Christmas 2012 may still seem a long way off but now is the time when retailers need to be getting their websites ready for their busiest time of year.  I recently managed to get some time with one of our site performance experts and asked him for some advice on how retailers  can ensure tip-top website site performance at peak traffic periods.

What should retailers be doing to prepare for an increase in traffic?

It can take the entire peak-to-peak cycle to prepare properly, so the question could be rephrased “what should retailers have been doing since their last peak?” If  they haven’t already done so, carry out a capacity review – looking at the current load on the end-to-end IT solution, reviewing server statistics etc. plus marketing plans and business forecasts. Read more »

Shortlisted in the highly sought after category – Brandbank Multichannel Retailer of the Year, Halfords are up against fierce competition from other retail giants including, Argos (also a Salmon customer), Debenhams, House of Fraser, John Lewis, New Look and Tesco.

Sue Pratt, Head of Marketing at Salmon said, “Halfords and Salmon have worked together to develop their multi-channel proposition over the past few years. We are delighted that this work has been recognised by the judges.”

Halfords have a strong multi-channel offer, combining store, online, mobile and apps to deliver a compelling customer experience. They provide an excellent case study in how to ensure different channels perfectly complement each other.

Other Salmon customers also shortlisted at the awards include, Homebase, Boots, Pets at Home, Lloydspharmacy and Kiddicare – good luck to all.

The winners will be announced on the 15th March 2012, at the Grosvenor House Hotel, in the heart of Mayfair. More information on the awards can be found here.

“Internet Retailing” magazine (n.b. takes you to the  July/Aug 2011 digital edition) is focused upon serving the UK and Europe’s leading multichannel and pureplay retailers. Inspired by the very best, and commercial to the core, Internet Retailing analyses, stimulates and challenges the etail community with news, analysis, events and insight.

In the latest edition, we are delighted that a Salmon retail project, Halfords has been showcased.  Emma Herrod speaks to Jon Asbury, Channel Development Manager, Halfords, about how system integration has improved customer choice and encouraged mobile interaction. The interview covers Reserve & Collect, Text & Reserve, Advice Centre, Order & Collect, Distribution, M-commerce site, iPhone and Android apps.

To read the full story click the image above, or simply go to Internet Retailing Magazine. (The Halfords/Salmon story starts on pg. 10 of the digital magazine).

With the impressive returns apparent for those retailers who have optimised their web sites for access by smartphones and the inexorable rise in smartphone adoption, the debate has moved beyond the ‘why’ and ‘when’.**   The question now is ‘how to optimise your web site for mobile devices’.  Here’s a summary of the pros and cons of the main options to help you navigate your way through this key decision.

Option 1.  Building a mobile store – developing a set of pages specifically optimised for mobile devices

Pros:  Fancy something (relatively) quick to market and with easy access?  Then a mobile store could be just what you are looking for.  No snazzy touch screen smart phone needed, even if your customers have a Nokia e71 they can shop on your mobile store, plus with auto detection and re-direction, accessing your store couldn’t be simpler.

Read more »

Tesco Video

Tesco: Homeplus in South Korea offer customers a new way of shopping via their SmartPhone and QR Code technology.  It’s proving popular with customers there.  I’m not sure we have the same issues in the UK as Korea do to warrant this here, they are quite a unique market, but this does offer customers an alternative shopping method and is a great visual reminder.  See for yourself here.

Deep links into QR (Quick Response) codes are becoming ever more popular.  Retailers are beginning to use deep links into their content on another channel using QR codes. A QR code is a specific matrix barcode – or two dimensional code , readable by QR barcode readers and camera phones.  The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background and the information encoded can be text, URL or other data.

DIY retailer B&Q uses it in stores around physical products allowing customers to scan the QR code to watch the “how to video”.  At Christmas, supermarket Waitrose used QR codes in TV and magazine adverts allowing customers to deep-link into recipes.  Halfords, a Salmon client, has been using QR Codes in press advertising since Christmas with links to its mobile home page.  It has also used them in-store to promote specific product ranges.

Meguiars use QR Codes

For more information Econsultancy have a list of 10 ways marketers can use QR Codes in business, whether B2B or B2C.

What a great idea.  And brilliantly executed.

3 Online Experience

3 from B-Reel & B-Reel Films on Vimeo.

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).

The Fish Farm links to the best new posts and articles, related to commerce, that Salmon have found on the internet in the past month. This is February 2011′s fresh catch.

Exciting Commerce : Bonobos, Birchbox & Others: Who Has The Stuff To Become The Next Zappos? [Jochen Krisch]
Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, and adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo, we are told that US investors are seeing the next Zappos as something more like a Bonobos, Birchbox, ModCloth or Shoedazzle. Krisch explains that these ventures have business models which employ unique and difficult to copy components.

Hitwise Blog :  Which retailers are leveraging the marketing power of Facebook? [Robin Goad]
Hitwise UK’s Research Director Robin Goad analyses which merchants are making the most of Facebook’s enormous marketing potential, highlighting 10 brands doing better than most.

Practical Ecommerce : JC Penney Incurs Google SEO Action : How to Protect Your Own Company [Jill Kocher]
How far should a company trust an SEO agency to act on its behalf?  Recent stories of Google blacklisting of JC Penney and Overstock.com might make retailer’s take stock of their SEO outsourcing arrangements.

Locayta Blog : eBay launches augmented reality fashion app [André Brown]
Augmented reality technology is finally being embraced by the retail community. Whilst many merchants are still investigating its potential, Ebay is forging ahead with a fashion app that mimics (replaces? lol) a traditional offline shopping habit  i.e. trying something on, with a virtual try-before-you-buy feature for sunglasses shoppers. Nice.

Econsultancy.com : Six reasons why your brand should hop on the api bandwagon [JD Lasica]
In this JD Lasica explains how APIs can take a brand into promising new directions by harnessing the power of a community.

ReadWriteWeb : Amazon Prime includes streaming video service [Audrey Watters]
Audrey Watters examines the new benefits of Amazon’s premium service, Amazon Prime, which has been expanded beyond its initial focus of cheaper and expedited shipping.

ReadWriteWeb : Eye Tracking & User Testing Made Easy with YouEyetracking [Audrey Watters]
Audrey Watters looks at user testing and in particular ‘eye-tracking’ which ordinarily is an expensive undertaking. However startup YouEye may offer a way to simplify that process – both in terms of cost, testers and technology.

Logic + Emotion : Social Search Will Force Your Business To Recalibrate [David Armano]
As a result of Google’s latest foray into indexing social network content in its search results [Quora, Flickr and Twitter content for example], David Armano highlights how businesses might want to evolve to stand a chance of being found in the future.

Media Futurist Data is the new oil [Gerd Leonhard]
Having had the privilege of seeing Gerd Leonhard present ‘Data is the new Oil‘ at eConsultancy’s Future of Digital marketing, I was delighted to see an online version where Gerd explains the concept during a discussion on media innovations for AME Info [Dubai].

Web Strategist : Beyond social: disruptive technologies to watch [Jeremiah Owyang /Charlene Li]
Altimeter’s Charlene Li presents her viewpoints on disruptive technologies to watch –and those to ignore.  Charlene used ‘Zipcast’ a no-download video+slides technology that allows anyone to give a ‘keynote’ speech to an online audience in real time. Nice.

FutureNow / Grokdotcom : Testing: where to begin [Natalie Hart]
Natalie Hart highlights how testing can yield a great amount of insight & revenue.  But where do you start?

In No Particular Order : Growing pains etailing in the noughtweens [Ian Jindal]
Ian Jindal reflects on a trend seen in the etail sector to move to a more pan-channel, commercial set of demands from ecommerce professionals.

Wired : HTML5 will be done in 2014: What Comes Next? [Scott Gilbertson]
Scott Gilbertson says the web doesn’t move at the pace of standards bodies, but at the pace of web browsers and innovative developers. So now that the web’s governing body have announced that HTML5 will be complete by 2014, what come next?

Retail Week News : Games new strategy aims to triple digital revenue by 2013 [Nicola Harrison, Requires Retail Week Registration]
Nicola Harrison highlights how Game aims to triple its digital revenues as part of a three-year strategy to evolve into a fully multichannel business.

Guardian Newspaper : Is this the start of the second dotcom bubble? [Dominic Rushe]
Loss-making Twitter has been valued at $10bn. Facebook is said to be worth more than Ford. Now, for some investors, the alarm bells are starting to ring. Dominic Rushe investigates.

Six Revisions : Anatomy of an Effective Product Page Design [Kean Richmond]
Kean Richmond outlines that to overcome the inability to touch or try a product, pureplays have to be better than brick-and-mortar equivalents. He outlines how providing as much information , being price competitive, and providing a flawless user experience is essential.

Social Media Today :  Why Facebook Could Dominate the Next Generation of Ecommerce [Matt Ambrose]
Matt Ambrose says that day by day, Facebook’s tentacles continue to spread and pull in more of the web into its domain. We’ve already seen the announcem,ent of Facebook Deals, but what is the wider impact on the world of ecommerce. He says competitors need to be afraid. Very afraid.  Are you?

Did we miss anything important?  Please let us know.

“The Retailer” magazine (n.b. hyperlink opens up the Jan/Feb 2011 digital edition) is established as essential reading within the retail industry – featuring an entertaining mix of interviews, news and features with contributions from industry experts, retailers and government figures.

As The Retailer is authored by the British Retail Consortium, we are delighted that a Salmon retail project has been showcased; namely our Multi Channel work with Pets At Home.

To assess the full story click the image above, or simply go to www.theretailermagazine.com (the Pets at Home / Salmon story is on pg. 16 of the digital magazine). Alternatively you can read more on http://www.salmon.com/CustomerPetsAtHome.aspx.