Have you noticed that WebSphere Commerce feature packs seem to come out much more frequently than they used to?  Our friends in the IBM development labs seem to have changed their approach slightly in bringing these out much more quickly, even if this means partial releases.

Management Centre is a good example where this much-improved business tooling was brought to market relatively quickly without replacing Accelerator 100% i.e. there was still functionality within Accelerator that wasn’t available in Management Centre.  Cleverly though, they developed the marketing focussed elements early so most business users only need to see Management Centre.  Meanwhile, Accelerator is still used for the more technically oriented facilities.  Wins all round and it’s a philosophy that we greatly support.

So Feature Pack 4 is the latest one, what’s in it?… In summary, it includes these new, main features:

• Mobile commerce extensions
• Facebook integration (like button and activity feed)
• Precision marketing enhancements
• REST services

Mobile commerce extensions. The Mobile commerce extensions enhance the current mobile starter store and bring to market device-specific applications for Android.  There are also new location-based services, including an ability for the shopper to check-in to a local store so that marketers can provide store-specific marketing materials and an “eFlyer” feature that can promote location-specific advertising in the store.  More information on the mobile starter store can be found here and on location based services here.

Facebook integration.  New Facebook integration features extend this general direction into “social bridging”, a posh way of saying integration to social networking sites.  The new “like button” provides a simple, but effective link into your social network on Facebook updating your “likes” and sharing.  Similarly, the activity feed will show other liked items that have been shared by your network.  More information can be found here.

Precision marketing enhancements.  Precision marketing is the huge leap forward that has been made in marketing and merchandising in WebSphere Commerce version 7.  In a nutshell this is the ability to modify content driven by behaviour, for instance, if a shopper is tending to browse a particular category heavily during their session then the system can promote merchandising that is associated with that category.  It’s a lot more complex than this obviously, comprising a number of triggers, events and actions across a wide area of customer journey.  We’ll be doing some posts around this soon as it represents a hugely powerful area.  Enhancements in Feature Pack 4 include tying precision marketing into some of the features above (location-based services for example) and enhanced triggers and targets.  More information can be found here.

REST services. Lastly, Feature Pack 4 releases a new suite of REST services.  REST is the trendy way to integrate through web services.  REST services have taken off because they are simple – and this of course means more widely understood easier to implement, and therefore quicker!  More information can be found here.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…”

The memorable opening of Charles Dickens’ novel A Tale of Two Cities came to mind today as I reflected on the wide variation in customer service we all experience day-to-day.  First a couple of contrasting examples:

Read more »

Salmon have delivered an eCommerce optimisation service for Kiddicare.com which has resulted in an 86% increase in repeat purchases, and a 500% increase in customer opt-in for email and newsletters.  £165,000 of incremental revenue from second purchases, has been observed in just two months since Salmon’s recommendations were implemented.

The next stage of Salmon’s project with Kiddicare is to understand the impact of these changes on customer lifetime value and to further improve the relevancy of the email marketing activities based on the data captured.

About Salmon and Kiddicare

You can read more about Kiddicare here (Retail Week article, requires registration), and more specifically about its recent acquisition by Morrisons here (FT.com , requires registration) and here (Guardian.co.uk).

Good to hear that Morrisons are keen to develop the grocer’s etail operation.  In an announcement today regarding the purchase of Kiddicare (a Salmon client) for £70m, Dalton Philips, Chief Executive of Morrisons said;

“This acquisition brings not only a respected, successful and fast growing specialist retailer into the Morrisons group but also a robust, scalable and highly advanced technology platform around which we can begin to build our e-commerce offer.”

Kiddicare’s platform leverages SAFE™ (Salmon Application Framework for eCommerce) and IBM WebSphere Commerce, as well as a number of other complimentary technologies. Here is more information regarding Kiddicare’s technology platform.

Retail Week’s announcement about the sale of Kiddicare is here [requires registration].  The Guardian’s cover the story here.

Earlier this year, Salmon implemented a new online store for City Beach, Australia’s largest surf, skate and lifestyle fashion retailer, which has over 60 stores across Australia.

And at last we have a video testimonial to describe the work undertaken with the brand.

Now customers have the choice to buy City Beach products and engage with the City Beach brand online whenever it suits them, making CityBeach.com.au one of Australia’s hottest online destinations.  And it was all delivered in less than 100 days, using IBM WebSphere Commerce.  You can read more here.

***Update: 14:22 PM Aug 24th – Halfords: Mobile Site Review by eConsultancy
***Update:  2:52 PM Aug 16th - Since Friday’s launch mobile conversion has doubled!***

Today we announced the successful development and launch of Halfords’ mobile platform, enhancing the retailer’s multi-channel proposition and delivering a unique and compelling mobile shopping experience for its customers.

A staggering 5% of traffic to www.halfords.com is from internet enabled mobile phones, and Halfords have reacted by having us develop a mobile platform such that visitors to Halfords.com using a mobile device will automatically be directed to the new mobile platform.

The solution allows visitors to;

• Search for products
• Read customer reviews
• Make product comparisons
• Locate their nearest store that stocks the desired product
• “Reserve and Collect” the item.

Customers benefit from the same common design elements and features that make Halfords.com so successful.  Here is what the Head of Halfords.com had to say this afternoon;

The internet enabled mobile is becoming the essential tool for shoppers. We are seeing a huge increase in customers who are researching products and making shopping decisions while on the move.  We see a huge opportunity for growth of our online business by improving the shopping experience for mobile visitors. So we are aiming to make our site more relevant to the way people want to shop.
Chris Corbin, Head of Halfords.com

Halfords.com is already growing fast, with online revenues up 70% year on year in the first quarter, with visitor numbers now running at over one million people a week.  Early results from the Halfords mobile platform show that visitors really appreciate the new lay out and easier access to essential information and conversion rates are significantly up.

We’ve been helping Halfords implement their eCommerce and multi-channel strategy since 2005, delivering “Reserve and Collect”, “Home/Work Delivery”, “Text and Reserve” and more recently “Free Delivery To Store”; all of which leverage Halfords’ existing IBM WebSphere Commerce based architecture.

On Monday, IBM announced that it had reached a legal agreement to buy Sterling Commerce from AT&T in an all-cash transaction of approximately $1.4B. Yes you read that correctly. $1.4B in cash.

It’s the first major acquisition after Sam Palmisano discussed a pool of cash to the tune of $20B set aside for strategic purchases. Obviously the acquisition is subject to all the normal applicable regulatory clearances and other customary closing conditions, but the deal is expected to close later on this year.  So what is the detail behind the deal and why is it important?  I thought I’d take a look at the details available to ascertain a bit more about what Sterling Commerce do, and what products and services the company provides.  What I found was that B2B integration and the ambition to provide cross-channel selling infrastructure are at the heart of the deal.

So who are Sterling Commerce?

In essence Sterling Commerce is a software and services company that specialises in business to business integration, order management and logistics, as well as cross-channel selling and fulfillment solutions.  Their aim is “to help businesses connect, communicate and collaborate with their clients, partners and suppliers to increase revenues, reduce costs and streamline the way organisations do business.”  Not a bad business mantra at all.  And with IBM aiming to be top of mind and centre of attention when it comes to demonstrating the ability to provide the middleware to support intelligent, dynamic business networks, improved customer experience and seamless cross-channel sales and fulfilment – at face value this seems like a wise move.

Whilst you may not have heard of Sterling Commerce, the company is not new.  For over 30 years, Sterling Commerce has “enabled industry-leading companies to engage in productive collaboration with customers, partners and suppliers and they state more than 18,000 clients worldwide” according to the press materials distributed after the announcement.  And it’s also fair to say that Gartner, Forrester and the analyst community pretty consistently list Sterling Commerce as leader in B2B integration and crosschannel solutions.

Also interesting is the fact that Sterling Commerce’s selling and fulfillment solutions are available both as “on premise” licensed software and as SaaS (Software as a Service) and Managed Services.  This is an area that IBM has typically been quite slow to move into – but is rapidly engaging in.

But why did IBM splash the cash?

There is no doubt that there has been a huge shift in recent years toward fully integrated systems across front and back offices.  In retail that means the integration of key business processes through the entire cross-channel lifecycle – from marketing and selling to order management and fulfilment.  And that is why this deal makes a great deal of sense.  IBM will use this acquisition to provide retail (and indeed manufacturing or distribution clients) with the flexibility to extend the management of their network of business partners through public or private cloud computing environments.  And their ultimate aim?  To make supply chains and partner networks smarter and much more efficient by enabling integration beyond the enterprise while improving the customer experience through a seamless cross-channel sales and fulfillment capability.

There is no doubt in my mind that if you can integrate internal systems AND the entire value chain it is possible to attain rich information that can be used to identify actionable insight in operations, and an agile infrastructure on which to act on those insights.  Sterling Commerce’s strong capabilities in B2B integration, B2B focused cross-channel selling and order management and fulfillment capabilities will only help IBM reach this objective.  And the combination of IBM’s SOA solutions with Sterling Commerce B2B integration accelerates IBM’s ability to extend SOA and BPM capabilities beyond organisational boundaries to clients, partners and suppliers.

It will be fascinating to watch how Sterling Commerce technology be integrated into the IBM software portfolio. IBM’s stated intent is to integrate offerings from Sterling Commerce into IBM’s Software Group as part of the AIM (Application Integration Middleware) division.  We will have to wait for the acquisition to close before we see the beginning of any impact.  But I should imagine IBM’s completeness of vision and ability to execute have been sharply increased.  And it will be up to business partners like Salmon to help realise the potential.

SAFE™ is a series of preconfigured, reusable and customisable eCommerce components that allows a merchant to deliver a production ready eCommerce solution very quickly. SAFE™ speeds up and simplifies the delivery of an IBM WebSphere Commerce based eCommerce solution. It also lowers the risk associated with launching a new eCommerce capability or replacing an existing eCommerce application:

“From day one the relationship between Salmon and Barratts to deliver our MC strategy has been immense. Through the six month period of development, through every single project that we’ve progressed including Reserve & Collect, Bazaarvoice product reviews, from the technical expertise, to project management, through to expert analysts their development and expertise has been paramount.”
Ken Platt, Head of eCommerce and Customer Services

Since we launched the new eCommerce infrastructure and websites, we’ve helped Barratts Priceless trade the websites and grow their revenues online. In fact Barratts.co.uk have been shortlisted as finalists for the Drapers Footwear Etailer of the Year Award 2010.

We’ve also helped them introduce new channels to their customers for instance their iPhone strategy and mobile strategy generally.

Here are links to more eCommerce customer stories, where SAFE™ has been implemented:

Press Release: Hawkshead, Craghoppers and Dare2b brands gain online advantage
Press Release: Kiddicare aims to triple online sales with SAFE™
Press Release: Scotts & Co. seeks new markets and growth opportunities with SAFE™

As many of you know, Halfords have been a Salmon customer since 2005. We have worked with the brand and their in-house teams on establishing a strategic eCommerce platform, and subsequently on helping them execute against their sophisticated multi-channel strategies.

In light of all this activity, we finally created a couple of video’s to capture what a successful client / supplier partnership this has been. Enjoy.

Short Video

Long Video

Sleepy’s, the US based mattress professionals, is a family-owned company that has grown from a single Brooklyn location to nearly 700 stores in 50 years.

Earlier this month our sister company in the US, Salmon LLC, announced the complete development of a new transactional website using SAFE™ (Salmon’s Application Framework for eCommerce).

Their success is covered (albeit briefly) in this IBM video [head for the 3min 25sec mark]

In our statement to the press Chris Cucuzza, VP of Technology, said “Salmon LLC did an excellent job in understanding our business, delivering a solution that matched our specific requirements and delivering a sophisticated new website in a very short time.  We have had a great response from customers who like the option of buying online when it suits them.  We are already beating forecasted sales and doing better than projected online, taking significant sales through the website in the first 2 weeks and we have no doubt that our eCommerce initiative will contribute to a significant portion of our revenue in 2009 and future revenue growth.”