In today's tech-obsessed world,

more and more people are going for products and

services.

This includes ,

, and for sports

and recreation activities.

Your needs are and simply

cannot be fulfilled by traditional e-commerce platforms.

There are over online

shoppers in North America.

The e-commerce platform you

choose should offer a complete online store with an .

Your clients should be able to

purchase all activities, memberships,

merchandise, virtual goods, tickets,

etc…and give you a donation all in the .

If the e-commerce platform deviates from the

, it will confuse your

clients and they will abandon the transaction.

One of the biggest benefits to

adopting an e-commerce

platform for your organization will be the

.

However, it is equally important

that the platform allows you to also be paid later by or

.

One of the most unique aspects

of your organization is the fact that you interact with

all the time.

Therefore, the e-commerce platform

you choose needs to support both .

The e-commerce platform should

support the way you present and sell your activities.

• Pre and registration period

• Prerequisite (gender, age, skill levels, etc…)

• Schedule

• Capacity

• Resources (coach, place, etc…)

• Restriction (competitive vs recreational)

You might need to know if the

participant has allergies, a medical

condition, emergency contact

information,and sometimes social

security numbers if the activity is

entitled to tax credits.

The e-commerce platform you choose

provides real-time information on

availability and allows you to manage

waiting lists for future cancellations or

additional availability.

Make sure the e-commerce platform

you choose allows you to easily create

and manage groups. It will

significantly cut your administrative

tasks and your clients will love being

informed regularly.

There are a lot of potential promotion

opportunities specific to sports and

recreation organizations that could be used to increase your revenues

You should be able to automatically

calculate the promotion at checkout

and recalculate when there is a

change such as a registration cancellation, merchandise return, etc.

These should all be sent automatically

by the e-commerce platform and they

should include your specific

information and terms and conditions.

The ability to track accounts

receivable, send account statements,

write notes, add transactions, manage

and create groups is an important

feature you should look for.

You need to easily track and analyze

your sales, orders, and payments to

see what activities, merchandise,

etc… are selling — and which ones

aren't.

It is important that you can easily any report the platform

offers to excel and/or your

accounting software.

The platform should allow you

communicate one-on-one with your clients as well as mass email them

For an SEO friendly store, your

platform should support best practices

like customizable H1, title and meta tags and SEO friendly urls.

Your online store needs to deliver a

consistent experience whether

serving five concurrent users or 5,000.

You should inquire if your platform

provider application runs on a single

code base or has to maintain

separate physical infrastructure for

each customer

Make sure the platform you choose

offers the best in data security, and

has rock-solid procedures in place to

guarantee the highest level of application security.

Your provider should offer support by

phone or by email. They should have

an issue tracking system to ensure

that every issue is tracked until it

reaches a resolution that’s satisfactory to you.

More importantly, your e-commerce

platform provider should have great .

Now it’s time to take the next step,

and start compiling your list of “must

haves” and “nice to haves.”

Once these lists are complete,

start interviewing and evaluating e-commerce software providers.

Amilia provides organization management tools designed

to meet the e-commerce needs of today's social

organizations. If you would like more information on what

Amilia has to offer or would like a free consultation for

your organization visit www.amilia.com today and

request a demo!