.NET eCommerce Blog

Guidance and Specialized.net: A Case Study

Richly Chheuy — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:29:00 GMT

One of the most notable features of ECF G5 is the inherent ability to adapt to different business needs and requirements. Guidance, using ECF G5 as a base to build Specialized.net’s new website, delivered its client’s goals.

You can read about the Specialized G5 implementation right here.

On the Heels of Build 200, ECF G5 Build 201 Update Released

Richly Chheuy — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:26:43 GMT

Through the contributions of our developer community and the rapid-fire work of our developer staff, we promptly released Build 201 to fix a few critical issues with the Catalog Import and Warehouse/Inventory subsystems. If you’re on Build 200, it’s highly advisable you update to Build 201. If you’re on an earlier build, but looking to upgrade, please skip Build 200 and grab Build 201.

The list of fixes are available here. Here’s an excerpt from our Release History wiki:

Catalog Management

Fixed Inventory Tracking and Status Functionality
- The “In Stock,” “Preorder,” “Backorder” quantities in the Pricing/Inventory tab of a SKU/Variation were not getting correctly adjusted as new orders were placed in the front-end public site.
- When Inventory Status was enabled, the shopping basket was not correctly preventing customers to checkout items that were out of stock.
- Low Stock Reporting in the Reporting subsystem was not reflecting the changes made in the decreased number.
Fixed Import Catalog bug
- The full number of products was not getting imported for the initial attempt and trying to delete the incomplete catalog was giving an error.
- Work around in build 200 was to delete the subfolders in the catalog first, then delete the catalog folder, and finally re-import the catalog (see here for more details).

If you have further questions about ECF G5, feel free to contact us at sales@mediachase.com or call us 323-988-1071 (on the West Coast) or 202-355-7125 (on the East Coast). For support, please email us at support@mediachase.com.

Jump for Joy! ECF G5 Build 200 is Here!

Richly Chheuy — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:09:00 GMT

Photo by clspeace

As is the norm here, we’ve been busy refining ECF G5 to fulfill and satisfy wants and needs. After countless cans of Diet Coke and drops of blood from mild paper cuts, we’ve delivered Build 200.

You can find the complete release history here. If you’re new to ECF G5 and want to know more in detail about what it can do to better your eCommerce needs, please call us at 323-988-1071 or email us at sales@mediachase.com. Our sales team is ready to accept your questions and help you out as best as possible.

ECF Showcase: Specialized Products Company

Gina Consumano — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:26:00 GMT

Developed by Guidance, Specialized Products Company’s new website flaunts its new features proudly. They offer the same great products and service but now in a more accessible way with the help of ECF and Guidance.

Specialized Products Company website

This is just one of many examples of how ECF can be used. For more examples see our earlier “ECF Showcase” blogs or contact us for more information.

Rejoice, for ECF G5 Build 190 is Out, Baked, and Ready

Richly Chheuy — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:36:00 GMT

It has been nearly four months since our last major build release. Within those four tight months of refinement, polish, and cleanup, we’ve added some fresh new features and capabilities to make you grin from ear to ear.

As with any new release, you must FIRST evaluate the impact of this upgrade (or any upgrade for that matter) BEFORE you perform the actual upgrade to your staging/QA/production environments. I can’t make this font bold enough.

Here are the release notes for Build 190 in full gory, glorious, and gut-busting detail. You also find the full release history on our documentation site by visiting http://docs.mediachase.com/doku.php?id=ecf:50:start:release.

You can also get a hands-on view of Build 190 by going here and following the instructions to access both the front-end and the backend Commerce Manager.

New Features and Capabilities

Support for Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3 on the Front-End CMS and the Backend Commerce Manager
New Marketing expression builder and customization options for catalog entry, order promotions, and customer segments

As a result, end-users can create customized promotions—no longer will you have to tap developer resources to create whatever special promotion options you need

You can now add custom sale types for sales prices in the catalog by editing the configuration file.
Under Administration, you can now setup recurring payments using the Authorize.NET Recurring Billing API
We’ve added a new meta field type named “File” that lets you upload different files into a specified meta class. This is all done under the Administration tab.
The ability to add dropdown meta fields and indexing for dictionary type meta fields is now available in this new release

Bug Fixes

This latest major build has stamped out a slew of bugs. Here’s the exhaustive list:

General/UI-related:

UI layouts and appearances have been fixed so that they are compatible with IE 8 and Firefox 3
Added the missing refresh button at the top of the navigation frame in Firefox 3

Content Management

Fixed a bug where the command box in the Menu Item Edit page did not get updated real time with Firefox.
Disabled the checkbox for "[..]" (Go-up-one-level) icon. Deleting it caused all the files/folders and root level "/" to be also deleted.
Fixed the field box layouts in the Catalog Edit page.
In “Move/Copy to folder” feature, the ability to select folder location used to be disabled.
"Move Folder" command renamed to "Move Folders/Pages."
Navigation Command Type causes all the menus to stop working and generate a Server Error.
Fixed a Server Error that occurred when creating new menu items with a missing page link.
Fixed bug that prevented catalogs from being deleted in a non-US environment.
Fixed bug where the node and entry templates often have a single parameter repeated over and over in their XML files.
Fixed bug that prevented the renaming site folders or pages.
Changing a password of existing users no longer logs you out from Commerce Manager.
Minor bug fixed that prevented user from saving a new page, or accessing the Design View in CMS Editor.
Fixed bug where creating a new Top Menu generated a server error.
Site Copy does not correctly copy over the contents in the Top Menu folders. It just creates an item called "no localized version"

Customer Management

"Recover Password" command is now enabled after having SMTP configured.

Catalog Management

Fixed CSV catalog import bug where Data and Time information in the CSV file were not getting imported for "Variation w/ Inventory."
Fixed CSV catalog import bug where load mapping file to edit existing setup does not fully load the Meta Class data.
Changing the expiration date of the Mobile Phone catalog does not turn on the "Mobile Phones" menu bar in the public site.
Asset Field is missing a pull-down control in the Assets tab under Variation/Sku Edit page (Firefox 3)
Missing pull-down arrow for "Modify Existing Association" field located in the Associations tab for Variation/Sku Edit page.
Fixed an error for importing catalogs.
Added missing pull-down arrow for "Modify Existing Association" field located in the Associations tab for Variation/Sku Edit page.
In the Entry Search page, the "Search by Code/ID" field is being partially hidden by the More Actions tool bar below.
Fixed a bug that prevented catalogs to be deleting in the non-US environment.
Commerce manager product editing validation error for non-US environment.
Trying to delete existing catalogs gives a "Concurrency Violation" error.
Fixed a catalog export bug that was related to CSV catalog import when the title field was DBNull by default.
In a Variation/SKU Edit page, German and Spanish attributes such as "Display Name" and "Description" get duplicated each time a catalog is deleted and re-imported.
CSV Import: System error on Association type: "Cannot find column [AssociationType]."
Starting and Ending time can now be set for Variation/SKU.

Order Management

The Order Summary of a newly created purchase order is fully functional.
"Item to Ship" line was missing when an order is created from the back-end.
Creating a New Purchase Order generates a Server Error: "Specified argument was out of the range of valid values."

Marketing

Policy and Segment Expressions will now get deleted real time from the list without refreshing the screen.
For the Condition Dialog in the Segment Edit page, adding a new expression or using the pull-down menu to choose a condition resets the previously entered information
Trying to add members in Segment Edit page clears the Segment Name and Display Name that was entered in the previous step.
Fixed a promotion Bug where Maximum Redemption per Order Command was not working. Discount get applied only until the Max qty is reached.
Created Date for new promotion is not correctly being displayed
Campaign and Promotion Dates and Times entered in their edit pages do not get correctly reflected in the List page.
Fixed the bug on Segment Edit page where previously entered Segment Name and Display Name was getting reset to null when adding new conditions.

Asset Management

The checkbox for [..] in the Asset List is now grayed out so that the Move/Copy or the Delete action cannot be accidentally selected.
Selecting the Create New File command generates a Server Error: 'Void Mediachase.Ibn.Web.UI.WebControls.TableLayoutDataItem.set_Title(System.String)'.
New Folder command does not create a new folder.
Trying to upload with the "Upload Multiple Files" option generates a Server Error: Server Error in '/ConsoleManager' Application.

Administration

Added language label for Dictionary type meta data displays in the Catalog Edit page.
Fixed a server error that occurred when trying to create newly displayed meta data in a new catalog entry.
A friendly message added when attempting to delete page templates that are used by a site.
Template List page sorting will now be saved and will not revert back to default sorting each time changes are made to the individual templates.
Renamed some of the Edit pages to have more consistency.
Fixes made to some bugs affecting the CSV Tax import feature.
Tax Import does not correctly associate multiple Jurisdictions to a Jurisdiction Group.
A pop-up window for editing Tax Values in the Tax Edit page now renders correctly.
Tax CSV import: importing the same CSV file with edited contents does not update the preexisting tax information.
Adding a new city to the CSV file gives an error message saying "Column 'TaxId' is constrained to be unique. Value '48' is already present."
Tax CSV import: importing the same CSV file with edited contents does not update the preexisting tax information.
An error message is shown when going into the Edit Payment Method page for "Pay By Phone."
Server error when trying to change the Shipping Method Provider from Generic to Weight/Jurisdiction Gateway or vice versa.
Trying to edit Taxes leads to a server error: "Could not find stored procedure 'ecf_Tax_TaxName'."
Creating or Editing Shipping Jurisdiction Groups causes a server error "Could not find stored procedure"
Creating or Editing Shipping Jurisdictions causes a server error "Could not find stored procedure"

Public Site/CMS Editor

Publish button is not working, and clicking on it will cause you to lose any unsaved contents. You can only publish by saving as draft and then approving it.
Cancel Pending Changes button was not working. You can now cancel unpublished changes and revert back to the original contents.
Inactive Sites will not be displayed in the "Site" pull-down list in the front-end.
Some Lucene Searches in the public site generated a server error
Page template pull-down menu missing when using Firefox 3.
Fixed bug with dragging in toolbox.
Entering an email address in the Payment Options page during checkout gives a message incorrect message "Must use a valid email address."

Multi Application

When multiple Applications have been setup, you cannot delete the catalogs that originally existed in the 1stApplication

Development/Source Code/VS 2008 Solution/Package

Add missing code in the LoadByCatalogName(string) method of CatalogNodeAdmin: cmd.Parameters.Add(new DataParameter("ApplicationId", CatalogConfiguration.Instance.ApplicationId, DataParameterType.UniqueIdentifier));

Meta Data

Changing the object type to 100 characters and implementing a check and truncate all messages in the log function prevents logging error

Licensing

ECF now works for "localhost” environment without a license.

DokuWiki Documentation Updates

Tax Configuration
Multi-Site Functionality
Multiple Application Functionality
CSV Catalog Import
CSV Tax Import

And we’re done…

With this blog post at least.

We’re excited to get this release out the door before the weekend. As you can see, the Dev Team’s been working hard, fueled by Top Ramen, water, and the occasional indulgence of processed cheese.

The latest build is readily available to current G5 customers. If you’re a new customer interested in G5 (especially after reading this), shoot us an email at sales@mediachase.com or call us at our Los Angeles office by dialing 323-988-1071. If you’re on the EST, you can also reach Mediachase at our Washington, D.C. office at 202-355-7125. Our helpful sales team is ready to walk you through any questions you have about the product, Mediachase, or, if you wish, the Dodgers.

Enjoy the new release and the weekend!

ECF Showcase: NRG Systems – A ‘Global Leader in Wind Measurement Technology’

Richly Chheuy — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:17:00 GMT

Developed using ECF G5 by Competitive Computing (C2)

Shopping Cart Abandonment Still a Common Problem

Richly Chheuy — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:02:00 GMT

It’s one thing to build traffic and people to shop around your site. It’s a different story entirely when it comes to converting their time on your store to a sale. From a traditional brick-and-mortar perspective, it’s like a customer walking in, piling on goods into his basket or cart, and then realizes that it’s cheaper to get all of your stuff at another store—thus, abandoning his cart in the middle aisle somewhere.

According to a survey conducted by Paypal and Comscore, shopping cart abandonment is still relatively high. High shipping charges is the single biggest reason why customers abandon their carts, with 46 percent of 553 respondents citing it. Other reasons included “comparison shopping” (37 percent), “can’t afford the product” (which actually makes practical sense at 36 percent), and “unable to find customer support contact” (22 percent).

Shopping cart abandonment will always be a problem among online retailers, like how the Yankees will always be a thorn on the side of the Red Sox (and vice versa). Retailers, however, can minimize the impact of shopping cart abandonment by doing a few things.

Oh, and believe me, if more merchants give free shipping (and absorb the cost through higher price tags or other services), they’d get more sales. Just my one-and-a-half cent. And I’m not abandoning that idea.

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.

‘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.