February 2012
3 posts
New Smartphone Penetration Numbers by Neilsen
New deck fodder from Neilsen today shows the growth of Samrtphones by young people continuing at an astounding rate….
“Mobile is the new face of engagement, businesses should stop thinking about it...”
– Ted Schadler (Forrester Research) via New York Times article
SMB Hosted E-Commerce Platform Duel: In Progress
Having designed and deployed a number of sites using Magento Go (the new Magento hosted platform), Volusion, Big Commerce, and currently 3D Cart, we are compiling the latest and greatest comparison of these popular hosted platforms with the hope that this analysis will make your selection process easy. Our assessment criteria include usability, integratability, quality of the API, and front end...
January 2012
5 posts
How to Influence Purchasing Decisions On The Web... →
When savvy consumers are in the market for something — a new pair of kicks, a sweet DSLR camera, hair pomade, a toaster — they turn to the web, knowing there’s a wealth of knowledge and information to be had. But where on the vast Interwebs do they look? Well, that depends on what they want to …
New Tablet and E-Reader Numbers Astounding
The numbers continue to defy prediction. The time of device explosion is officially upon us. According to Pew the holiday sales numbers are indicating that tablet and e-reader ownership has doubled in the last month. What does this mean? Device use for internet browsing is exploding so be ready to carefully understand how your users are going to view your websites and then be ready to make...
New Manufacturing Web Site for One of New...
First website launch of 2012 - 360 Manufacturing Services of Longmeadow, MA
Six social media tips to drive online sales by...
This is a very handy checklist that should keep an e-commerce site manager working on a nice, organized cycle of updates that can help to drive sales. Nice quick read with references to top e-commerce site practices.
Get Smart about Smartphone Adoption in 2012
Brighthand presents a treasure trove of Smartphone popularity and adoption data that you can use to start building a plan for making your site responsive. For the last two years we’ve watched as mobile device (and Smartphone in particular) adoption rates have way outpaced super smart analysts’ predictions about adoption and browser share. Start by learning more about the most popular...
December 2011
1 post
IAB Center for Mobile is a Mobile Help Desk...
The IAB mobile marketing center web site has great links and resources for mobile developers - not just ad designers and developers so check it out if you are looking to set some objectives for mobile in 2012.
November 2011
2 posts
E-commerce Stats for 2011 Holiday Projections →
Ad Age daily came out with these stats today - great infographic - most astonising is the rise of mobile “as a contribution to” retail sales from 3.4% to over 6.5% in the last year
Checking In on Gemvara and its MeCommerce Platform
Even if you don’t have $20mm (Gemvara’s venture funding to date) there are a lot of great things about Gemvara’s site to inspire your e-commerce effort. Just a quick warning though and especially with the holiday shopping season upon us you will be hard pressed not to buy something if you’re in the market for jewelry - the UX and the way the products are presented are...
October 2011
2 posts
Mobile and Global Growth Highlight Meeker's Web... →
Polishing Up your Store Guided Search? Apple is...
Guided search products are really taking off in e-commerce and there are several open source products (SOLR) which are making this utility affordable even for smaller online stores. For inspiration a great place to start is Apple.
here
September 2011
3 posts
Big Commerce Two Way API in BETA!
Today Big Commerce announced availability (limited to upon-request BETA users) a new “RESTful” API upgrade that will allow merchants to pull and push order data from and back to their webstores. Check it out.
Solr Powered E-commerce Coolness
brought to you by the folks at Go Chic or Go Home. Unique shopping search site and blog uses Apache Solr and Drupal to create a peek at the future of guided search for retail store owners. This site is unique, incredibly easy to browse, and quite honestly “chic.” If you are considering faceted search for your e-commerce site check it out.
Mobile Commerce will be $12billion in 2012 / Znode...
According to Znode, the e-commerce software company and an important player in the mid-market tier of that space. Znode is offering mobile commerce module with licensing of their core product through September 30. In this announcement, provided by email, Znode sources Gartner in claiming that by 2015 companies will be averaging 50% of their online sales from mobile and social applications. Visit...
August 2011
3 posts
Best article yet on organizing multiple topic... →
Drake Martinet and the Wall Street Journal give a great lesson on organizing by topic for social media. If you’re confused about how to mobilize your company and its multiple topics and initiatives this may give you a big head start and provide an approach for managing social media. Great read.
Whitepaper in the works: Comparing and contrasting...
On September 10 we are going to release a detailed white paper comparing and contrasting the current versions of Volusion, BigCommerce, and 3D Cart. There are important differences depending upon your needs and requirements. If you need an advanced peak or some advice on choosing call us!
MNET Awarded Two Large Mobile Web Assignments
MNET has been awarded two significant mobile website assignments including a consumer-focused app and store-finder site for one of the largest retail brands on the east coast. We’ve been doing a lot of thinking on our approach to mobile and we’ve built out an impressive test bench of devices (fun to play with too) so we’re working on a new responsive design methodology and a new...
July 2011
6 posts
3D Cart Launched "Daily Deal" Functionality
In V4 of it’s hosted ecommerce software #D cart has launched functionality that enables merchants to quickly and easily launch daily deals and promote them with targeted emails to consumers. This is another example of how the SMB Shopping Cart companies are catching up to “enterprise” providers with functionality that allows small merchants to market like the big guys. We...
State-of-the-Art Manufacturing Website
What’s a state-of-the-art website for a large manufacturer look like? Check out the preview of the new Manufacturing 360 Website, a contract manufacturer located right here in Massachusetts.
5 E-Commerce Initiatives for the Summer for Sites...
this summer take care of five key initiatives to ensure success for your holiday marketing campaigns:
1. test your site for iphone, ipad, and android devices to make sure your customers can order from their mobile devices
2. create a featured products store tab for your facebook page
3. test your email marketing technology and make sure it can accommodate your mobile customers
4. update your...
Facebook Commerce: Wishpond Worth A Look
Many retailers are trying and testing different Facebook integrations in order to see how they can cultivate Facebook “likers” and fans into customers.
Wishpond is a new product that makes it easy to get a “Facebook Store” up there with straightforward UI integration, product integration and it has nice features that make it easy to use. It has different tiers of...
“We don’t see digital and social as separate media,” says Mark...”
– Mercedes Cardona in DM News writes about cool, big brands leading social media / commerce tactics
“Make no mistake, a decision to maintain the status quo is a decision to fall...”
–
A recent article by Tom Harnish of Aeordite, Inc. suggests that the pace of innovation will need to increase if we are going to sell to “Generation C” (today’s teens and early college students). The article has lessons for most businesses but especially digital innovators,...
June 2011
8 posts
Phone = Wallet →
great simple video explaining how this is evolving
PrettyCoolWatch=Pretty Cool Commerce... →
MNET Alum and freelance account manager Emily Tata has launched a Pretty Cool little business having sourced and imported these..ummm… pretty cool watches. What’s also really cool is the pretty cool and simple e-commerce system she has set up by just designing some order forms on Wufoo and hooking up the forms with PayPal. Pretty cool commerce. Pretty cool overall. (And by the way I...
E-Readers? Tablets? Phones? We may design for all... →
Great point in this article - don’t forget about e-readers…good data on how the purchase of e-readers is outpacing tablets. Case in point: I bought my 11 year old a Kindle - we told him “no more email, chat, web until you read these books” (thinking an e-book reader would keep him focused on books). Well he promptly found the browser, checked his email and showed us how...
Conducting an E-commerce RFP? Don't. →
Make it an RFI and conduct some “scenario-based” planning exercises first. Register for and read this important, instructive Forrester paper (it’s FREE) on how to conduct the process. If you need help or arms and legs to conduct it, call us 617.859.7900 and ask for Frank.
“The typical selection processes do not offer vendors the opportunity to differentiate and really...
Mobile Commerce: New Development Paradigm... →
Struggling with how to develop for all those platforms? This article is incredibly insightful piece on leveraging HTML 5 to develop across devices….an alternative approach to developing native apps.
Magento + ebay: 3 Good Things
The acquisition of Magento by ebay will result in 3 positive outcomes for users and resellers of Magento:
(1) Magento On-Demand (the SaaS version) will compete with theMid-Tier SaaS players like Venda and GoE Cart on out-of-the-box features and price. The question is will they be able to offer the customer service of a Venda - totally focused on client e-commerce as a business solution.
(2)...
8 Reasons Every Ecommerce Site Should Get Serious... →
Yaniv Axen has served as the CTO of SundaySky since cofounding the company. He manages technological concerns for strategic customers, directs the patent application process for SundaySky’s solutions and facilitates key partnerships. The truth about doing business online today is that for ma…
Atlantis Weathergear E-Commerce on Big Commerce
Atlantis WeatherGear’s redesign on Big Commerce is live! A testament to the ease and flexibility of the front end of Big Commerce the site borrows some design and usability features from its sister company Cloudveil and helps the business make a transition from serving winter apparel buyers to summer apparel buyers - especially the needs of serious sailors and watermen.
May 2011
7 posts
E-commerce Lesson by my 11 year old: ComLax Rocks.
Trying to get the Sunday chores done on a busy weekend it comes as no surprise that my Lax-junkie 11 year old son was bugging me about some new gear…I relented and he quickly showed me one of the best designs for a (relatively) small business retail chain I have ever seen: ComLax lacrosse gear. Unfortunately for him I was less focused on the new arm pads he wanted and more focused on the...
SaaS vs Perpetual - Behind the Business /... →
This is a terrific article from software executive Dave Kellogg on the structure of SaaS vs Perpetual business models and it has important implications for companies evaluating SaaS vs Perpetual (also called “licensed”) e-commerce software. It’s always good to know the motivations of companies that you are considering relying on to run your e-commerce business.
E-commerce business planning - 6 key steps
Multichannel Merchant’s Melissa Dowling writes about how GreatGardenPlant.com utilizes 6 key steps to develop a business and manage the online product mix to success for an e-commerce business. One of the key learnings here is that establishing a process using the right research tools (in this case Google) and repeating the process yielded great results. This is a great article for small...
SMB Cart Challenger to Big Commerce and Volusion:... →
3D cart looks to be an unheralded but very solid alternative to Big Commerce and Volusion. You may want to check them out if you are engaging in e-commerce on a budget but trying to get some enterprise features…
Display Ad Stats from Q1 2011 from Comscore -... →
Prime E-Commerce Merchandising by InCase
The folks at InCase always provide some great lessons in e-commerce product merchandising. Here are 5 great things they do…
1. Navigation that works like a shopper’s mind. It’s just friggin’ super-intuitive.
2. Photography. Use a professional photographer for product shots. Do it. Don’t skimp here.
3. Compress the shopping experience to speed cart creation - for...
April 2011
2 posts
E-commerce for Beginners: Cart Selection
Nice blog post from the folks at Webgility, a product that integrates Quickbooks and various shopping carts on the questions you need to answer before selecting a cart - small biz oriented…..
Big Commerce Delays API Release
Big Commerce has a confirmed that a new API release (which would allow up-stream web site updating from 3rd party software) will not be completed until “the end of this year.” They have recently released an update (V7) that has improved options and variations controls and they have also announced an end-to-end fulfillment offering (strange since there is no real back end integration...
March 2011
2 posts
Ebay and GSI - What it Means for E-commerce and...
The acquisition of GSI by Ebay may not appear to mean much to those of us toiling in the trenches of smaller e-commerce businesses given the size and scale of each entity but it’s important for small business owners to read between the lines and take some lessons from watching these giants. What does it mean?
1. Multichannel approaches are here to stay and will in the long run. E-commerce...
New Tiered Pricing and Speed Ordering Features for...
We’ve made our own enhancements to Big Commerce rolling out Tiered Pricing (when customer gets to $ amount the price decreases by N%) and Speed Ordering (see all products in summary format and add to cart from one page) functionality for a client in the nutrition supplement space this week - stay tuned to see it in action later this week. Call us if you’re interested in learning more...
February 2011
4 posts
Radio Interview from Hartford e-Marketing Summit →
Frank Thompson is interviewed by WDRC host Dan Lavallo on the state of e-Commerce at the Hartford Business Journal’s e-Marketing and Technology Summit 2/18.
Social Commerce is Next...Facebook Storefronts
We’ve been customizing a number of client Facebook pages with storefronts; the tools are going to get more robust and revolutionary with Facebook’s cooperation…read more from Business Insider.
Who blogs and how? Young bloggers to Facebook?
Great NYT article by Verne Kopytoff with great stats and POV on young vs old blogging
”..While the younger generation is losing interest in blogging, people approaching middle age and older are sticking with it. Among 34-to-45-year-olds who use the Internet, the percentage who blog increased six points, to 16 percent, in 2010 from two years earlier, the Pew survey found. Blogging by...
MNET Presenting at e-Marketing Summit 2/18...
MNET is presenting at the Hartford Business Journal’s e-Marketing and Technology Summit this Friday. Frank Thompson will lead the breakout session “Building Your Business Online” with information on integrating an online business in a Web 2.0 World, platform selection, planning, and online business management methodologies.
January 2011
6 posts
MNET Client CaptureCode in the News - over 50... →
Smartphones Super Popular? Not So Fast! →
There is some surprising data in this article published today in PC World about consumers intentions and Smartphone. Smartphones may not be the majority of mobile phone until 2015….good read with big implications for mobile web and app developers.