E-commerce on brink of SaaS revolution

E-retailers currently have to bolt together software from many different vendors

The e-commerce industry is now at a historic turning point where soon all software will be delivered as a service and a Salesforce.com-style vendor will emerge to deliver an entire ecosystem of products, according to Michael Ross, co-founder of Figleaves.

Ross, who is now a director at e-commerce software and services provider E-commera, argued that at present, the top 1,000 e-commerce sites in the country have to bolt together different components in order to build out their online operations.

These could include everything from email management systems to product data management tools, content management systems, customer survey tools and web analytics, all of which have to be systems integrated, he explained.

"Today, every individual component is available as SaaS but it takes people like us who live on top of this to bring it together as a solution," said Ross. "We're probably five years away from the Salesforce.com of e-commerce – one platform that will deliver everything."

Ross argued that one of the lead candidates for taking on the mantle of platform-as-a-service provider in the e-commerce space is Demandware, which could become the hub into which third-party widgets plug in to create an ecosystem of interoperable products.