E-Commerce Times that they found e-commerce to be a very complex construct, often involving complicated payment flows and a wide range of different integrations services.
The Gerada brothers developed their technology in-house. It could eventually evolve into open-source software as the stack becomes more modular. But at the moment, he said, all software is proprietary.
Meeting Vendor Expansion Needs
Gerada says that merchants are expanding the tech stack they use to reach consumers via different channels such as SMS and email. The brothers concluded that the current landscape of e-commerce did not offer nor encourage the level flexibility merchants required.
In many cases, the basics were lacking. In some cases, online systems were not capable of handling even automated marketing or recovering abandoned carts.
“We found ecommerce integration to be tightly coupled with individual ecommerce service, which poses a challenge to merchants and individuals that are not engineers focused or who do not wish to develop multi-year roadmaps,” explained he.
90 percent of mid-market products fall into this category. They solved this issue by building a solution that does not require any code into their platform. He said that this approach allows merchants take their best-of breed tools or integrations, and turn them into rich buying experiences for consumers across the internet.
Gerada reports that current data shows that vendors are less willing to spend money on a cohesive solution if it costs them more than $10 to $15,000 per month.
Merchants today are less inclined to migrate. Merchants are worried about downtime and disruptions in their current tech stack. Other headless platforms are expensive, which is another barrier.
Krepling is the answer.
“We’ve seen very few frictions. Merchants understand the urgency of moving quickly in a situation like this. “Sometimes, reducing costs can be as easy as hunting through your technology stack,” said he.
Mid-Market Merchants are empowered by a Marketing Plan
Gerada’s plan of marketing does not aim to migrate merchants. The company offers them a simple solution to allow them to manage their data and integrate with their customers.
The Krepling platform will be more innovative if it adopts this approach. It achieves this by cultivating expertise built for the middle market.
Mid-market merchants are often looking to improve their access to data, expand their infrastructure, integrate services, or deploy multiple storefronts.
Gerada argued that current tools are not flexible enough to offer merchants this level of support.
Shopify and WooCommerce are two examples of standalone tools that make it easy to get started. He noted that as merchants expand, they begin to use a more complex tech stack.
Krepling’s unique feature is the ability for merchants deploy multiple storefronts under one account. It gives them access to all their data from across their entire ecommerce stack.
They have full visibility of all data, from mail and payment integrations through to automated marketing integrations. Gerada said that they also don’t need separate data silos.
Data Integration Methods are Important
All data is centralized on one platform. This gives a comprehensive overview of data and tech stack. So a merchant could deploy workflows that target specific categories.
The online store of a merchant might attract customers from Turkey, North America, and other regions. It could also be a product category that they are looking to purchase. Krepling’s structure without code allows a merchant to create a workflow that targets those consumers. They can also aggregate graphics and receive data for further streamlining, all without needing to hire developers or programmers. They can do it on their own.
“This is what sets us apart from other platforms, whether they are developer-focused or headless. “We give merchants the ability to create beautiful and expandable e-commerce experience without writing a line of code.” he said.
Increase the Expansion Goals of Merchants
Krepling merchants typically expect to expand their infrastructure in six to twelve months. In addition to this expansion, Krepling has certain goals:
- Globalization of their business
- Launching in a new country while adapting the stores to local preferences.
- Add new channels, payment options, integrations and stores
Most merchants are focused on the next level they want to reach in ecommerce. Gerada stated that this would mean more expensive online shopping for them.
The system providers are putting pressure on the companies to switch to a customized system, which is expensive.
Krepling’s solution provides an alternative for merchants.
The platform allows the creation and deployment of data across 6-12 storefronts. Merchants don’t need to hire developers, migrate their tech stack or overhaul it.
“We are the top toolkit. We allow merchants take their business to the top by allowing them to launch new countries and add new payment methods.
Using Data Isolation to your Advantage
Gerada claims that the ecommerce stacks of merchants are often not able to perform effectively because existing processes do not work well. He observes that despite having large systems in place, these components often operate in silos and lack proper communication.
These systems do not have the components necessary to track and use the data. This problem was one of the primary reasons that the brothers founded Krepling as a direct response to merchants and their vision of what the next level in global business would be.
The mid-market vendors simplify the process of adding new channels and improving merchantability, by integrating all the experiences. The customers decide how to achieve their goals.
The merchant can choose to use a stand-alone system, or they can let Krepling handle everything, from the creation of the storefront, the integration, and the management of the merchant’s payments stack, or simply plug in selected components.
Rethinking E-Commerce Tech Stacks
Gerada has observed that many new customers, especially mid-market vendors who already have an e-commerce stack in place, take a middle ground approach at first. He does note that long-term customers eventually migrate to Krepling’s full-suite solution.
“They’re usually already running on an existing system.” He said that plugging into an existing system is more friendly than having to migrate or replatform.
Gerada believes most merchants don’t realize that, outside of technical issues, they must rethink the tech stack and not migrate. The majority of merchants that fall into the mid-market segment realize they need to make a decision.
Listening to the needs of potential customers is one of the biggest challenges that his company faces. Some vendors are hesitant to admit that they don’t need to replatform in order to think about growth and strategic advances to build an online machine.
Gerada stated that “as the market becomes increasingly competitive and ecommerce becomes more crowded,” the need to find a solution like the one Krepling has offered, in order to avoid the chasm created by building a wide stack will be more obvious.
