'Net Features : e-commerce solutions

Creating Connections for Multi-channel Retailers

Michael Garrity — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 04:50:00 GMT

On-demand e-commerce platform provider OrderDynamics wants to create connections for multi-channel retailers to help them extend the consumer experience, from retail stores to e-commerce channels, with Connected Commerce.

Connected Commerce was spurred on by the rapid adoption of mobile mediums, such as tablets and smartphones, which have greatly increased the number of potential touch points for retailers to reach out to consumers. OrderDynamics wants to ensure that the integrations of physical and virtual environments will improve the entire retail experience by focusing on various aspects of running an online retail business, including the following:

Customer information: Connected Commerce can increase a retailer’s number of repeat customers by sharing multi-channel data across in-store applications, online properties and direct marketing programs.

Merchandising: The solution can now integrate promotions and multi-channel content, and drive order values using rich media, various in-store features, promotions and loyalty programs.

Marketing: Through the unification of brand touch points and the alignment of channel-centric interactions, retailers can cultivate more meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships with customers.

Order management: In an effort to provide consumers with greater transparency (and increase customer satisfaction), OrderDynamics is now offering optimized, automated customer service tools.

Warehouse: Retailers will be able to ship packages faster, and for less money, by leveraging OrderDynamics’ distributed inventory and advanced fulfillment methods.

Increase Efficiency with New Merchant Tools

Michael Garrity — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 19:00:00 GMT

Last month, Website Magazine wrote briefly about the latest release of Dydacomp’s SiteLINK e-commerce platform, SiteLINK 7. Shortly afterwards, we were able to talk with Dydacomp’s Rob Coon, the senior vice president of marketing and business development, to get a better idea of just what SiteLINK 7 can offer today’s e-commerce companies.

For the unfamiliar, SiteLINK is an automated business solution that was built for online merchants that take and ship orders. It’s built on a Multichannel Order Manager (MOM) platform that powers every e-commerce store using SiteLINK. Ultimately, the goal of SiteLINK is to level the playing field for smaller merchants, and the seventh iteration of the platform is the most adept at accomplishing that goal.

PCI Compliancy and Mobile Optimization
According to Coon, the development of SiteLINK 7 was based on three major themes that the company wanted to integrate. The first was to ensure that the platform’s shopping cart was PCI compliant and DSS-certified, which it was able to do from end-to-end with MOM. In order to help meet PCI standards, Dydacomp partnered with buySAFE for third-party guarantees so that SiteLINK users can enable buySAFE certification with a single click.

However, Dydacomp also saw that the winds of change are blowing with regard to the way consumers are using and shopping on the Web. As Coon puts it, mobile shopping is “where commerce is going.” And while mobile optimization isn’t quite an absolute necessity for e-commerce companies just yet, most people can see that it soon will be, and with SiteLINK 7, users will be able to get a head start.

The platform will help users create a site with mobile functionality that will render on virtually any leading smartphone device. Dydacomp offers users a hosted SiteLINK console that will allow them to manage their traditional Web store and mobile store from the same interface and using the same information. Now, users with the most varied of Web backgrounds can quickly and efficiently operate online mobile stores using the same data as their primary Web properties.

In addition, SiteLINK 7 can render a company’s whole site on tablet devices.

More Conversion Options
The third major theme is a familiar one: to increase conversions. SiteLINK 7 was designed for companies to get more traffic and process more orders with the inclusion of new conversion tools. Among these are the ability for businesses to include different colored checkout buttons, include a section for product reviews and a collection of new social conversion options, such as tools for helping users share product pages on social networking sites. As Coon points out, these tools are what most online consumers are already expecting to see on e-commerce sites.

This major overhaul of the SiteLINK platform required some pretty substantial architectural changes on the part of Dydacomp, including moving to Web-facing servers from data servers to give users more control over the information on their site(s).

Essentially, these improvements to the SiteLINK platform are the unique result of marrying the solution with MOM to repurpose all of a company’s data through automated work flow processes. Businesses utilizing version seven of the popular SiteLINK solution will now have greatly increased functionality and more opportunity for customization, as well as automatic PCI compliance and easy-to-use mobile features to prepare their e-commerce stores for on-the-go customers. Moreover, Dydacomp has included a host of handy tools to help businesses increase conversions based on industry analysis and customer feedback.

If you’re already a SiteLINK customer, you can get priority upgrade treatment to SiteLINK 7 for under $1000.

New Social Commerce Options from Lockerz

Michael Garrity — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 08:24:00 GMT

Lockerz recently announced that it has opened up a portion of its social e-commerce solution to non-members. This news comes shortly after the company procured additional funding just last week and the move is being seen as a way to draw new users into its growing enterprise.

For the uninitiated, Lockerz is an online platform that lets its users sound off about their favorite brands, products and other interests, allowing leading trendsetters to earn "PTZ" for turning other people onto their target brands or products. These PTZ come with benefits, such as being able to trade them in for discounts at retailers.

PTZ can be earned by watching videos, uploading videos or participating in other interactive activities online, but they can only be earned by registered members. This new move by Lockerz is going to allow visitors and non-members to interact with the platform alongside its registered members, just without all the perks.

A new deals page, which is going to be opened to both members and non-members, will show special offers in an attempt to reel in non-members by making them feel more familiar and comfortable with Lockerz and, hopefully, convincing them to join. The idea here is that the allure of PTZ should be enough to persuade these non-members to sign up.

Also new to Lockerz is their huge deal with the music company EMI, who will start streaming exclusive content to the platform for users only.

Lockerz, the name ripe with metaphor, has long sought to make themselves a one stop e-commerce solution and social network for young people to collect all of their favorite, cool things in one convenient place online. They company claims that their goal is to be "the homepage for Generation Z."

5 Upgrades for your E-commerce Website

Linc Wonham — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:05:00 GMT

To succeed in the competitive e-commerce marketplace, merchandisers have to fill their own shopping carts from time to time. To help you do just that, we’ve highlighted some of the recently released professional tools, software solutions and discount deals that caught our collective eye here at Website Magazine:

The Endeca Commerce Suite
From search applications company Endeca Technologies, Inc., this new platform includes over 50 enhancements designed to help e-commerce teams more easily integrate rich content and third-party technologies into the customer experience. The Endeca Commerce Suite of software delivers improved data integration, merchandiser usability and partner extensibility for greater control over how content is displayed to customers.

Built on the Endeca Information Access Platform, the Endeca Commerce suite is designed to present customers with a variety of content such as product data, videos, articles and reviews in one integrated view. The Merchandising Workbench tools suite makes it easier for marketers to control how site content is presented through Page Builder cartridge editors built with the new Software Development Kit. Simplified data integration enables point-and-click configuration of partner data sources, and extension point expansion allows customers and Endeca Extend technology partners to seamlessly integrate data from site analytics packages, user reviews and profiles, and any other source into Page Builder and Endeca’s Content Acquisitions System. To learn more about the Endeca Commerce suite, visit www.endeca.com/products-endeca-commerce-suite.htm.

AnswerBox by PowerReviews
AnswerBox is a question-and-answer solution that has been proven to enhance customer satisfaction by enabling e-commerce shoppers to post questions on the site to be answered by staff members, experts or other customers. Designed to resolve purchase-blocking questions at the critical time of decision, AnswerBox improves sales conversions by shortening the length of customer-response time.

From customer-review and social commerce solutions provider PowerReviews, AnswerBox was recently adopted by multichannel retailer Sierra Trading Post. Within one month of implementing AnswerBox, more than 1,000 answers to questions submitted by the public were posted to the website for other visitors to see. As soon as a question is answered, the person who submitted the question is notified via E-mail. In these emails, Sierra Trading Post experienced a 300-percent higher click-through rate and a 50 percent increase in conversion over traditional email campaigns. Visit www.stp.me/answers for more information on Sierra Trading Post’s AnswerBox service.

The Gate2Shop E-Commerce Suite
The highlight of this new software package is the One Click Up-Sale feature that allows end-users to add another product to their shopping carts with a single click of the button, using the information that was previously entered. One Click Up-Sale is supported by all of Gate2Shop’s payment options and can be deployed to any payment page. The One Click Up-Sale feature enables vendors to sell a supplementary product at no additional cost and without having to undergo an extensive integration procedure.

E-commerce solutions provider Gate2Shop monitored sales results upon the software’s release the first part of this year and has found that the One Click Up-Sale led to a 10-percent increase in revenues. The case study also noted an upward trend between the length of time that the feature stays switched on and the sharp increase in sales. In addition, customers who have used the feature while shopping online once have continued to use it for their subsequent purchases. You can obtain more information on the Gate2Shop E-Commerce Suite at www.G2S.com.

Codero Offering 50-percent Savings
As companies feel the pinch from the approaching Tax Day on April 15, dedicated hosting and managed services company Codero is taking measures to assist small- to medium-sized businesses who need more powerful dedicated servers. The company is reducing prices on its entire server inventory by 50 percent in order to help organizations purchase the computing infrastructure their businesses need most to remain competitive.

The price-cutting campaign is being offered for a limited time in an effort to give something back to businesses as they make their tax payments. All new servers purchased are included in the price-break. The company recently expanded its server portfolio to include Webmaster Class, Professional Class, Enterprise Class models and Dell. For more information, visit www.codero.com.

Device Identification From ThreatMetrix
The ThreatMetrix Fraud Network enables e-commerce companies to customize a collection of fraud rules to instantly review and analyze transactions. Based on criteria set forth by the company, every transaction is given a fraud score every time an online order is entered into the processing system. When an order hits a pre-determined score, it will automatically go into a fraud review queue. It is then up to the company to review it and gather additional data by contacting the customer. If upon closer examination it is determined to be fraudulent, the order is manually rejected. The ThreatMetrix Fraud Network can then automatically add transaction and device identifiers to blacklists. If the order is determined to be legitimate, it is released from the fraud review queue for order processing and added to a whitelist for future reference. ThreatMetrix device profiling goes beyond browser fingerprinting to identify the device, bypass proxies and detect the use of botnets. For more information, visit www.threatmetrix.com