Forrester is (re)launching its commerce services research. I will be tackling this complex and important analysis to help retailers, brands, and manufacturers choose the best strategy/design/implementation/integration/operations service partners, extending Senior Analyst Lily Varon’s work from a few years ago.

Regardless of your category or scenario — B2C, B2B, eCommerce replatforming, pivot to omnichannel, personalization, extension to marketplace, in-store transformation, or other — choosing the right service provider can make or break your success.

My goal is to analyze the service providers that bring commerce to life, building on the work that my colleagues Joe Cicman, Emily Pfeiffer, Lily Varon, Amanda LeClair, Scott Compton, Nick Barber, and Allen Bonde are doing on software and in support of Forrester’s work on the future of buying.

We invite retailers, brands, and manufacturers; commerce service providers; and commerce platform software vendors to help us shape our commerce services research. To start the conversation, here are some questions on my mind, and I’m sure you have others:

  • Which are the important and interesting commerce service providers?
  • What are the important commerce scenarios right now?
  • What commerce services do enterprises need? How do they vary by scenario or category?
  • What commerce services should we evaluate?
  • What are the commercial models for commerce services?

This work will build on our analysis of digital experience agencies, Adobe implementation services, and the future of services.

We are on a fast ramp for this research, commencing interviews in August; publishing a Forrester Now Tech: Commerce Services in early Q4; and kicking off a Forrester Wave™: Commerce Services in November 2020.

I look forward to many conversations!