@Deepak: Thanks for the link Deepak. I will look into it with your word of caution. I completely agree on having a proper solution-business mapping for a seamless experience and my own personal experience of working on SAP for the past 18 years has been the same.
@Richard: I disagree with you Richard. There are tons of free, open-source software out there that are awesome. It's just a matter of finding the right one.
@Sridhar: We are close to launch and I completely agree with your point of view. Our development is nearing completion (we are using a customized version of standard software for the store front.) We have done some customer validations with the appropriate target group as well and received usable feedback from them.
Unfortunately, managing data flow through our organization and keeping everyone in sync is quickly becoming a problem that we want to address early on. At this time, we are focusing on evaluating available solutions so that we can be prepared to implement them when the time is right.