MozillaStore/Vendors
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Vendors Evaluated
There are a lot of vendors in the ecommerce space, and there are surely some vendors we left out. However, the ones we seriously evaluated were Staples, Merchandise Mania, Gateway CDI, Helm, Amplifier, Fifth Gear, Amazon, Treehouse, New Image Promotions, Gorilla, One World Direct, and Shopify. Here follows a research summary on each vendor.
Staples
relationship & history: Kate Nazradi & Jennifer Balaco of Engagement worked with this vendor. They are the existing provider for staff & contributor rewards. MoCo team unhappy with the platform; platform considered insecure; high markup on merchandise; not well integrated into Mozilla infrastructure, expensive shipping; not particularly internationalized and not localized at all. Inflexible service. <p> notable customers: many large brands, but primarily for internal-facing stores <p> storefront: proprietary Staples storefront <p> merchandise offering: Standard merchandise. Many of the products are sourced domestically; more expensive but higher quality. <p> fulfillment, warehousing & shipping structure: US-based warehouse; hold inventory, ship anywhere. <p> cost structure: vendor takes a fixed percentage cut of the merch. <p> technical structure: entirely cloud-based; hosted on vendor's infrastructure. <p> security & privacy: Could not pass muster with MoCo security <p> summary recommendation: pass
Merch Mania
<p> relationship & history: Currently used by ReMo (WIlliam Quiviger) & Foundation (Ben Simon and Michelle Thorne). Formerly used by MoCo, though that relationship ended and was handed to Staples due to concerns about customer service and merchandise quality, though we believe those concerns can be adequately addressed.
<p> notable customers: Canonical, Google
<p> storefront: customized version of OSCommerce.
<p> merchandise offering: Standard merchandise. Mostly sourced from Asia. Medium-to-long turn-around time.
<p> fulfillment, warehousing & shipping structure: UK-based warehouse; hold inventory, ship anywhere.
<p> cost structure: Vendor includes markup on the merchandise we source. Their margin varies by order. We have a price sheet that is fairly comprehensive in some areas though it's not complete.
<p> technical structure: Custom implementation of OSCommerce, entirely hosted on their infrastructure, but Mozilla customer database is stored separately.
<p> security & privacy: Passed preliminary security & privacy reviews.
<p> flagged issues: none.
<p> summary recommendation: Path of least resistance and no startup cost.
Gateway CDI
<p> relationship & history: operated the MoCo merch store for a few years. Fired due to user data breach.
<p>summary recommendation: Pass.
Helm
<p> relationship & history: none.
<p> notable customers: Chrysler, Castrol, Slinky http://www.helm.com/case-studies/
<p> storefront: Multiple options to integrate with their backend]] Sample store: http://www.shopdalecarnegie.com/
<p> merchandise offering: Standard merch. Putting Mozilla logos wherever we want them. Also offer "premium," seasonal and special. Have a creative team.
<p> fulfillment, warehousing & shipping structure: [[US-based warehouse, hold inventory, recommend BongoUS to facilitate international shipments at competitive rates).
<p> cost structure: Same as Merch Mania.
<p> technical structure: FlexfillG3, our proprietary business-ready platform that links ordering, customer service, warehousing, fulfillment, and reporting.
<p> security & privacy: They did best on security and privacy review of any of the other platforms.
<p> summary recommendation: TBD
Amplifier
<p> relationship & history: none, though colleagues (Tim Hwang) vouch highly.
<p> notable customers: Livestrong, Despair
<p> storefront: Shopify preferred, do work with Yahoo! Stores, can work with others.
<p> merchandise offering: standard merchandise; on-demand printing; lots of customization potential.
<p> fulfillment, warehousing & shipping structure: also offer on-demand & kickstarter campaigns.
<p> cost structure: line items for everything; pay for storage, fulfillment, freight, etc. We will be billed for some amount of each.
<p> technical structure: we don't know yet
<p> security & privacy: we don't know yet
<p> summary recommendation: we don't know yet
Fifth Gear
<p> relationship & history: None.
<p> summary recommendation: Highly competitive but they dropped out of the RFP due to our refusal to sign NDA.
==Amazon
<p> relationship & history: None.
<p> notable customers: Everyone in the countries they're in.
<p> storefront: Amazon.com
<p> merchandise offering: you source it yourself.
<p> fulfillment, warehousing & shipping structure: Full-service fulfillment, but US-only. There are some international stores segmented by region but they aren't interoperable.
<p> cost structure: per-transaction cost.
<p> technical structure: Purely hosted on Amazon cloud. Some willingness to sandbox our stuff but unclear on how far they'd go.
<p> security & privacy: We did not advance them to this stage of review.
<p> summary recommendation: They are US-centric and we want to be international, so not a good option at this time.
Treehouse
<p> relationship & history: None.
<p> notable customers: mainly gaming companies: EA, Bethesda, Halo, others.
<p> storefront: prefer Magento Community Edition (open source), but willingness to integrate with Mozilla-customized ecommerce platform of choice.
<p> merchandise offering: Standard merch + more premium, custom-designed, limited-edition offerings (eg: posters, watches, etc).
<p> fulfillment, warehousing & shipping structure: US-based, though also have a UK warehouse. Full-service fulfillment. They would be more proactive partners in shaping campaigns, new merchandise, and strategizing.
<p> cost structure: Up-front costs and revenue sharing. They have proposed 40% revenue share. Probably negotiable. This is an inversion of their usual model, in which they license the brand and share revenue with trademark holder.
<p> technical structure: They recommend Magento back-end, integrating with Paypal for payment processing. Totally hosted on Mozilla infrastructure. We would own and operate this web app entirely.
<p> security & privacy: Privacy seems to be ok; some concerns, but flexible enough to be dealt with. No response yet from MoCo security.
<p> flagged issues:
<p> penetration test needed—though this will fall to Shopify, or to us (if we're hosting)
<p> require HTTPS everywhere (though this will fall to Shopify, or us if we're hosting)
<p> we'll need to confirm the PCI compliance of Mozilla-hosted Magento talking to payment processor (Paypal)
<p> summary recommendation: Likely worth pursuing further. They have been very flexible, responsive and professional. They like open source. They would be more proactive partners in product and campaign design/strategy. The 40% revenue share is very reasonable in our opinion given that there are no fixed costs (though we do front the inventory & startup development cost).
New Image Promotions
<p> relationship & history: They are US fulfillment partner for MoFo "Open Web Fund" shirts. That program is currently on hold but they have been satisfactory in this capacity.
<p> notable customers: Sprint, Rockstar Energy, Gallo
<p> storefront: In-house
<p> merchandise offering: Full; conventional.
<p> fulfillment, warehousing & shipping structure: Santa Ana CA warehouse,
<p> cost structure: Startup cost: $3,200; Monthly fees & cut of merchandise on top.
<p> technical structure: [n/a]
<p> security & privacy: Won't pass security review; no internal or external audit.
<p> Summary recommendation: Pass.
Gorilla
<p> relationship & history: None. Recommended by JP Schneider.
<p> notable customers: Threadless.
<p> storefront: Magento
<p> merchandise offering: External vendor TBD.
<p> fulfillment, warehousing & shipping structure: External vendor TBD.
<p> cost structure: Fees for setup, management, and service. Likely cost in the $125k+ range.
<p> technical structure: Open, secure. They avoid touching any PCI data.
<p> security & privacy: Pending review (if desired).
<p> summary recommendation: Almost certainly too expensive.
One World Direct
<p> relationship & history: Recommended by Fifth Gear.
<p> notable customers: Lots of big companies.
<p> storefront: Our choosing.
<p> merchandise offering: External vendor is Inkworks.
<p> fulfillment, warehousing & shipping structure: Their core competency
<p> cost structure:
<p> technical structure: Open, secure. They avoid touching any PCI data.
<p> security & privacy: Sec review was ok, but not great.
<p> summary recommendation: Probably a little too high-maintanence, we don't want to manage multiple relationships.
Shopify
<p> relationship & history: We tried to use them as a platform back in 2010/2011, though their security was not up to our standards at the time. That has now changed.
<p> notable customers: Many; industry leading ecommerce platform.
<p>storefront: What they are.
<p> merchandise offering: External vendor TBD.
<p> fulfillment, warehousing & shipping structure: External vendor TBD.
<p> cost structure: One-time build cost of $5k+. Monthly cost of ~$2,000.
<p> technical structure: Cloud-hosted with rich documentation and integration. Very localizable.
<p> security & privacy: Passed privacy review. Expected to pass security review.
