eCommerce Innovations Blog

Gone fishing. SAP, Oracle Endorse On-Demand

Jamus Driscoll — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:19:00 GMT

So there's this great book out there called "Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World" in which the author Mark Kurlansky chronicles how this humble fish in its own right toppled empires, gave rise to new economies and generally provided us everything that we have today, including the Internet. Seriously, no joke. Check it out. The book's been out there for some 10-15 years, but what brought it to mind recently was Kurlansky's factual, neat debunking of Christopher Columbus from explorer and discoverer of the New World to just another party crasher in funny pants.

I won't do the story justice here, but to paraphrase Kurlansky, the Basques in Spain had been known since before the year 1000 for their salted cod fish, which curiously did not live in the home waters of Spain. Sales of cod received a nice tail wind when the Catholic Church decried that only cold meats could be eaten on lean days of observance, which included Fridays, all days during Lent and few odd days of observance thrown in for good measure. Lots of people eating cod. Lots of happy Basques. Then, in 1497, sometime during Columbus's five-year victory lap of Europe for stumbling on the New World while looking for Asia, a French explorer "discovered" the mouth of the St. Lawrence River and claimed it for France. It may have been tough to see the French flag flying though, what with a 1,000 Basque fishing boats clouding the view.

So what does this have to do with the software heavyweights? Well, apparently they've recently discovered that on-demand is how software will be delivered to the enterprise. And in brave proclamations both have set their flag to the continent. Um, guys? Did you hear that there's, like, a whole industry around this stuff? In an announcement on June 10th John Wookey, SAP 's new head of on-demand software applications for large companies, said that SAP would be releasing on-demand applications in "waves" to complement existing SAP business applications. Just last May, Larry Ellison, of Oracle and boating fame, quipped that on-demand segment was growing very slowly and in not so many words was the poor barefooted cousin of the licensed applications business. Seems Ellison is reversing fields: last Wednesday in an earnings call Ellison stated that Oracle plans to be #1 in on-demand applications. Interesting. Wonder if Wookey's move from Oracle head of applications and Ellison confidant to SAP last year played a role here? Seriously, this stuff has more twists than an episode of Lost.

Meanwhile, as the software giants posture, those of us who have been living, building, breathing on-demand for the last 10 years are just sitting here on the beach, eating fish.

IRCE 2009 Recap - Day 1

Adam Forrest — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:54:00 GMT

This week's conference kicked off with a great address by Patrick Byrne, CEO, Overstock.com. With the theme of "Rising Above - Not Just Surviving the Economic Storm" Patrick talked about life at Overstock, the history of his company, and how he predicted the economic downfall. You heard it right, he predicted the downfall and he has the evidence to prove it and you can read all about it at www.deepcapture.com. So besides his deep battle with Wall Street, he helped laid out some basic rules to follow on how to survive this storm. The two main take-a-ways I took from his talk:

Control Expenses
Outsource areas you are not GREAT at

What I find to be most interesting is that at a high level these two options would seem contradictory, but if you think about it they actually correlate very well. While controlling expenses can seem very broad and obvious to most - Patrick made it a point to talk specifically about expenses that effect your balance sheet (capital expenses, payroll, etc.). In a rough and tumble economy it is so important to conserve cash. A good way to conserve cash is to outsource technology that you are not GREAT at (hosting, infrastructure management, etc). Overall some great points, thanks Patrick.

Another great session today was in Track B and the theme was around handling and managing the web, as it continues to gain importance. The two speakers while focusing on different aspects of the web's importance drove home many good points.

Kevin Hillstrom, President, MineThatData focused mainly on asking the audience a series of multiple choice questions that focused on multichannel, social media, email campaigns and more. The questions and audience participation really helped to drive Kevin's point home that each individual business leverages the web in different ways, and that it is important to decide which is best for your company. A great example of this was when he asked about selling through last season's items - depending on if you were store based or catalog based there were two distinct answers. Catalog based companies preferred to direct market in an email showcasing the discounted products, while store-based sites preferred to create sales/outlet categories and market the site.

Lou Weiss, Chief Marketing Officer, Vitamin Shoppe the second presenter, focused on creating a united front across all channels. It was great that he was upfront and admitted that his company "got it." Meaning they understood and made it a priority to roll the direct business in with the stores to create a unified Vitamin Shoppe to their customers no matter what channel they shopped. He brought up a couple great ways to integrate the store channel with the direct channel, and the best part was that they had nothing to do with technology.

Talk in retailer/catalog terms. Lou shared a story about how this related to Vitamin Shoppe. When he first took responsibility of the web store, he was jumping up and down about the number of products out of stock on the site - with no response or help from the organization. After spending time walking through the brick and mortar stores and realizing that when there were empty shelves in the store the CEO would say "looks like the store is going out of business." Lou took that to heart and started saying "looks like the web store is going out of business," and low and behold he received all the inventory that he could ever want. Good work Lou!
The web <> ecommerce store. Help your direct business by talking about how power of the web as a whole - from a branding perspective to driving customers to the brick and mortar stores. For instance Lou and his team asked a simple survey for customers on the site... "What is your main purpose of visiting" and over 50% of the answers were "to locate a store." Amazing! One simple 1-question story can provide so much insight to the entire business.
Look at results from a customer point of view not from individual sources. As a web channel we have a tendency to look at results from email performances, PPC performance, organic results, etc. Yet it is important to look at what customers actually purchased and make adjustments accordingly. For example fish oil products sold well today vs. vitamin C - start from this angle and work backwards to find the "why."

Overall these were two great areas of conversation that helped to open my eyes and think a bit outside the box.

I have only touched on two sessions of the dozens that happened at the show...stand by for more information to follow as it comes hot off the press.

Heading to Internet Retailer? Come Check Us Out

Jamus Driscoll — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Boston here we come! (oh yeah, we live here)

Going to the Internet Retailer show? Hey, us too. When you're there, please swing by to see us at Booth 1039. We're featuring a new offering (shhhh...don't tell anyone...it launches on Monday) that wraps our platform, partners and expertise into one value-price package that gets great sites live muy rápido. Here is a sneak peak at what's coming:

Demandware-leading on-demand ecommerce platform: advanced merchandising, complete control, and automatic product upgrades-worth their weight in gold!
Feature-rich, online storefront purposefully designed and optimized for the needs of fashion retailers and consumer brands-start here, go anywhere!
Plug-and-Play Integrations with leading technologies, including analytics, payment, campaign management and others.
Best Practices Methodology-16 week implementation program that includes strategy site design, integrations, and QA.

I could go on and on, but stop by booth 1039 and see for yourself. Oh, and not only are we experts in ecommerce, we can point you to a ton of great things to do in town, none of which are in the tourist guides. See you there!

Columbia Sportswear Selects Demandware

Jamus Driscoll — Thu, 21 May 2009 09:36:00 GMT

Earlier this week we announced that Columbia Sportswear, one of the world's largest outerwear brands, selected Demandware for its new business-to-consumer online channel.

It's always exciting to add a new member to our family of high-growth brands and we are eager to see Columbia's innovative spirit unfold on the web. Columbia is planning unique user experiences by incorporating contextual product content and rich media on its new sites - initially a US site, with others to follow for Canada and Europe (Columbia products are already sold in more than 100 countries!). Columbia also plans to integrate ecommerce kiosks into some of its bricks-and-mortar stores to expand the product selection it offers customers in the stores.

Some of the reasons Columbia selected Demandware because it provides:

Enterprise-class ecommerce platform capabilities, without the costly Web hosting infrastructure
Full in-house control over all aspects of the online shopping experience
The ability to develop multiple sites quickly from a common architecture
Seamless, automatic upgrades to continually leverage new functionality and enable best practices
Guaranteed site performance and security
Support for multiple languages, currencies and payment types
Extensive expertise launching ecommerce sites internationally

For the complete story, please take a moment to read the announcement.

Tolls on the Road to Nowhere

Jamus Driscoll — Fri, 01 May 2009 09:59:00 GMT

As a company of on-demand zealots, we here at Demandware are 100% behind the belief that on-demand is the software model of the future. I could riff for quite some time as to why-it puts accountability on the vendor for the quality and performance of the software, it helps the retailer innovate faster and realign internal resources to brand-differentiating site experiences-but sometimes it's better to let others do the talking.

In an article published this week in PC World, Mark Benioff, Saleforce.com's CEO, has thrown down the gauntlet, right on Oracle's shiny red shoes, calling for an "end to software maintenance fees." Maintenance fees, the plumpest and most tractable of Oracle's many cash cows, accounted for $2.9 billion in Oracle's third quarter alone and yields 90% margins. Moo.

Benioff, no stranger to explosive quotes, references one Siebel customer saying, "This customer currently uses Siebel software to run her call center. She pays more than $15 million a year for the privilege of having to

implement the updates that Siebel sends her. That does not include backup. Or disaster recovery. And of course, it does not guarantee that she will be using the latest technology. The maintenance agreement only assures her that her outdated software will continue to work."

Benioff is also quoted as writing that the customer, "is paying tolls on a road to nowhere." Ooof.

The man, for all the rhetoric, speaks Truth. You could take most everything he's quoted as saying in this article and apply it to ecommerce. The only edit I'd suggest? Double the emphasis. Double the impact. It's one thing to talk innovation and uptime in CRM. It's another to talk innovation in ecommerce, where consumer expectations of an ecommerce site are set and reset constantly by their cumulative Internet experience. It's another thing to talk downtime in ecommerce, where millions of revenue not to mention brand reputation, can be sacked by some obscure technical gremlin lurking the depths of the platform. And for all this trouble, the retailer with a licensed software platform has the privilege of paying maintenance, for the opportunity to inherit the burdens of innovation and to meet the dirty little gremlin on some Cyber Monday. That doesn't feel like winning.

Benioff smacked the nail on the head with this one.

Adding a Personal Touch to Online Shopping

Jamus Driscoll — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 09:24:00 GMT

One of the biggest knocks against ecommerce since the beginning of time has been the idea that no matter how great your site is, you cannot replicate the in store shopping experience. While this is true for many sites, some retailers, such as Jones New York, are doing their best to surpass the brick and mortar experience by offering personal service on a large scale.

With a dedicated "Ask the Experts" section of their site, Jones New York offers every customer personal attention. Resident style expert, Lloyd Boston, is always virtually on hand to provide personal fashion advice to shoppers who can submit questions online. As a result, Jones New York provides visitors with a truly personalized shopping experience that leads to happier customers that are more likely to return.

With innovative solutions to age-old problems, companies like Jones New York are breaking free from the traditional confines of the ecommerce status quo. Before long, there's no question that brick and mortar retailers will be looking to examples just like these to improve their own in-store experience. The tables are turned...

And the beat goes on...

Jamus Driscoll — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:47:00 GMT

And the beat goes on...

After a great 2008, Demandware continues to rock to a steady beat in 2009, with the launch of 16 new ecommerce sites for our clients. While we can't name them all we'd like to share with you some of our recent go-lives on the Demandware eCommerce Platform.

We are honored to be working with so many great retailers and hope you'll take a moment to visit these fabulous sites.


Anne Klein A stylish new site, the fifth for Jones Apparel Group	Frederick's of Hollywood The lingerie legend, one of the world’s best known brands	lucy Activewear A leading women’s lifestyle apparel company

s.Oliver One of the largest fashion and lifestyle companies in Europe	Mikasa Recognized worldwide as the leader in tabletop fashion	Portable AirShop The latest site from Living Direct, specializing in portable air products

YouNeek Fan Shop by HP Customizable gifts based on Dr. Seuss, Marvel Comics, Star Trek and more	SportScheck Germany’s second largest sporting goods retailer	Pfaltzgraff Designers of America’s best-loved dinnerware patterns

Stay tuned for more news from Demandware including:

The largest retailer ever to deploy an on-demand ecommerce platform
Programs that make it easier than every before to launch sites on Demandware
New merchandising functionality that will revolutionize ecommerce.

SportScheck Expands European eCommerce. This Time To Russia!

Jamus Driscoll — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:20:00 GMT

Поздравляем SportScheck на запуск своего второго сайта на платформе Demandware электронной коммерции! Эта последняя на сайте занимает SportScheck в России с ее линии спортивных товаров, одежды и аксессуаров. Это уже второй запуск сайта в течение четырех месяцев по Demandware с электронной платформой после запуска своего сайта www.sportscheck.nl Нидерландах в ноябре 2008 года.

(Congratulations to SportScheck on the launch of its second site on the Demandware eCommerce Platform! This latest site takes SportScheck in to Russia with its line of sporting goods, apparel and accessories. This is the second site to launch in four months on the Demandware eCommerce Platform following the launch of its Netherlands site www.sportscheck.nl in November 2008. Again, congratulations to the teams there. Check out the Russian site at www.sportscheck-online.com.

Congratulations to Living Direct on the Launch of Yet Another Site!

Jamus Driscoll — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:03:00 GMT

The team over at Living Direct continues to crank out great sites on the Demandware eCommerce Platform. The latest creation? http://www.portableairshop.com/, a site singly focused on expert information, sales and service for portable air conditioners and portable air accessories. Congratulations to the team there for the launch, which went live early this morning. The site was built entirely by them, using in-house developers and design resources. This is a great example for how Demandware clients are completely in control over customization, development and launch of sites on the Demandware eCommerce Platform.

Living Direct is onto something. Previously known as Richlund Ventures, Living Direct was founded in 1999 by visionary entrepreneur Rick Lundbom who is bringing to market a diversified group of hard-to-find appliances that add a different dimension to modern small-space living. Today, it is a Top 500 e-retailer corporate brand that acts as an umbrella to different specific microsites and categories, each focusing on its product niche. Other Living Direct brands running live on the Demandware platform include compactappliance.com, livingdirect.com, hotwatersource.com and my personal favorite, kegerator.com, a bonanza for, ahem, "home & commercial keg refrigerators." Good times...

Community Bloom: How User Generated Photos Deliver Rich, Differentiated Shopping Experiences for Dutch Gardens

Jamus Driscoll — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:35:00 GMT

Over the past couple years, user generated content (UGC) has moved from an ecommerce nice-to-have to table stakes. Most often this is thought of as rating and reviews, such as the functionality offered by Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews, but America's Gardening Resource has taken it a step further. On Dutch Gardens, the live-products brand of America's Gardening Resources, customers can upload and share photos of their garden's beauty onto the Dutch Gardens Photo Center where they can be viewed by fellow-and passionate-gardeners. In so doing, Dutch Gardens differentiates its brand through unique, customer-generated photography. This type of user collaboration and sharing has made Dutch Gardens more than just a commerce site; it's a Web 2.0 destination site that flourishes with repeat visitors and a sense of community and brand loyalty.

Mikasa Goes Live!

Jamus Driscoll — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:33:00 GMT

Congratulations to the team at Lifetime Brands for the launch of their second site on the Demandware On-Demand eCommerce Platform.

Mikasa, the worldwide leader in tabletop fashion in dinnerware, crystal stemware, barware, flatware and decorative accessories, recently launched a new site that allows consumers to explore (and of course buy!) their line of elegant dining ware through features like product QuickLook, image zoom, faceted search and others.

Some quick facts about Mikasa, which are sure to come in handy at your next dinner party:

George Aratani initially founded Mikasa as American Commercial Inc. in the state of California in 1948
Initially a dinnerware importer, Mikasa grew into a dinnerware wholesaler over the next twenty years supplying dinnerware to Bloomingdales, Macy's, May Department Stores Company and other fine retailers.
In 1957, the brand name Mikasa was introduced to the American public.

Congratulations again to the team at Lifetime Brands for the launch!

The Mountain of Resources for International Ecommerce Expansion

Troy Brown — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:56:00 GMT

At the Strategy and Innovation Forum in Orlando this month, we discussed the challenges, complexities, and upside of extending your geographic brand reach and growing your ecommerce business via international expansion. Special thanks to Jim Okamura, Michael Ross, Jake Bailey and Michael Amar for their contributions!

Ellen Davis wrote a quick summary of the panel discussion here. If you are interested in international ecommerce expansion, the panel has compiled 19 white papers and information sources, over 41MB of data, that should be helpful to you (see below for link).

Top 10 Takeaways

1. Almost all global ecommerce markets are growing significantly faster than the U.S.
2. The opportunity is expanding from Europe to Asia quickly as those markets mature and grow.
3. International ecommerce is within reach of every retailer, even if you don't have a global brand.
4. There are a wide variety of front-end and back-end operating models available to you.
5. Ask a lot questions and get help.
6. Start early and assume it will take longer than you think.
7. Leverage in-region resources and infrastructure if you have them.
8. Think through the organizational and operational implications of a "live" site before you launch.
9. Find qualified legal advice to help you understand and comply with local requirements.
10. It may be complex, but it can be rewarding for those who persevere.

Enjoy the Mountain of Resource:

Shop.org has created a special page for all of this information. It can be found by clicking here.

1. Shop.org SI Forum International Expansion Session Slides
2. Shop.org SI Forum International Expansion Session Handout (Large File)
3. Demandware White Paper - Increase Your Global Reach
4. CyberSource 2009 ePayment Project Guide
5. CyberSource Insiders Guide to ePayment Management
6. CyberSource Fraud Report
7. CyberSource Global Payments White Paper
8. FiftyOne Anthropologie Case Study
9. FiftyOne Datasheet
10. GPI White Paper - Argentina
11. GPI White Paper - Brazil
12. GPI White Paper - China
13. GPI White Paper - France
14. GPI White Paper - Germany
15. GPI White Paper - India
16. GPI White Paper - Japan
17. GPI White Paper - UAB
18. GPI White Paper - UK
19. GPI White Paper - US Hispanic Market

Good luck everyone and let any of the panelists know if we can be of assistance!

Cheers to Our Clients!

Jamus Driscoll — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:09:00 GMT

Earlier this week, we issued a press release highlighting the success of our clients over what was a particularly challenging 2008 holiday season. Despite the fact that overall online spending dropped 3% versus the 2007 holiday season (source: ComScore), Demandware clients posted significant increases across all key performance indicators. I wanted to take a moment to congratulate our clients on a successful season as well as share some of the data with you.

Demandware Global Client Performance 2008 vs. 2007 Holiday Season
Key Performance Indicator (KPI)	y/y Percent Change
Revenue	30%
Total Orders	28%
Average Order Value	1.5%
Source: Demandware, Inc. Aggregate Client Metrics

Another interesting nugget we found was that our European clients—who represent approximately 45% of total order volume across the Demandware platform—experienced even higher growth than our U.S. clients. With European consumers shifting their shopping online, European retailers upgrading their sites and non-European retailers expanding internationally, it is clear that this market will continue to grow.

Demandware Global Client Performance, U.S. vs. Europe 2008 vs. 2007 Holiday Season
Key Performance Indicator (KPI)	U.S. y/y Percent Change	Europe y/y Percent Change
Revenue	18%	49%
Total Orders	12%	53.6%
Average Order Value	5.5%	-3%
Source: Demandware, Inc. Aggregate Client Metrics

For the online retailers out there, we'd love to hear how these results compare to yours. What did you do this season? What worked? What didn't? For a more detailed look at this data please check out our press release or feel free to contact me for a personal briefing

Have questions about International Ecommerce Expansion? Ask them here.

Troy Brown — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:23:00 GMT

At the Strategy and Innovation Forum on Feb 2-4, I will be moderating a panel discussion on the topic of International Ecommerce Expansion and joined by the panelists below. Shop.org is "by the members for the members" so we thought we'd invite the shop.org community to post questions about International Ecommerce Expansion here, in advance, so we can attempt to cover them in either the panel discussion or a handout we have planned. We plan to cover these three broad topics during the panel discussion:

1. Understanding the Basics of European Expansion
2. Understanding Operational Complexities Across Europe
3. Understanding Customer Interactions Across Europe

So if you have questions, ask away!!!

Thanks,
Troy

How International Expansion Can Help Retailers in a Downturned Economy

Troy Brown, Retail Practice Leader, Demandware (moderator)
Michael Amar, Founder, AGORAD
Jake Bailey, Director of International Business, Overstock.com
Jim Okamura, Senior Partner, J.C Williams Group
Michael Ross, Director, eCommera Limited

Are you already selling internationally? Are you considering a strategic break into the international market even in this downturned economy? Troy Brown will moderate a session with experts in globalization and international expansion that will help you understand global expansion topics including: the must-know basics, operational complexities, demand generation, and planning market entry strategies specifically in Europe and Asia. So, whether you have just launched internationally or are simply considering this strategic initiative, these experts will give you different perspectives on just how a successful expansion plan can help US retailers succeed and thrive.

A Marketer’s New Year’s Resolution The Guide To Incremental, Actionable Steps To Success

Zachary Cook — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:13:00 GMT

With the new year upon us, it's a great time to not only make resolutions to better your life but also to better your business. But rather than setting lofty goals you'll likely give up on by Valentine's Day, I propose a few realistic steps to help you begin 2009 better than you ended 2008. This series will help you steadily grow your brand's online presence, one step at a time by focusing on incremental, actionable steps. Please share any questions, comments and suggestions and we'll be sure to answer.

Listen to what others are saying about you-and your brand, and your market, and your customers, and your competitors...

Maybe you resolved to mind your own personal life this year, but your brand's online reputation is a different story altogether. While turning a deaf ear to detractors in your personal life may be a sign of confidence, professionally it is simply naïve, foolish and downright dangerous.

Before you can truly jump into the online conversations happening all around you, you need to know who is talking about you and what they are saying. If you keep getting caught off-guard by posts on forums, blogs, Twitter and other online media outlets, it's time to gain control. This doesn't mean scouring every social networking site under the sun, but simply finding the best tools to do the dirty work for you. Here are a few good places to start:

Step 1: Get Up and Running with Google Reader
This RSS aggregator should be the first stop on your quest towards monitoring your online reputation. Basically, Google Reader allows you to discover, subscribe and organize all of your RSS feeds-from blogs and forums to search results and Twitter. Start by searching for relevant blogs via the "Add a subscription" link or simply by subscribing to your favorite blog's RSS feed and you're off and running.

Step 2: Hear Everything (well, almost everything) via Niche Search Engines
One of the best ways to stay up to date on what is being said about you and your brand (with minimal effort involved) is to subscribe to RSS feeds on niche search engines. This allows you to receive automatic updates to your Google Reader account anytime your search terms are published. Start with Google News and Google Blog Search (search for relevant terms, people, URLs, etc.) and then move on to Twitter Search (Twitter), BoardReader (forums & discussion boards), BackType (comments) and any other relevant engines you can find. Just search, subscribe and follow.

Step 3: Listen!
Simply listening (to customers, prospects, competitors, etc.) allows you to tap into real buyer personas, identify successful promotions and address negative sentiments towards your brand. Such negative sentiments, (retailer sensored below) can really harm a brand image and bottom line, but before leaving a trail of comments and linkbacks, listen to what others in your market are saying and how they are saying it.

One of the worst things you can do at this stage of the game is to leave a quick comment with a link back to your site-if your online reputation is hurting this will only make it worse. Watch, listen and-when the time is right-engage.

Even with a year's worth of preparation...

Adam Forrest — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:49:00 GMT

It's easy to forget that the simplest way for customers to shop your site is for your site to merely be open. That is the beauty of online right, 24/7? Yet over and over again retailers sites go down, sacrificing revenue.

Although my previous post (10 Ways You Know It's Cyber Monday) was aimed at poking fun at the media created "super online holiday," there was a lot of truth to it. And even with a year's worth of preparation for "Cyber Monday," sites still crashed and crashed hard. Cyber Monday's site response times and crashes only underline the major risks of running the entire infrastructure internally.

StorefrontBacktalk.com did an excellent keeping a running dialog on Twitter letting people know which sites were down or experiencing longer than usual load times. They were getting their information from a variety of trusted sources such as Gomez, Keynote and Pingdom. Follow which sites have gone down by visiting http://twitter.com/SFBackTalk.

We all knew that sites would go down on Cyber Monday, it is inevitable with the amount of legacy homegrown systems out there, but the real disappointment of the day came from the error messaging. Take for example the screenshots below, saying they were down for either scheduled maintenance or were in the process of upgrading. Really? You scheduled maintenance on one of the busiest days of the year? Not very likely.

(Click on thumbnail to view larger image.)

It's all the rage today to be an "open" brand. If this is really true, it would be great to be honest with the customers and apologize for the downtime due to overwhelming traffic, tell customers you will extend the promotion and earn back the customer's trust. While J. Crew did not go that far, at least they admitted to a having a problem (Step 1), acknowledged that "even the best sites aren't perfect," and encouraged visitors to check back later or call the number below.

But in order to take the bitter lemons of a site outage and make lemonade, why not take this as an opportunity to merchandise? You know Cyber Monday is going to be a high traffic day for you and you know that most likely there are certain products or promotions that are driving these visitors to your site, so why not highlight these from this page? Give visitors product numbers, prices and an alternative to purchasing online and perhaps you've saved a customer.

Don't sacrifice sales or your brand's reputation by trying to do this all on your own. Concentrate on what you do best and then leverage companies that operate site availability, scalability, and security for you. Hopefully the rest of the holiday season will go smoothly...best of luck!

How much should you spend to acquire and retain customers?

Julian Chu — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:49:00 GMT

On December 2nd, Demandware hosted a webinar with Mark Matiszik, President of Sextant Consulting. The topic was one that should be high on everyone's mind these days: How do you maximize the return from every dollar spent on marketing? Mark provided a very practical discussion on how to define appropriate customer segments and track how they migrate from one segment to another, and then how to use insights about customer behavior to assess marketing ROI and Customer Lifetime Value.

As online retailers assess the outcome from this, shall we say, less-than-stellar holiday shopping season, and plan their budgets for next year, having a solid analytical foundation on which to base decisions will be critical. No doubt, your CEOs and CFOs will be asking difficult questions like:

Did we get the return from Q4 marketing investment that we expected?
Which campaigns and tactics provided the better returns?
Are you still confident about your projections for Q1 and 2009 as a whole?
Should we still spend as much as we have budgeted? (Or maybe, should we spend more???)

How prepared are you to answer such questions? The recorded webinar, Customer Acquisition and Retention, and accompanying slide presentation are available on Demandware's web site. Have a listen sooner rather than later!

Top Ten Signs You Know It’s Cyber Monday

Adam Forrest — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:48:00 GMT

1. The CEO is in the server room chanting "YES WE CAN!"
2. Even physical store locations are offering free shipping to customers
3. Email spam filters bloat faster than the floats at the Macy's Day Parade
4. Sites are going down faster than Tom Brady's 2008 season
5. Kids catch their moms trying to swipe her credit card through the laptop DVD drive
6. IT manager busted for injecting servers with steroids
7. Al Gore surfaces to trademark the term "Web 2.0"
8. Media proclaims: "this Internet thing just might catch on"
9. Work productivity falls faster than the DOW index
10. Clickity clickity click

Hopefully our humorous look at Cyber Monday got some chuckles, but there is a scary truth behind each of those laughs. During the current economic downturn, the Web channel is going to be saving grace for retailers and manufacturers alike, as it's currently the only growth channel. CEOs and board members see the increase in Web sales and profitability as a way to offset the balance sheet bleeding. And while more CEO and board-level coverage is great, it also means that the Web channel's sales needs to continue to increase while in the spotlight.

Until recently, the online channel was growing at such an incredibly fast pace that retailers didn't need to do much more than offer free shipping to ride the online shopping wave. Now, however, we are faced with the unfortunate reality that consumer spending is at record lows and the retail sector is suffering. In order to even compete in this market (let alone succeed in this market), retailers are going to need to raise the bar and increase the efficiencies of their online stores. They will need to differentiate themselves from competitors and be able to turn on a dime with new promotions that will convert customers. What if online merchandisers had the ability to quickly react to economic woes? How powerful would it be to not only acknowledge the falling DOW index, but to create a promotion that discounts the price of all products by the percentage fall of the DOW? Aligning your business with the economy and telling customers you understand their financial situation not only gains points in the short term, but will create a sense of partnership and loyalty in the long term.

The Internet as a selling channel continues to evolve faster than the speed of light.. It only took two years from the time Shop.org coined the term "Cyber Monday" to when "Green Monday" eclipsed the day with more online sales. What is "Green Monday" you may ask? Green Monday is a newly created term for the second Monday during the month of December when all the procrastinating shoppers buy online. "Green Monday" rang in sales of $881 million in 2007 compared to "Cyber Monday" sales of $733 million. If the Internet has evolved that much in two years, is your ecommerce site staying up with the times?

Countdown to the Holidays, Part II – Prepare for Combat

Julian Chu — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:57:00 GMT

We've all seen the headlines: Just as the retail sector overall is hemorrhaging, even growth in the ecommerce market has come to a standstill. According to the latest statistics from comScore, growth slowed considerably this summer and dropped to just 1% year-over-year in October. Many are predicting even worse for the remainder of the season.

But it's in times like these that leaders emerge, take market share and set themselves up for future success. In Demandware's own client base, we see more than a few companies continuing to post strong growth even up through last week. In a no-growth environment, every site visit is critical, each ad placement a precious investment. So the question for today is, are you prepared to engage in close-quarters, site-to-site combat for consumer market share this holiday season?

Now, more than ever, online retailers need a comprehensive competitive strategy and detailed tactical plan that focuses on retaining existing customers and winning new ones from competitors. The strategy part starts by understanding:

Who are our target consumers and where/how do they shop?
What is our share of wallet among these customers, in relevant product categories?
Who are our leading competitors? Why would these customers spend their money with these competitors and not with us?

Tactically, retailers need a plan going into the holidays that anticipates and prepares them to respond to the marketing tactics (e.g., campaigns, offers, promotions) of their competitors. Not just planning what campaigns you will launch, but also:

What will the key competitors do?
How might they respond to our tactics?
How should we respond in turn?

This is all about "war-gaming," thinking through different scenarios and being prepared to launch new campaigns and offers on a daily basis. Pulling this off successfully requires work to be done before the holidays begin, to strategize and develop a tactical plan for key dates in the season. It requires you to have processes and tools in place to monitor what competitors are doing in the marketplace, and to measure how you're faring in comparison.

And, importantly, it requires that you have a flexible technology infrastructure that allows you to prepare different campaigns, offers and promotions ahead of time, and then launch them on a moment's notice when and where needed.

Is your organization prepared to engage in site-to-site combat this year?

If you missed part one of our Countdown to the Holidays series, be sure to check out Part I: Getting the Basics Right.

Can a Little Lipstick Transform Your eCommerce Site?

Scott Todaro — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:03:00 GMT

Some of you may be thinking about prettying up your existing Website with improved graphics or a new feature in order to make it more attractive to consumers. While such enhancements can make your site more appealing in the near term, they won't change the makeup of your ecommerce Website. So, is your site better off with a few enhancements or do you need to fundamentally re-think your approach to ecommerce based on meeting your key performance indicators for the future?

To adequately answer this conundrum, there are a series of questions that must be answered. When addressing these questions, it's important to be honest with yourself.

On performance...
Is your site delivering pages in sub one second download times and will it scale to meet seasonal peaks in traffic (99.95% uptime)? Does your conversion rate beat the industry average of 3% or can you improve your order size by adding deeper merchandising functionality? Are you having high shopping cart abandonment rates of over 60%? Are you getting a steady level of site traffic from your SEO or is your current platform limiting your customer's ability to find your Web store?

On cost...
What are all the costs associated with running the site? Are your site maintenance processes efficient or do you need a large staff in order to make frequent changes to your Web store? What are your hardware and software upgrade costs and can they be reduced?

On growth strategies...
Have you thought about the strategic nature of your site? Is the current platform limiting your ability to sell internationally? Can you leverage the existing platform to roll out new Web stores quickly? Is there a deeper multi-channel strategy that will make my customer relationships more profitable? Is your site secure? If not, what does it mean to your business if you have a security breach? Does the Website meet the standards set by your competition?

In the age of sizzle it may be fashionable to make incremental improvements to your ecommerce site that simply look good, but eventually, that lipstick will wear off, once again revealing the limitations that have always been there and holding you back. Just remember that you can't sell if the site is down or your new graphical pages take 20 seconds to load and if this is the case, it may need more than a light makeover.

If you decide that a new platform is required, consider your overall business strategy and then decide how ecommerce plays a vital role in the big picture. Take a deep look into the ROI that can be generated with a new site including improved sales, faster time to market, and lower total cost of ownership. Lastly, build a timetable to sell the replatforming project internally, select a platform vendor that has the functionality you need and the expertise to help you grow, and set reasonable targets for launching your new sites.

Countdown to the Holidays, Part I – Get the Basics Right

Julian Chu — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:03:00 GMT

As we approach the beginning of the holiday season, it surely would be wise—if you haven't already—to review your ecommerce site experience and take care of those "good hygiene" issues that you've been meaning to take care of all year.

I've recently written a white paper and a couple of articles (The Ultimate Online Shopping Experience, Part 1: Strategy & Design and Part 2: Features & Functionality) that explore the essentials of designing superior online shopping experiences—the key things that online retailers should and should not do. Have a look at these more detailed articles, but here's also a brief summary:

First, while crafting the customer experience strategy (i.e., deciding what to change), keep in mind the following important steps:

Articulate your top brand, business and customer experience goals
Define the customer experience around personas
Review the shopping experience end to end
Build the strategy using multiple perspectives
Keep things simple
Test your assumptions by observing real customers
Consider analytics and tracking requirements as part of the design process

Of course, at this time of year most companies don't have time for a detailed site redesign. But even a high-level review of key aspects of the online shopping experience can help identify some easy-to-implement changes that could result in that crucial extra 25 to 50 basis points in conversion. Do some test shops on your site (or better yet, ask a ‘fresh set of eyes' to do this), paying attention to the following:

Will a customer feel safe shopping on this site?
Is there anything important "below the fold"?
How else can we save the customer time and effort?
Are all the tasks or workflow processes on our site clearly explained and easy to follow?
Do we offer multiple ways of viewing or sorting information on the site to suit a given customer's personal preferences?
Are product recommendations presented in a way that motivates browse and purchase?
Does the site provide explicit feedback in response to customer actions?
Is the checkout process as efficient and easy-to-use as possible?
Does the site provide clear, detailed and context-relevant "help" wherever needed?
Are the toll-free number and/or live chat options prominently displayed throughout the site?

In today's market environment, it's more critical than ever to maximize the return on all the hard work and money spent driving traffic to the site. You must ensure that the online shopping experience on your site is easy, enjoyable and efficient.

For more on delivering superior online shopping experiences, download the "Designing Superior Online Shopping Experiences" best practices guide authored by Julian Chu.

This Just In…The Holidays Are Canceled!

Adam Forrest — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:38:00 GMT

No, not really, the holidays are still on as scheduled, but with all the doom and gloom reports about the economy; I am starting to think the Grinch may be running The Fed. Yet even with all this noise, retailers are reacting quickly to the economy and the ones who manage to go on offense early will be the most likely to succeed.

Believe it or not the holiday shopping season already began. While many retailers may not label it quite yet as holiday shopping, retailers are making a big push early with major discounts....take a look at an email I got last week from Jos A. Bank.

And rest assured this is not the only email I got today about upcoming sales.

It is not even just an online only phenomenon, even in-store retailers are trying to move customers into the holiday shopping mode quickly. For instance, being the last minute shopper I am, I went to Target one night last week to find a Halloween costume, only to find employees taking down most of the Halloween section and in its place a holiday wonderland appeared. This was 4 full days before Halloween, and I know I am not the only last minute shopper out there!

That said, retailers need to be aggressive this year, and those caught behind the curve may struggle.

Online retailers in particular, need to be able to adjust quickly and need to be in full control of their site. In a tough economy the opportunity cost of waiting a day for a simple change is too high. Merchandisers, marketers, and web developers need to be on their toes not only to react to competitors but more importantly to strike first with great content, product information, and most importantly promotions.

So the holidays have definitely not been canceled this year, but I have a feeling that Tom the Turkey is going to be easily forgotten...

Demandware Clients in the News...

Jamus Driscoll — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:16:00 GMT

Three of our clients made the headlines this week and I wanted to pass along a brief digest as well as congratulate Jones Apparel Group, Gardener's Supply Company and Compact Appliance on their achievements.

Nine West and Gardener's Supply Company made Internet Retailer's 2009 Hot 100 Retail Websites list. The Nine West site launched on the Demandware eCommerce Platform back in September, one of several Jones Apparel Group sites now running on Demandware. The site includes video commentary from Nine West creative director Fred Allard, Look Book, which guides you through the purchase of a complete outfit, As Seen In, which helps you find the latest styles you may have seen in a magazine, Behind the Scenes videos, and much more.

Gardener's Supply has been running on Demandware for almost three years now and we continue to be impressed at the creativity and innovation that goes into this site. Along with its sister site, Dutch Gardens, they continually lead the pack with sophisticated features such as community building, contextual selling and guided navigation.

No wonder both Nine West and Gardener's Supply Company made the Hot 100 List.

Compact Appliance was featured in Internet Retailer with an article about how it is able to launch microsites quickly, using just one standard catalog. Compact Appliance now runs 4 sites on Demandware, including the most recent Kegerator.com, the destination site for beer enthusiasts. Compact Appliance expects to finish out the year with web sales up by 25% or higher.

The Upside Down Pyramid

Jamus Driscoll — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:00:00 GMT

If there's any upside to a commute it's that it provides at least some opportunity for idle thinking. So on the way home last night, breezing North on 93 and beat down by Red Sox doom-and-gloom sports talk, I snapped off the radio and started to idle the old squash. Free form association kicked in and when I blew through the yield sign (nearly T-boning a lime-green hybrid in the process), I thought, "Wow! Now that's a much better model for ecommerce!"

Ok, so maybe I should back up and explain that a bit.

Over years of depicting the costs and effort allocation of a typical ecommerce operation, I had evolved into using a tried-and-true pyramid diagram. You know the one. At the bottom was the hardware and infrastructure. It was wide and thick, signifying gobs of energy and cost. Stacked on it were databases, app servers, IT professional support, point applications and other such things-each showing diminishing time and effort. Finally, perched at the very top, with the smallest land mass, was merchandising, marketing and site experience. It always seemed wrong that such important activities would get such a relatively small piece of the pie, but hey that's how things had to be. In fact, analysts point out that up to 80 percent of ecommerce resources (dollars, time and people) are spent simply maintaining the existing infrastructure and processes.

So wrong.

Effectively this means that 80% of an ecommerce operation is going to activities that yield absolutely NO competitive differentiation. For instance, when was the last time a customer went to a site and said, "Kudos. It's up!" or "Hooray! It has secure checkout!"? Likely never and yet that's exactly the type of activities that are getting the most resources.

And that's where the upside down pyramid comes in.

Wouldn't it make more sense if the basic table-stakes portions of the ecommerce operation took up the minority of effort? All the behind-the-scenes work that goes into a professional operation-security, compliance, hardware and database performance, application upgrades etc.-was just there? And instead, retailers could spend more time in the areas that will really drive top line growth. Price management, promotions management, presentation of the assortment, UI innovation... You know the list. This is the stuff that consumers really care about.

So I challenge you commuters out there to make your mindless travel time more productive. Ponder the tough questions and voice your opinions. While no one has the answer, everyone has an opinion-and stringing together enough of these thoughts and opinions can lead to a breakthrough big enough to change the game. Heck, it worked for the Sox, why not us?

What would revenue look like for most operations if these were the areas that received not 20% of the effort, but 80%?

Are there really people out there who would prefer to spend their time worrying about site uptime and secure checkouts rather than marketing, merchandising and selling their products?

What steps are you taking to turn the ecommerce status quo on its head?

The New Retail CEO

Stephan Schambach — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:59:00 GMT

During the past 15 years I have spoken with many retail and consumer brand CEOs about ecommerce—always pleading to give it more attention and weight in their overall strategy. As ecommerce matures, retail CEOs are faced with cross-channel opportunities and challenges—single-format retail is no longer considered "state of the art". Many CEOs are struggling to understand the cross-channel expectations of their consumers and ecommerce's role in their strategy because they have the background of a buyer or legal/finance. Attempts to delegate cross-channel strategy to lower-ranking mid-level managers have failed, typically because these managers were never given the power to change the core purpose and business processes of the company.

So, who should be in charge of cross-channel if it is so important? The answer is, in my opinion, the CEO. Because it is a radical redesign of how consumers experience a brand, only the CEO has the mandate and the power to rally all stakeholders and employees to embrace this new world. But the current generation, with a few exceptions, doesn't have the cross-channel knowledge, entrepreneurial drive and creativity it takes to master this challenge. During the next decade, supervisory boards will look for the next generation of CEOs to turn single-format brands into cross-channel powerhouses, and single-format retailers into truly differentiated cross-channel retailers who can deliver a level of integrated experience to consumers that the Amazon's and Zappo's of this world can't match.

At the same time, ecommerce is, for many retailers, the only format that has been forced to deal with the new, demanding cross-channel consumer everyday. Even though they command only 5-10% of the company's revenue today, their influence is growing due to channel shift and higher margins in the ecommerce channel. So, when the supervisory boards are looking for the next generation of retail and consumer brand CEOs, chances are many are recruited from VP eCommerce positions. From this perspective, I can only welcome the level of networking that the ecommerce crowd engages in through Shop.org and other organizations. Keep doing this. The relationships that are forged here will be the foundation of careers that will go far beyond ecommerce-to the future retail CEOs.