Bridgeline iAPPS Differentiates Its CMS With eCommerce Module

By Barb Mosher | Published Nov 10, 2009

In what appears to be a continued effort to differentiate themselves from the rest of the web content management marketplace, Bridgeline (news, site) offers a new solution to support the management of eCommerce enabled websites.

Web Content Management Redefined

Any web content management provider who wants to stay competitive today is looking for ways to offer specialized services that tightly integrate with basic content management capabilities.

Many go the interactive marketing route. Bridgeline Software has done that. But now they take another angle, targeted at organizations who want to have an online marketplace to sell their products and services.

iAPPS eCommerce

iAPPS eCommerce is a standalone module that offers end-to-end eCommerce capabilities including facet-based product catalog management, product merchandising and store management and the ability to deliver a personalized experience for the customer.

Bridgeline iAPPS eCommerce

And if you look at the slew of features for this module, you know you are getting a full scale ecommerce system that looks relatively easy to get up and running quickly.

Using the iAPPS Control Center dashboard you also get real time monitoring of your eCommerce activity including sales trends, demographics and alerts on potential issues.

An Integrated iAPPS Suite

It seems obvious that although there are still some organizations who only want basic web content management capabilities, there are many more who need integrated services like marketing and/or eCommerce.

For Bridgeline, offering these additional services as standalone modules helps them reach broader markets, while still servicing the current one.

It's important to point out here that although they are separate modules, to achieve a really strong web experience, you need to integrate the iAPPS Content Manager and iAPPS Analytics modules. Otherwise, there does appear to be some custom development required.

iAPPS Commerce can be licenses as an on premise or hosted solution with Bridgeline. You can choose to add the Content Manager and Analytics modules immediately or at a later date.