.NET eCommerce Blog

Resource Roundup: Independence Day 2009 Edition

Richly Chheuy — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:05:00 GMT

Yesterday was Canada Day, but the real deal is coming this Saturday (I kid, I kid). With fireworks blowing up in the sky, the aroma of beef brisket BBQing on the propane grill, and the sounds of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” blaring from Uncle Joe’s 2.1 stereophonic audio system, there’s no better time to catch up on this week’s posts.

So grab a couple cold ones, click on these links, and buoy your patriotic, red-white-and-blue spirit!

Posts this past week:

6/29:

“ECF Showcase: Hershey Gifts” – Delicious store developed by Competitive Computing (C2) of Vermont using G5.

“’Joy Buying’: Identify Related Products Boost Sales and Revenue” – Practical Ecommerce outlines different ways for merchants to use “related items” merchandizing to boost sales.

6/30:

“ECF Showcase: Case Value” – B2B/B2C European wine shop powered by G5.

“Is Bing the Next Google or Will History Repeat Itself Again?” – There have been a number of so-called “Google killers” released for public consumption. Despite Bing’s marketing might and rising popularity, is it enough for Googlers to switch over?

That is all for this week. Remember, enjoy this Fourth of July safely and soundly. Till next week, have a great weekend!

Is Bing the Next Google or Will History Repeat Itself Again?

Richly Chheuy — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:38:00 GMT

When I hear the word “Bing,” I immediately think of this classic scene in Groundhog Day:

Ned: Phil? Hey, Phil? Phil! Phil Connors? Phil Connors, I thought that was you!
Phil: Hi, how you doing? Thanks for watching.
[Starts to walk away]
Ned: Hey, hey! Now, don't you tell me you don't remember me because I sure as heckfire remember you.
Phil: Not a chance.
Ned: Ned... Ryerson. "Needlenose Ned"? "Ned the Head"? C'mon, buddy. Case Western High. Ned Ryerson: I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing! Ned Ryerson: got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn't graduate? Bing, again. Ned Ryerson: I dated your sister Mary Pat a couple times until you told me not to anymore? Well?
Phil: Ned Ryerson?
Ned: Bing!
Phil: Bing.

Our collective enthusiasm for Microsoft’s upgraded search engine resembles more of Phil than the Ned side. Microsoft is Ned Ryerson, finding some conceivable way for the rest of us to remember him now and for years to come.

Bing, the self-proclaimed “decision engine”, is prettier and in some cases better than Google. Microsoft gained two percentage points of search engine market share within five days of launch. In its second week of existence, Bing maintained its momentum and impressive numbers (for a direct competitor of Google, that is). But is the might of Microsoft just enough to convince some Googlers to switch over?

Like Kleenex, Xerox, or Band-Aid, Google is a “brandnomer” ingrained into the minds and hearts of consumers. “To Google it” has replaced “Search for it.” While I like Bing and its eCommerce friendly capabilities, Google is way too far ahead for Microsoft to pay catch up. Bing needs to carve up its own niche and position itself as the eCommerce search engine of choice (or the “illicit material of choice,” to put subtly).

What Bing has going for it, unlike the forgotten media darling Cuil, is a memorable (and even lovable) name. It is the Ned Ryerson of search engines—an underdog (ironically backed by the largest software company in the world) and almost always in danger of irrelevancy. Google is the arrogant and haughty Phil Connors slowly but surely improving itself (and gets the girl in the end).

Microsoft has a long ways to go. Bing could be a major success and a viable alternative to Google; or it could repeat the same story of other “Google Killers”: failure and disaster.

To “Bing it” or to “Google it,” that is the $100 billion question. In the end, it doesn’t really matter—because we’ll end up using both.

ECF Showcase: Case Value – B2B/B2C Wine Shop

Richly Chheuy — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:35:00 GMT

High-volume B2C and B2B eCommerce shop for one of the largest wine distributors in Europe.

Integrations: Proprietary ERP and data systems

‘Joy Buying’: Identifying Related Products Boosts Sales and Revenue

Richly Chheuy — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:35:00 GMT

When you’re on Amazon or Best Buy and start shopping for that digital camera or Xbox 360, more often than not you’ll see a section on the page highlighting stuff related them (e.g. wireless controllers, batteries, memory cards, etc.). Showcasing related items on a product page is one of many ways to make shopping easy and a “joy” for the consumer. That ease of use translates to joy for merchants because that entails value-added sales and increased margins per order.

Practical eCommerce goes over two types of product relationships: natural and behaviorial. Merchants can employ either relationship to improve their technique and ultimately boost revenue.

It’s definitely worth your time to check out.

ECF Showcase: Hershey Gifts

Richly Chheuy — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:34:00 GMT

Developed by Competitive Computing (C2) in Vermont.

ECF Showcase: Maison de la Truffe

Richly Chheuy — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:08:00 GMT

Resource Roundup: Week of 6/1/2009

Richly Chheuy — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:08:00 GMT

A busy week here at Mediachase, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have the time to recap the going-ons in the world of eCommerce. So take a break, sip a coffee (or 10), fire up you brain, and catch up on the Wonderful World of eCommerce.

Posts this past week:

6/2 - “Deliver on a Microsite eCommerce Strategy Using ECF G5” – Drugstore.com is employing a microsite strategy to target specific customers. That kind of functionality can be done fast using ECF G5.

6/3 - “Report Shows 83 Percent Growth in US Social Networks” – Facebook and Twitter and other social networks are growing at a rapid pace, giving companies greater incentive to use them as marketing channels. The one major downer? MySpace.

Links and Resources:

1. “10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy” - http://mashable.com/2009/06/02/social-media-policy-musts/

2. “Top Ten Myths about Google Analytics” - http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/05/top-ten-myths-about-google-analytics.html

3. “Ecommerce Sales to Boom [in the UK]” - http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/ecommercesalestoboom030609.mxs

4. “May Sales: How Retailers Fared” - http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/ecommercesalestoboom030609.mxs

5. “7 Uncommon Users for Twitter” - http://www.twitip.com/7-uncommon-uses-for-twitter/

Got any other cool links or resources to share? Feel free to share them below.

That’s it for this week. Take care and have a great weekend!

Report Shows 83 Percent Growth in US Social Networks

Richly Chheuy — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:32:00 GMT

According to a Nielson Report, social network usage is up 83 percent from last year. In the commerce realm, that’s big news for companies expanding its marketing efforts into non-traditional social media.

Facebook is top dog when it comes to overall minutes spent. Users spent a whopping total of 13.9 billion minutes on Facebook this past April, up 700 percent from April 2008.

Twitter--the current social media darling—in the same month round up a total of 300 million minutes, up from 8 million the same month last year. Although, Twitter is suffering from a very high abandonment rate after one month.

Meanwhile, former social networking leader MySpace experienced a 31 percent drop in April of this year. However, if you’re a company that usages video heavily to promote sales and products, MySpace is still numero uno when it comes to streaming video usage.

As we all know, Internet users are a fickle bunch, so after a couple years, any of these social networks could flat-line or drop sharply in usage. Remember Friendster? Don’t think so.

Social networks, despite the warnings, have enormous sales and marketing potential. The top social networking sites will be around for at least a few years. The opportunity is now to take advantage of them.

Deliver On a Microsite eCommerce Strategy Using ECF G5

Richly Chheuy — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:02:00 GMT

I came across an article by @bkwalker on my Twitter-feed about drugstore.com and their “microsite” eCommerce strategy. They’ve recently launched a couple microsites (beauty.com for makeup and visiondirect.com for contact lenses) and are planning to launch more through 2010. It looks like drugstore.com is pursuing ways to drive traffic through SEO and organic search, since customers tend to look for specific products. More microsites means extra work on the search engine level, but companies reap the reward of increased traffic because of a wider Web presence. What companies need to do is find the right platform that will make it easy to deploy and manage multiple microsites.

Companies can create as many microsites as they want with ECF using its built-in multi-site functionality. While customers are spending less, more traffic using microsites will increase the chance of sales to make it up. Using ECF as a platform will make that possible. In many cases, all you need to do is clone a site, change the catalog and images, and within minutes you’ll have a new site.

It looks like microsite strategies may become more prevalent as eCommerce grows and budgets tighten within the next couple years. That means ECF itself will play a bigger role in the hands of many large companies looking to expand their online presence with more and more sites.

Will Social Networks Push More Traffic to eCommerce Sites and Drive Sales?

Richly Chheuy — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:49:00 GMT

The answer is: not so much right now. Facebook and Twitter, two of the most popular social networking sites on the Web, have millions of users each. As of now, that translates to less than 5% of retail traffic, according to Hitwise. That vastly pales in comparison with search engine marketing and paid traffic.

Most traffic from social networking sites are originating from personal blogs and news sites. But they only combine for about 40% of the 5% overall base of traffic. So are social networks worth spending massive dollars on in a down economy?

Remains to be seen. What are some of your thoughts?

ECF G5 Featured as ‘Cart of the Week’ by Practical Ecommerce

Richly Chheuy — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:45:00 GMT

It’s not everyday you get featured front-row and center on one of the most popular eCommerce sites on the Web, but this was the case last week as Practical Ecommerce featured ECF G5 as “Cart of the Week.” Peter Yeung, our intrepid, relatively young poster boy of all things eCommerce and ECF headlined the article with rousing answers to Practical Ecommerce’s questions. Jeff Pratt, of Competitive Computing (C2) fame, gave the much needed customer perspective of ECF G5—the “yang” to Peter’s “yin.”

Check the article out at http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1092-Cart-of-the-Week-eCommerce-Framework-by-Mediachase. The article itself provides deep insight into the platform from both sales and customer points of view. Let us know whatever thoughts you have on the article by sharing in the comments below.

Mediachase ECF G5 Enhancement Build 182 Released, Time to Rejoice

Richly Chheuy — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:16:00 GMT

Development keeps chugging along. Improved multi-site capabilities, CSV import, and localization are just some of the highlights in Build 182. Here’s the breakdown of enhancements and improvements in our latest granddaddy release:

Improved Multi-Site and Multi-Application functionality

This allows multiple front-end public sites and multiple back-end Applications to run simultaneously within the same database.

Different sites, catalogs can be imported into each Application, and separate templates, shipping and payment providers can be segmented within them.

CSV Import feature now allows product associations

Product associations can now be created in a CSV file and import by the bulk for easier catalog management.

Some glitches on the CSV Import functionality have also been flushed out and resolved.

Fixed issues on Meta Data Encryption and Decryption.

Localization complete for most of the hard coded strings within the Commerce Manager UI.

This gives the ability easily localize the Commerce Manager UI by translating provided resource files.

Updated eCommerce Framework API Documentation is now available for download.

You can download our latest version of our API Documentation from this link.

http://docs.mediachase.com/doku.php?id=ecf:50:developerreference:reference:api

Many More Enhancements and Fixes

Major enhancements have been achieved through numerous fixes, enhancements, and new capabilities over our previous release.

Please check the full details of this release at the following link.

http://docs.mediachase.com/doku.php?id=ecf:50:start:release

To learn more about ECF G5 and inquire about a demo, visit http://www.mediachase.com/commerce or email sales@mediachase.com.

Resource Roundup: Week of 3/9/09

Richly Chheuy — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:32:00 GMT

The weekend is upon us once again. That means a new edition of Resource Roundup is hitting the virtual street. Sit back, take a sip of tea, and catch up on this week’s past posts and resources.

Posts:

“In China, eCommerce Still Going Strong” – There are tremendous growth opportunities for merchants to expand into the Asian eCommerce markets.

Resources and Links:

“From Circuit City to Ghost Town” - http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/66421.html?wlc=1236617034

“Cloud Computing, Not Always the Best Solution” - http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/66415.html

“Microsoft Sets Developer Strategy for Windows Mobile Apps” - http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Microsoft-Sets-Developer-Strategy-for-Windows-Mobile-Apps/

“An Architectural View of the ASP.NET MVC Framework” - http://dotnetslackers.com/articles/aspnet/AnArchitecturalViewOfTheASPNETMVCFramework.aspx

“Yes, CEOs Should Facebook And Twitter” - http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/11/social-networking-executives-leadership-managing-facebook.html

Got any other cool links or resources to share? Feel free to share them in the comments section below.

That is it for this week. Everyone have a great weekend!

In China, eCommerce Still Strong and Growing

Richly Chheuy — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:20:20 GMT

What global recession? Apparently, no one has told China. The trade volume of China’s eCommerce market grew 137.2 percent last year. More Chinese are booting up their PCs and surfing and shopping online. 25 percent of China’s nearly 300 million Internet users are web shoppers. By comparison, 71 percent of Internet users in the United States are shoppers. There is much room for growth in the Chinese eCommerce sector.

Resource Roundup: Week of 3/2/09

Richly Chheuy — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:41:00 GMT

It’s already March and the “madness” will follow shortly. And speaking of madness, it’s been a very busy week at Mediachase, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have some knowledge to share before the weekend. So put on your thinking caps, take a sip of tea, sit back, and catch up on this week’s past posts and resources.

Posts this past week:

“Will Higher Taxes Boost eCommerce Sales?” – With higher sales taxes coming in various states, will tax-free eCommerce sites benefit?

“Tips for Increasing Conversion Rates and Meeting Sales Goals” – Practical eCommerce offers tips on how to make the most of your site traffic.

“Mediachase AJAX Calendar.NET 3.2.3 Update Released to the Public” – To shamelessly plug one of our other goodies, our AJAX calendar component is now at 3.2.3.

Links and Resources this past week:

Microsoft Windows Azure set for release this year - http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=215800205&subSection=Integration

Germans want Internet, willing to part with cars and women - http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Web-Services-Web-20-and-SOA/Germans-Prefer-the-Internet-to-Cars-Spouses/?kc=rss

Expect eCommerce spending to go up in 2010 - http://www.internetfinancialnews.com/insiderreports/featured/ifn-2-20090306EcommerceSpendingToReboundIn2010.html

Got any other cool links or resources to share? Feel free to share them in the comments below.

That is it for this week. Have a great weekend and see you next week!