Which CMS is Perfect for White Label Product

[Gorav_Dignity]

We are currently within the 2nd round of agency pitches to appoint an agency who will be trusted to build our new website. In addition to this, the proposals must address our white label requirement.

In short, we sell our product through a number of partners. These partners are split into a couple of levels, depending on how much business they drive.

With this in mind, the agency must come up with a solution that enables us to white-label any partner site (to improve customer journey). Again, the customisation is split into the couple of levels detailed above. Our partners that drive moderate business are given the stand alone white label site, with several customisation modules (logo, certain branding features). However, the bigger partners, that drive more business, will require a heavier customised white label offering. The custom features could be: logo, all partner branding, changing from square lozenge to a round lozenge, background images, etc etc. In essence, if the partner is big enough we want to be able to do anything and everything.

But, what is the best CMS platform that will enable us this much flexibility?

[kayintveen_MD]

There are 2 good options for this, when we get this kind of request i would make it custom made since this is pretty easy and tailor made.

If you ask me which existing platform would fit best i'd say Wordpress, this is the most light-weight in basis, but in the end the most customisable.

[Netrepid]

Yes, I would imagine Wordpress CMS would be the best option to help you get things up quickly with an easy to use platform. You may even want to consider Wordpress Multisite for the bigger partners.

WPMS would give them the same customization features as traditional WP, but more easily allow your bigger partners the ability to launch multiple sites from their platform.

Here's a helpful beginner's guide to it on Mashable (from 2012, but likely still good for a starting point): http://mashable.com/2012/07/26/beginner-guide-wordpress-multisite/

Good luck!

[Gorav_Dignity]

Thank you both. WordPress is too lightweight unfortunately.

[justin-brock]

I agree that WordPress is a good option. So is ExpressionEngine, especially if you're wanting to do the development work in-house.

Another option you may want to consider (that's actually built for an approach similar to the one you've outlined) is Adobe Business Catalyst. It's not as customizable as WordPress, but you get support and hosting from Adobe. There's a community over at BC Gurus that's pretty lively and focused on business. Also, BC has hosting, ecommerce, email marketing, CRM, and lots of other things built into the core product. You can create templates for the email and websites your partners use. Anyway, it's worth considering.

I used both WordPress and Business Catalyst for a time (when I was doing consulting). Now, as an in-house SEO, I use Expression Engine. Each one has its own strengths/weaknesses. The total-package element of Business Catalyst is its greatest strength, but you give up some on customization ... and some SEO capabilities.

[LesleyPaone]

You might look into PrestaShop if you are looking for an e-commerce solution. It supports having multiple stores on multiple domains from one central backoffice. It is not as light weight as Wordpress, but being open source it is easily customizable. I would think anything you use is going to have to be heavily modified to meet your requirements, the main bounding area I see is going to be your budget. There are some platforms that can handle the feature set I think you are wanting more readily out of the box, but some of them start licensing at over 50k a year.

[justin-brock]

Yeah, this does sound like an expensive project. For what stephen_dignity is wanting, the Business Catalyst option would start at $2,000. May not be what's needed though.

[customerparadigm.com]

If you're looking for an eCommerce solution, I'd probably recommend Magento.  It's going to be a lot more robust than the WordPress system, but give you precise branding for multiple sites.  It's certainly not as easy to replicate multiple sites as WordPress, but it's an industrial strength solution that has a 30% marketshare in the eCommerce marketplace.

You can even have one common backend system, with multiple front end sites (different domains, subdomains or directories), but have one catalog of products and inventory.

Hope this helps...

• Jeff

[mssearch]

When it comes down to customization ability, it's really hard to beet MODx CMS (http://modx.com). I have built everything from e-commerce sites to internal applications such as a CRM for publication company.

If you don't have the development ability, they offer commercial support and have quite a few big clients they've worked with such as Dell.

The real beauty of MODx is that it's designed to help you build without having to hack the core. Pretty much anything you want to accomplish, you can do so while maintaining a clean upgrade path.

Hopefully this helps