There are a few things that really blow my mind these days. Quantum physics, string theory and songs that are getting passed off as music “hits” these days are all things that I’ll probably never understand. One thing that baffles my mind time after time, though, is poor customer service. Whether it be in person, on the phone or online, poor customer service is something that I thought would have died a long time ago. I’ve found quite a few articles that stress the issues of customer service and I encourage you to give them a read:

The Ten Commandments of Great Customer Service

Enhance Your Customer Experience

Customer Service Plays a Crucial Role in Determining Business Performance

We can all agree that the economy hasn’t been the greatest as of late. How can some businesses continue to not recognizing poor customer service as something they need to change?

A team member of mine was talking about a previous bad experience he had at a business around town and told us he heard somewhere that if you have a bad experience you tell 10-20 people, if you have a good experience you really don’t tell anyone.

It really got me thinking, and it’s completely true. There’s a big box store right by my house and I literally dread going in there. In fact, I’ll walk about 2 miles completely out of my way to go somewhere else to get the things I need just to avoid this place. I’ll go without so I don’t have to enter this building! Why do I avoid this place like the plague, you may ask? Dreadful customer service.

The first time I entered this store I was looking for just a simple birthday card and some dish soap. Pretty standard things I’d say. I was ready to pay and the scanner didn’t work for the soap. There was no price tag on the soap, so the cashier woman asked the lady behind the other counter *who was eating Doritos* if she would price check it for her. Dorito lady quickly shot me a dirty look because I must have inconvenienced her snack break, and told the woman that was ringing me up that she was on break so she couldn’t do it.

My cashier then picked up the phone loudspeaker and called another co-worker to the front. After about five minutes of waiting no one came to the front. It was an awkward silence that I’d never like to repeat again, both of us waiting for the other to make a move with the crunchy echo of Doritos being chomped from behind my shoulder. I broke and told her it was alright, I didn’t need the soap and to just ring up the card. She looked relieved like I should have just done that in the first place. I apologized for my soap habit, paid and left.

Being a glutton for punishment I decided to go back a few weeks later because my grill needed some new propane. I figured this one should be a slam dunk. Go to the counter, pay for the propane and get out. As I entered the store I felt a chill down my spine and I could have sworn I heard Doritos being chewed in between demonic laughs. I waited in line for about ten minutes and then told the cashier that I would like to buy a tank of propane. She informed me that it wasn’t her job and that I’d have to go wait in the customer service line for propane. Ok, no big deal – just a line mix up. I can handle that.

I went over to the other line and waited there for about 15 minutes. There was a man in front of me that was trying to return about 40 boxes of soda without a receipt. Come on guy, seriously? After a shouting match between soda man and the woman behind the counter he left and it was finally my turn. I could taste the deliciousness of my grilled food already. The end of this journey was near. I asked for my propane tank and was told that she’d have to track down the individual with the keys to the cage to get out the propane. I smiled and told her that I’d wait outside with my receipt.

After about 10 minutes of waiting I decided that I may have been forgotten about. I walked back in and as soon as I made eye contact with the customer service lady she got that panicked look on her face. She flashed me the “hold on one second” finger move, opened a drawer and pulled out the propane key. She came outside and opened the cage for me. She explained that she didn’t realize the key was in the drawer and that after she was told it was there she just forgot and started dealing with the other customers. I told her not to worry about it, grabbed my propane tank and ran as fast as I could away from that awful place. That was the last time I’ve been there.

As I look back to that experience and think about who I told it far exceeds 20. I even tell people I don’t know that move into the neighborhood. I can’t imagine how many people I’ve given a bad impression of this place. I’m don’t regret it at all either, I’m just trying to save lives.

In all seriousness, those were two poor customer service experiences that led to who knows how many individuals that decided not to shop at this place. The poor experience I had didn’t just end with me, I shouted it from the rooftops. If you’re not sure where you stand on this aspect of your business I highly encourage you to take a look a little deeper. If your customers aren’t happy they’re most likely telling a whole lot of people…

The basic upload process is still the same, but when you get to the file selection page, now you can drag files together or one at a time into the upload queue. The upload also won’t start until you click the Start button, so you can double check to make sure you’ve selected all the files you want before it gets off and running. Plus, the new uploader gives you an upload progress bar on each individual file and the job as a whole, so you always know where you stand.

You’ll see the new interface in both the Single Product Uploader and the Manifest Uploader. Just remember that the types of files you upload in each one (individual files vs. zips) still stays the same.

We think you’re going to love it, but we want to hear directly from you – so let us know how your next upload goes!

In our line of work, we see a lot of websites. Some are pretty amazing and some are…well, decidedly less so. But what’s really interesting is the disparity between the websites of retailers and manufacturers. To make a blatant generalization, it seems that across the board retailers are putting more effort into creating attractive, functional, informative and compelling websites while their manufacturer partners seem to stay focused on just the basic nuts and bolts.

I think it’s time for a wakeup call. Manufacturers, if you think consumers aren’t coming to your site looking for information and a way to buy, you are sorely mistaken. According to Forrester data, nearly one quarter of web shoppers are using a manufacturer’s website to research a potential purchase. And more than half of the visitors to your site intend to buy with the next 30 days. If you aren’t capitalizing on that intention, you’re missing a serious opportunity both for cementing your brand in their life and capturing additional sales.

These are also shoppers who care about brand more than price, so don’t tarnish your image in their minds by presenting a mediocre web experience. Here are a few tips from a Channel Intelligence study of the websites of some major brands, including HP, Lancôme and Post-It:

1. Build out comprehensive product descriptions and content.
63% of manufacturer site visitors came for product information. Descriptions are important, of course, but remember that images and videos can often give a customer a better sense of a product than words. Consider implementing a rich media solution that lets customers zoom or view alternate images.

2. Offer comparison tools and make it easy to find products.
As we mentioned, these are consumers who care about your brand. Make sure they’re aware of your full line of offerings by giving them ways to see like products or compare features. You’ll find it easier than you think to up-sell or cross-sell if you put it right in front of them.

3. Make it easy to buy.
Allowing customers to buy directly from your site is obviously the quickest way to close a sale, but if you aren’t ready to make the leap into eCommerce just yet, be sure you clearly point them in the direction of a purchase. Make it easy for them to find both online and offline retailers that sell the product they’re interested in – and go one step further by providing price comparisons and inventory levels, if possible.

These aren’t quick fixes that you can implement overnight, but a strong brand strategy should incorporate a plan to move toward these ideals. Your customers will thank you for it…in exactly the way you want them to. Read the entire study here.

1) Consumers aren’t just searching mobile sites, they’re getting good use out of apps, QR codes, and using phones to help them search in store.

There are a lot of different ways for a company to utilize mCommerce to its advantage. According to an article entitled “Infographic: What Drives Mobile Commerce?”, more than half of cell phone users used their mobile device to shop during the holiday season. Their uses of it varied: some used their phones to check reviews, others to compare prices, etc. I think the key takeaway here is that a company needs to recognize the variability of mCommerce from consumer to consumer in order to be successful in this industry.

2) There will be a consistent synergy between online and offline activity.

Russ Carroll of Shopping.com points out that it is important for retailers to “present the best online and offline options at any given time.” (Read his whole commentary here.) Shoppers need to have similar options both in a traditional brick and mortar store and on an eCommerce site, and utilizing mCommerce technology is a great way to do this. The cost of technology is steadily going down, which will allow more retailers to enter the mCommerce market. Apps, mobile sites, and personalized coupons are a great way to market to consumers, whether they’re actually in your store or just shopping at home.

3) Shoppers continue to use a variety of mobile devices to shop – therefore, it is imperative that the technology you invest in is compatible with ALL of them.

Consumers use tablets, smartphones, and even feature phones (yes, they still exist) to aid their purchase decision. Therefore, it’s important a retailer invests in technology that is compatible across all platforms (i.e. Apple, Android, Blackberry). Something to keep in mind here is that Apple currently does not support Flash. So, let’s say a retailer bought a rich media hosting package built in Flash for their website. (In case you aren’t aware, rich media hosting for eCommerce is basically a way for retailer to host product imagery on their site and is the driving force for zoom technology, swatching, 360 spin, and many other capabilities.) Rich media hosting would work on the retailers’ website, but if someone tried to pull up one of those hosted images on their iPhone, it wouldn’t work. The technology isn’t compatible. This could potentially drive consumers away from the site and lose revenue for the retailer.

The point here is this: a retailer needs to do their research before investing in mCommerce. There’s a solution for the example above (buying a rich media hosting package written in HTML5), but it is likely a retailer wouldn’t know this unless they took the time to actually investigate it. Utilizing mCommerce can help a company become extremely successful, but only if a company take all types of mobile devices into consideration when developing their strategy.

mCommerce is an emerging (and exciting) industry that I suggest all eCommerce sites take advantage of. There’s a ton of information on the subject, and there’s even agencies that specialize purely in mCommerce. I think this coming year is going to be a great year for developments in the industry, and I’m excited to see the innovations businesses come up with.

The eTail show promises to be exciting, with a great lineup of lectures – including keynote speaker and startup idol, Guy Kawasaki! – and track programs (click here to check out the agenda). They’re also offering a bunch of interesting whitepapers from the show’s sponsors that you can download by clicking here.

Will anyone from your company be attending? If so, we’d love to meet with them, even if it’s just to say a quick hello! Drop us a note at etail@shotfarm.com.

Looks like a nice February break, eh?

John has a strong background in image solutions, coming from previous positions at both Getty Images and Superstock.com. If you’d like to discuss how shotfarm can work harder for you this year, drop him a line at johnf@shotfarm.com.

To learn more about John’s background and plans for shotfarm, you can read the full press release here.

We have touched a lot on how important centralizing rich media is, but what good is it if you have an outdated eCommerce site or no site at all?

In the past it was very difficult and expensive to get an eCommerce site together but now there are plenty of eCommerce platforms out there that make it super easy to make a great site in a matter of minutes.

There is no magic answer to what platform is the best, though. Just like most things it depends on your company’s business model and needs.

Here are some things to think about as you consider different eCommerce platforms:

How is your business model set up and how does the eCommerce platform complement it?
Knowing how an eCommerce site will impact your current business model will be able to make choosing a platform much easier. Are you B2C or B2B? If you sell a service can it translate over the internet? How many variables impact your products pricing? Do you have the capacity to fill all the orders coming from the eCommerce site?

Do you only sell your own products or do you sell other brands as well?
It’s important to know whether a customer will be able to search your site by brand.

What kind of image viewer do you need to be able to sell your products?
As mentioned in past blogs, how you get your images to your customer is one of the most important parts of the site. Images sell your product. What are the available viewer functions and which do you need: alternate images, deep zoom, 360-spin photography, thumbnail image generation, intuitive controls, branding, mobile support, customization, color swatching, video, automatic image syndication.

How many people need access to the site?
The number of people you need to get access to the platform dashboard will impact the cost. Also, you may want to check what restrictions you can put on users so they can’t see everything.

What third party programs will you need to be compatible with the platform?
Each eCommerce platform has its own version of an “app store” to get additional third party plugins for your site. These plugins are very helpful but make sure they have the ones you need to be successful in launching your site. Most of the plugins are free but some do have a charge.

If you already have an eCommerce site how easy is it to transfer over products?
Most platforms make it easy to import your products to their system because they want your business, but I would talk to someone about the steps you need to take on your side to make it an easy transition. If your product images and information are already available on shotfarm it would be very easy to transfer or start on a new platform. (Shameless plug!)

What mobile compatibility does the site offer? Is there a separate mobile interface that your customers will see?
Smartphone sales are out pacing computer sales so it is very important that your platform is compatible and user friendly for mobile browsers.

What deals or promotions do you usually offer?
All platforms offer coupon codes or discount rules but they are sometimes not the same. Also, some platforms limit you to the discount rules they have built in the system.

How is the price structure set up? Do they charge per transaction?
Most eCommerce platforms’ price structures are similar. Generally, it’s on a monthly basis and there are usually 4 to 6 package levels. Some factors that determine the package: setup fee, number of products, staff logins, bandwidth, data storage. Know what you need so you can accurately evaluate and compare costs.

Do you sell your products through other online services? (e.g. Amazon, Ebay, Facebook)
If you sell through different online avenues make sure they can sync with your eCommerce platform. These are usually listed in the “app store”.

Do they charge for different themes?
Ecommerce platforms usually have hundreds of themes to choose from and most of the time several are included with your package. However, take the time to check because some platforms will charge a one time fee for a particular template they offer.

How customizable is the site? Do you have full access or limited access?
Some sites give you limited access to the code to customize the site. This is fine in most cases but if you want full access in order to do your own customization, I would check with the provider.

How are upgrades handled?
Make sure if they update the platform that your site can be easily upgraded for no additional cost.

What support and training do they offer? Is it included in the package?
Most platforms offer free training classes or support but I would make sure it is included or find out what packages they offer and weigh that as part of your anticipated cost.

Some other suggestions:
Try to talk to some of the owners of eCommerce sites on the platform you are thinking of. See what they like and don’t like about the platform.

Go through the sales cycle of different eCommerce sites to see what you like and don’t like. See what barriers come up and be sure to evaluate the ease of the check-out process.

It’s also a good idea to keep your finger on the pulse of the industry. To stay informed about eCommerce in general, here are a few sites I’ve found helpful:

practicalecommerce.com

ecommercetimes.com

entrepreneur.com

Last week Andrea wrote a great blog regarding her inner struggle between shopping online and in-store. It’s a great read and if you haven’t checked it out yet you can take a look here, but Andrea briefly touched on a topic that I wanted to expand on a bit more: rich media.

Andrea identified that deep zoom and 360 spin capabilities are allowing customers to interact with products much like they would in store. This was an extremely important point to make. With recent technological advancements, online eCommerce merchants now have more tools than ever to try to build as much consumer confidence as possible to drive the sale.

I thought about this for awhile and came up with an example from one of my recent online purchases.

A few months ago I was in the market for a new record player. I had no idea what I wanted other than I wanted a record player. I searched and searched online and found one that I thought might be the one at a retail website. All the specs looked good, and the reviews were great, but I wanted to take a little better look at the product. Unfortunately the online retailer only had a static image up of the record player I wanted.

So I typed in the model of the record player into my search engine and found that about 4.5 gazillion eCommerce merchants sold that same record player. I wanted a better look so I clicked on the top search result, and thankfully this online retailer decided to have a great viewer that featured deep zoom. I was able to look at the controls, knobs, turntable, and even the grain of the wood. It was fantastic!

I quickly pulled out my credit card and bought the record player. So within the course of about half hour I was able to find what I wanted and purchase. Unfortunately for the first retailer their website didn’t provide me with the information I needed to feel confident in the purchase. I quickly searched and found a retailer that was able provide me with enough information to build enough confidence and make the purchase. That happened all within the hour.

The point here is that if you’re not providing enough information for your customers to feel confident in their purchase, someone else out there is. Consumers want to view as much information as they possibly can online, and rich media provides another level of confidence to their decision. Many retailers are beginning to realize this and are moving towards a better user experience. Are you providing the best experience for your eCommerce consumers?

Now all of shotfarm’s hosting customers are able to add the benefits of a world class Content Delivery Network to ensure that their eCommerce sites deliver product content to customers with lightning speed. By caching data at various centers around the world, shotfarm’s CDN exponentially reduces the time it takes for product images to load – and that means getting customers shopping faster! The new platform also paves the way for exciting new features to be rolled out in the next few months, including 3D spin photography (that means up and over, not just around!), product color swatching and automatic image syndication.

If you need a refresher, shotfarm’s Rich Media Hosting platform supports unlimited alternate images, deep zoom and 360 spin all displayed within a sleek HTML5 viewer that is optimized for mobile devices, including the iPhone and iPad. And, of course, it’s supported by the unparalleled free Product Image Exchange, so you can host the images and rich media that you find on shotfarm on your website directly, without having to download, rename, resize and upload files to a separate hosting provider.

Rich media has been repeatedly proven to:

• Increase online sales by up to 150%
• Increase conversion rates up to 50%
• Reduce returns and increase buying confidence
• Engage shoppers by extending their time on your website

Best of all, shotfarm continues to offer best-in-class technology and features at 80% less than comparable options. Try out the free demo today by visiting the plugin store in your shotfarm account. Log in now.

In today’s release, we’ve added the ability to delete an entire LightBox of any number of assets at once. This can be done in the LightBox pane in the bottom of any screen in shotfarm, in the managed LightBox area, or, when viewing a LightBox in the main gallery, in the LightBox actions that now appear in the main gallery (also a new feature I’ll talk about next). We have also dramatically decreased the time it takes to delete assets (about 50X faster).

The use of this tool is pretty straightforward and should require little explanation. We’ve also made the confirmation process for deleting assets a little more rigorous to ensure that users understand exactly what they’re about to do.

Tip: Create a new LightBox and call it “Trash”. Use this LightBox to collect the assets that you want to delete and, when ready, either delete the LightBox and the assets or just the assets themselves.

LightBox Actions now in the Gallery
As you may know, LightBoxes can be viewed in either the LightBox pane at the bottom of your screen or in the main gallery. However, until today, if you wanted to take any actions on a LightBox such as download, SuperNamer, or create viewer, you could only do it in the LightBox pane at the bottom. As of today’s release, the same actions can now be taken on a LightBox when it’s being viewed in the main gallery. This might not sound like a big change, but it’s one of those kinds of features that you would really notice if it were taken away.

On a similar note, it is much more apparent now when you are viewing a LightBox in the main gallery.

Public LightBoxes
One of the nice things with the ability to take LightBox actions in the main gallery (and one of the reasons we made the change) is that, when you are viewing a Public LightBox, you no longer have to adopt it in order to take actions on it. For example, if you are a retailer and you click on one of your suppliers’ Public LightBoxes in the asset locator, you can instantly download or share the entire LightBox.

You can still adopt the LightBox if you want to add it to your list in Manage LightBoxes but I have a feeling that, with these new features, the adopt feature will probably end up a casualty of evolution sometime soon. By the way, the adopt feature has now moved to the LightBox actions menu in the main gallery.

Viewer Demo Mode
We have made our HTML5 viewer available now to anyone in unlimited demo mode. It works exactly as it does in production except that we have a watermark over the images. This allows users to fully test the integration within their own timeframe and, once comfortable with the workflow and the functionality, simply turn it on and move it to production.

Click on the Plugin Store tab at the top of your account to activate the viewer.

I have a confession: For my age, I’ve typically been a very old school shopper. I’ve always preferred to shop in store as opposed to on the internet. There’s a few reasons for this. First of all, it’s really hard for me to sit in the same place for a long period of time (no, I do not have ADD…at least I don’t think so). I would much rather get off of my couch and walk around a store and look for my next favorite addition to my wardrobe. Second of all, I’m not one of those people who looks awesome in everything I try on. I find it very hard to order an article of clothing without trying it on. I once ordered a shirt that I thought looked cute, and when I received it I realized it was completely see through. Needless to say, I haven’t worn that shirt yet. The final reason I’ve typically shied away from shopping ecommerce sites is those DREADED shipping costs. In my opinion, they add an unnecessary cost that could have been avoided had you just gone to the store and picked up the product.

A couple of recent events, however, have started to sway my opinion a bit. The most recent even was my mom’s birthday. I wanted to get her a present that could be delivered on her birthday, but lost track of time, and before I knew it, her birthday was two days away. Short of paying a ridiculous amount in shipping, I didn’t really have any way to get her a present on her birthday. I thought maybe there was a way to send her something electronically, so I googled it (naturally). As it turns out, most stores can e-mail gift cards to recipients the same day you ordered them. Perfect! I ordered my mom a gift card for Macy’s, and she received it at work a couple of hours later. Another recent buy furthered my conviction that online shopping may not be as ineffective as I originally thought. I had a very immediate need for slip covers for my couch (advice to everyone…NEVER buy a white couch!). The couch was originally from IKEA, so I really just wanted to buy a slipcover from IKEA too, because I knew it would fit the couch the best. The problem is, it’s nearly impossible for me to get to an IKEA around here. So, I had to resort to online shopping. I went to the store’s website and slipcovers were really expensive, and about $30 to ship. I wasn’t interested in spending a small fortune on these slipcovers, so I decided to turn to Ebay. I found the same set of slipcovers, brand new, for way less, and free shipping. The sender even sent me a free candle!

These situations definitely improved my opinion of the online marketplace and online shopping in general. So, here’s my conclusion: There still is, and always will be, a time and a place for in-store shopping, but browsing the web for products you need definitely has its perks. It’s easier to find deals on the web (search engines are a great tool here), and many companies are choosing to cut shipping costs altogether (especially if you have a big order). Additionally, deep zoom and 360 spin capabilities are allowing users to interact with products online much like they would in a store, so a consumer definitely knows what they’re getting when they order it. I’ll most likely always go to stores to buy clothes, but I’m slowly but surely becoming an advocate of the ecommerce industry. I may have been a late bloomer, but hey, at least I got there eventually.

I encourage you to comment with your own online shopping experiences. What made you an ecommerce advocate? Or, why do you prefer to shop in stores? I’m interested to hear other opinions. After all, I am just one person. Any and all discussion is welcome!

So where are you in your plans to employ Rich Product Content on your site? Curious how you stack up against your peers? Answer just TWO simple questions in our quick survey and help us define this year’s trends in rich media.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/richproductcontent

It’s a pretty compelling case. In a digital world where the holy grail is replicating the tactile in-store experience, spin photography arguably provides the most detailed visual product information possible. By giving consumers the ability to investigate every angle and feature of a product on their own terms, we can answer many more of their questions than we can with a single static image (or possibly even an hour-long customer service phone call).

Having this information at their fingertips gives consumers more purchasing confidence and that leads to higher conversion rates and reduced returns. Retailers such as Golfsmith are seeing conversion lifts of at least 10% and sometimes as much as 40% on products using 360 photography. (Read the Internet Retailer article here.)

“Of course,” you think, “but for a spin set, I need to take as many as 72 shots of the same product. Are the conversion gains really significant enough to justify the time and cost of shooting all of my products that many times?” We say yes for two reasons:

1. New robot arm technology means you can automate the shooting of every angle and finish an entire spin set in a matter of minutes. You won’t add any production time to your workflow compared with a normal photoshoot. (Click here to see it in action on YouTube.)

2. The cost to shoot a spin set is only slightly higher than the cost of a single static shot—for 36x the number of photos! And remember, each of those angles can also be used as an individual static shot for additional marketing purposes.

There are a number of companies that offer 360 spin photography, but our personal favorite is Chicago-based Snap36 (snap36.com). As the exclusive US distributor of the patented FotoRobot system, the studio both takes the photography itself as well as sells the robots into retailers and manufacturers with in-house photography teams.

Of course, all the spin photography in the world doesn’t do much good without a way to get it up on your website…and that’s where shotfarm comes in. Shotfarm’s new Rich Media Hosting 2.0 not only supports 360 spin photography, but alternate images, deep zoom and CDN delivery for about 80% less than comparable providers. Click here to see an example of spin images in a shotfarm viewer.

For more information on Snap36, contact Colleen Ehrhardt at c.ehrhardt@snap36.com or download their whitepaper “10 Ways 360 Spin Photography Can Increase Sales!” here. To learn more about shotfarm’s Rich Media Hosting for 360 spin, visit our Shotfarm Plugins page or email info@shotfarm.com.

Increasingly, retailers are realizing that they need to improve how they manage their product data as they integrate information from a variety of vendors into their e-commerce sites, as well as into other sales channels such as mobile applications. For them, the process of collecting product images and information from vendors and internal systems to publish to e-commerce sites is a time-consuming and costly endeavor that slows time to market and compromises other sales and marketing efforts.

Read the full article on ZDNet here.

With the craze of the holiday season finally dying down, it’s an important time to reflect on the past while also looking forward and planning for the year ahead. This holiday shopping season showed a very positive change in online sales, as shoppers spent a whopping $35 billion as reported by InternetRetailer.com. This growth sheds light on the importance of eCommerce platforms and their potential to boost the number of online customers while also improving sales overall.

After the success of the season, it’s crucial to recognize the techniques and trends that resulted in such a large shift to the online shopping space and implement these tactics to continue to reap the benefits this year. Michael Griswold, a research vice president and eCommerce technology analyst elaborates on the topic:

“With online retail sales expected to once again grow by double digits in 2012 and more consumers permanently shifting a bigger portion of their shopping from stores and catalogs to online, web merchants will be ramping up their spending on better eCommerce systems and services for at least the foreseeable future.”

One of the biggest and most noteworthy trends for 2012 is mobile optimized merchandising. Now more than ever, it’s important to target the huge demographic of smartphone and tablet users in the US that are spending more time shopping online with their devices than at a physical storefront. According to Practical eCommerce.com, in 2012 “smart marketers will work to better integrate up-selling, cross-selling and similar online merchandising into the smartphone-friendly versions of their sites” (click here to read the full article).

This includes the new generation of web technology, HTML5, which improves the mobile shopping experience on smartphones and tablets. As stated in Multichannel Merchant, “web developers will look to the library of features and functions in HTML5 to drive incremental improvements as they look to stay ahead of the online competition.”

Another important tactic to drive online traffic and continue to attract new and repeat customers is through developing effective video content to promote your brand and products. Practical eCommerce reported that in the month of November 2011, some 183 million American internet users had collectively viewed more than 40 billion videos. Providing video content not only gives customers a better understanding of the product information but also builds a strong relationship with online consumers and their purchasing confidence.

This year, consider investing more time and money to improve the usability and consumer experience on an eCommerce platform — it’s a great resolution to work towards to attract more sales and increase profits in 2012!