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.

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.

And today, 6 short years since the YouTube domain was first registered, the daughter of video – online video – is simply blossoming.  Some would even say exploding. So I propose that today, video saves the eCommerce stars, giving leading and innovative merchants a renewed basis for differentiation and online growth.

Read more »

I was lucky to squeeze in a full day at Retail Bulletin’s Multi Channel Summit 2011 on Wednesday.  In this post I thought I’d document a few take-away’s from the key presentations, and additionally high-spot a few quotes from the various speakers and panels .  All in all it was a good day, and I recommend you add it to your calendar for 2012.  Enjoy the notes.

————————————–

Session: A Profitable Future Strategy in a Multi Channel World. Speaker: Simon Russell, Head of Multi Channel, John Lewis (JL)

To begin here are a few quotes from Simon’s presentation:

“Multi Channel does not mean online”
“What is key, is a seamless experience across the very many channels”
“Customer shopping habits are dramatically changing”
“How quickly can you change your business – to be able to sweat the asset – when the foundation is there to do so?”

Simon also highlighted the three typical categories of customers;

1. Acquired
2. Retained*
3. Reactivated

*Simon said notably that Retained customers spend “by far the most” with JL. Read more »

Here’s a Salmon front-end authored post, that aims to highlight 10 important front-end considerations that should be made when developing mobile eCommerce solutions.

1. Make a beeline for the streamlined – With unpredictable 3G connectivity and download speed, it’s important that pages use as little bandwidth as possible to ensure the customer is not waiting ages for a page to load. The ways this can be achieved are:

• Use CSS3 properties instead of images - where possible use CSS3 properties instead of images, to reduce the number of images that need to be downloaded. We did this with the buttons on Halfords’ mobile optimised site. If the browser doesn’t support border-radius it gracefully degrades to square corners.
• Use image sprites – Use image sprites to reduce the number of HTTP requests.  Reducing the number of HTTP requests can make a web page load much faster, and we all know that when it comes to enterprise eCommerce online revenue – every millisecond counts. Further to this, WDL [Web Design Ledger] has a useful how-to Sprite guide)
• Optimize your images - Use 8-bit PNGs over GIFs to reduce the file size.
• Avoid inline JavaScript and CSS – Developers should avoid inline JavaScript and CSS as much as possible, as this increases the size of the HTML file, and thus could prevent it from being cached by the browser. Instead, keep your JavaScript and CSS in an external file.

2. Do not rely on JavaScript – Not all mobile devices (currently) support JavaScript, so allow users to navigate your mobile site without it, and only use it to enhance the user experience. On Halfords’ mobile optimised site (more about the launch of this solution can be found here), our main use of JavaScript was for showing and hiding the product description and customer reviews on the Product Details pages – so as to reduce the amount of scrolling required to get to the bottom of the page.

3. Keep it semantic – If your HTML is structured semantically, any users of older devices with little, if any CSS support, will still be able to use your site.

4. Get both ‘Size’ and ‘Spacing’ correct – With different mobile devices offering different ways of navigating a web page (touchscreen, trackball, directional pad, etc.), it’s essential that all users have an easy time clicking/selecting the buttons and links they want. This means ensuring click-able items are both ‘big’ enough and that there is enough ‘space’ between links to reduce the likelihood of a customer clicking on the wrong link. This can be seen in the header on Halfords’ mobile site and in the lists of products and categories.  Also bear in mind that a top / down approach to the layout (as opposed to top/down & across) is more usable.

5. Make forms as easy to fill out as possible. Completing forms is arduous and difficult on mobile devices. This means reducing the number of fields to what is absolutely essential is worth debating. But also ensure that the customer can easily see the label of the field they are on if the mobile device automatically zooms in on the current field. We were able to achieve this on Halfords’ mobile site by placing the labels above their respective fields. We also made use of the new tel and email HTML5 input types to provide (on supporting devices) users with an onscreen keyboard specific to that type of data.

6. Liquefy your layout – With each device having its own screen resolution, some of which allow you to change orientation from portrait to landscape, it’s important that your pages not only work in the space available, but also take advantage of any extra space available after an orientation toggle.

7. Remember ‘Designing for mobile’ isn’t the same as ‘Designing for mobile phones‘ - Mobile phones, and in particular smart-phones, are rapidly becoming mainstream gadgets.  But that’s half the story.  Consider other mobile and pervasive devices as part of your mobile strategy. The iPad is already popular but new Android powered tablets such as the Motorola Zoom (which was hailed as 2011′s must have gadget – see Engadgets Best of CES2011 post) raise the mobility stakes considerably higher. We haven’t scratched the surface of where in-store pervasive devices are going in 2011 and beyond either.

8. Consider providing telephone assistance every step of the way – We all make mistakes or have questions when buying items online.  As FAQ’s or very detailed searches are harder to make and drill into on a mobile device, consider a regular ‘Click-to-Call’ call-out as part of the page design, or a ‘Find your Nearest Store’ capability, in particular if you have already integrated your sales channels effectively.

9. (Re)Consider ‘font’ and ‘colour’ – Because phones are used in areas where laptops and PC’s are not (in highly reflective or poorly lit circumstances, perhaps), be aware that contrast is an important consideration to make. Additionally bear in mind that customers ‘scan-read’ heavily on mobile phones, so avoid upper case (WHICH, BASED ON RESEARCH FINDINGS IS HARDER TO READ) wherever possible, but particularly on product details pages or during the check-out process.

10. Think ‘Cross-Channel’ – Despite the fact we’d all like to close a sales immediately via mobile devices, chances are its not going to happen all of the time.  This can be for many reasons, most notably because consumer confidence in mobile payment is still low and because the mobile channel is simply a single component of a complex cross-channel engagement cycle.  As a result you should make the interaction between channels simple and seamless. We’ve already mentioned potentially adding a prominent ‘Click-to-Call’ button, but additionally make ‘Find your Nearest Store’, ‘Stock Level’ and ‘Reserve & Collect’ intrinsic aspects of appropriate page layouts to optimise overall conversion rates.

11. *Bonus* -> Leverage baked-in Social Networking – Bear in mind that with mobile devices comes built-in Social Networking opportunity.  Consider optimising pages to allow shoppers to ‘Share’, ‘Comment’ or ‘Like’ products as readily as possible.  

Have we missed anything? Hopefully these front-end focused points highlight the salient front-end considerations for mobile eCommerce today but please share any additional ideas; we’d love to hear your comments.

Finally, confused about the opportunity m-commerce brings? You may find this worth reading (subscription required) “Mobile Statistics – An eEconsulting Report “

Here is a decent infographic (by TestKing) that illustrates just how popular social networking is.

We’ve recently blogged about how huge a role f-commerce will play in a merchants Retail Strategy, and how Android and iPhone Apps are revolutionising traditional offline buying decisions, and we’ve also discussed fully transactional mobile eCommerce payment.

But every so often it is well worth taking a step back, and looking at the broader social networking statistics. Wow.

Everything You Need to Know About Social Networks by Tech King

Here’s 9 areas to watch (and perhaps react to) in relation to front-end eCommerce website development initiatives during 2011. It is by no means exhaustive, but reflects a few of the overriding trends and movements that will impact front-end development.

We’ve deliberately steered away from merely ‘design’ specific trends.  For those you could go here, it’s a pretty good list with a little overlap on ours.  For digital marketing trends look no further than Ashley Friedlein’s list on eConsultancy.com, and for the mega-trends out there take a look at Marian Salzman’s Euro RSC Worldwide PR report and her “11 Trends for 2011″.

*Update* 19/01/2011: Retail Week just published their “What’s hot in eTail” list, which is more generic but worth a read (requires Retail Week Subscription)
*Update* 24/01/2010: Fortune and CNN Money today discuss how smartphone growth in 2011 that could totally eclipse anything we’ve seen before. 

So here it is: 9 areas to watch at the front-end of eCommerce this year

1. “f-commerce” becomes a verb Beyond mere fan pages and ‘like’ buttons, merchants will re-focus on Facebook and look to develop eCommerce websites completely within Facebook.   With more than 500 million active users (50% of active users logging onto Facebook in any given day, the average user having 130 friends and people spending over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook, more here) the potential ROI appears to be huge. And yet developing an eCommerce solution inside Facebook is not without its potential drawbacks.  In this post, Michael Hoffman remarks (in the comments) that firstly, “Facebook provides no service level agreements. Therefore, if Facebook is down, you are down. If your app is performing poorly, there is no one you can call directly. All applications are treated equally.” Michael’s second point is equally poignant…. so let’s think about Facebook security for a moment…. it’s a fact that Facebook profiles are sometimes hacked so is there a knock-on issue in this regard towards f-commerce? And what about the .api, the PCI compliance, the optimisation of Facebook eCommerce stores for mobile devices, and payment….wow, the list goes on (and that’s not even counting the growing WhiteWalling trend as recently discussed by Drew Benvie).  What is certain is that those merchants that get to grips with any potential issues first, will also see the upside first; and already pioneers like JC Penney are putting their best foot forward already as are ASOS in Europe (n.b. ASOS link requires Retail Week subscription). On the flip side, on the merchant eCommerce websites itself, there is little doubt that exposing a shoppers social graph will unearth recommendations and reviews that an algorithm simply would not. I can’t think of many people who wouldn’t be delighted to see what their social graph (or certainly a selection of their social graph) has been buying and saying about particular products and services.
2. The Mobile Web Explosion If last year was the year that mobile commerce finally arrived (actually it was the year before last imho), expect to hear the herd stampeding this year. Mobile internet use is going to keep rising, and along with it, so will the number of mobile versions of existing sites needing to be developed or thought through.  Think about access by phones, tablets, even eReaders plus a host of other devices – and think about it strategically would be our opinion.  Apps no doubt will continue to be developed, but they’ll find their place within retail strategy (and it will probably be less important than your average app developer will tell you today) because really it’s the mobile web that will explode.  In the short term, payment is going to be a key area to nail down in transactional eCommerce terms and those that thought about payment strategically in the first place should have little problem exploiting investments already made on their conventional eCommerce sites (which is what we were able to do for Halfords and ICI/Dulux).  And remember, where there’s payment there is also security to worry about and ‘NFC’ (near field communications) and ‘payment wallets’ and ‘mobile vouchers’ will muddy the confusing water for many.
3. Yay. Internet Explorer 9
   We can all look forward to the release of IE9 (rumoured to be Q1), and along with it better support for CSS3 and HTML5.  It’s so easy optimising complex eCommerce sites for the myriad of browser types and versions that another big release won’t make much difference will it? Hmmmm (See point #9).
   
4. Ahem. Yay.  Firefox 4
   I rest my case.  It too, is expected, to be released, this year.  The punctuation just doesn’t do this whole cross browser compatibility nightmare justice, but alas, our perspective on all this is covered in point #9.
   
5. Web Standards become the standard.  All hail CSS3 and HTML5
   On the upside, with IE9 joining the list of browsers supporting CSS3 and HTML5, expect to see these standards even more widely used.  Interpretation aside, adhering to web standards in eCommerce is very important for many reasons (which we won’t go into detail about here) but two aspects that are very relevant are improved ‘Search’ and ‘Accessibility’.   Then again, add ‘Page weight’, ‘Ease of Maintenance’ and ‘Extensibility’ and benefits relating to the support for access by multiple devises – and everyone in eCommerce should get the message. Maybe grabbing more headlines during the year will be CSS3, mainly because it’s more designer-y (and designers write about this stuff a lot) but to be fair eCommerce site experience WILL become richer, deeper, with a greater sense of dimension than previously; in part (at least) due to CSS3. Whilst ‘text & box shadows’, ’rounded’ corners, ‘gradients’, ‘animations’ & ‘transitions’, a wider variety of fonts and multiple background images will get lots of design-led attention, on an eCommerce site all new design possibilities will need to be thoroughly A/B and multi-variate tested anyway (the results are always surprising) so lets not get too carried away for designs-sake without testing.
   Importantly, whilst HTML5 isn’t going to replace flash altogether, it will at least put it back where it reigns.  So for now and the foreseable future, HTML5 and Flash will simply co-exist.  Proof of that can be seen with one of our partner’s in eCommerce 10CMS, who is helping our retail clients leverage flash components on eCommerce sites in the area of interactive merchandising (with non flash alternatives also served) with stunning conversion results. Their approach in the future is that designers/merchandisers/whoever will be able to serve content in basic html, flash or HTML5. Choices.  Great.  So to say Flash will disappear in eCommerce because of HTML5 is pretty nonsense, but getting the balance right isn’t.
6. Landing Page optimisation & cross channel optimisation
   Online marketing vs. offline marketing vs. traditional marketing vs. digital marketing.  Phew.  For many (usually vendors) it’s still a noisy battleground, but for some merchants who’ve moved away from ‘which’ tactic to pick, to establishing a genuine blend of activities, there’s big benefits to be had from measured, optimised and fully integrated activities.  A great example of where this is going to come home to roost before our very eyes in eCommerce circles during 2011 is the optimisation of (digital) landing pages from (offline) Quick Response (QR) codes on packaging, shelf labels and (whisper it) traditional direct mail. By encouraging bar code or QR code scanning a customer can be taken to an optimised page where they can read rich contextual product information, or in turn be encouraged (post purchase perhaps) to share product comments using audio, photos or video.  The real skill is of course integrating everything, everywhere – and those merchants that can get nearer to integrated marcoms across all customer touchpoints will benefit most.  So whilst we expect to see greater use of QR codes on products and adverts to send customers to (many more) product and offer landing pages in the first instance (it was just an example) – the real battle ground is going to be integrating cross channel activities and having a genuine handle on customer behaviour via cross-channel analytics.
   
7. Tighter Social Network Integration
   Whilst we have already discussed Facebook in a little detail, overall there will be a surge toward tapping into established 3rd party social networks.  Clearly links (to-and-from) Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Blippy, Foursquare, Amazon, LinkedIn, Go Try It On, Shopkick and Group On and the like WILL have their merits (albeit sometimes merely volume based) but really that’s only half the social network story.  Whilst many major online shops have now realised that it is actually pretty difficult to establish their own social networks (e.g. HMV’s www.getcloser.com failed last year) many will persist; and for those that do so the rewards may well be significant.  Those that maintain their own social functionality (perhaps combined with simple hooks into established social networks as well) will tightly embed and integrate social networking directly into their main eCommerce sites using services like Pluck (which we have implemented before) or KickApps. ASOS is one retailer who is a long way down this road already within the eCommerce industry with its ASOS Life portal that combines blogs, forums, ideas as well as an online market place for clothing. But it’s not just fashion retailers getting in on the act – Sainsbury’s and ASDA have significant presence already too.
   
8. Location Location Location
   First aired in May 2001, Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer are going from strength to strength on their hit show….oh hang on….From Gowalla to FourSquare, to ‘check-in’s', ‘augmented reality’ and ‘mobile vouchers’ – location based offerings are rapidly becoming the eCommerce solution de-rigour.  But beyond the hype (and there’s been a lot) and the fact that 2011 might not even be the year for mainstream adoption, in eCommerce circles ‘location’ services will rapidly become a pretty important component of a genuinely joined up multi channel retail strategy.  With the potential to optimise retail operations in areas such as Supply Chain & Logistics, Merchandising and Store Operations, “location location location” takes on an altogether more complex, and potentially rewarding, topic for eCommerce executives in 2011.  And with smart phones likely to become practically de-facto during the next few years, delivering mobile solutions that leverage both ‘location’ and ‘proximity’  to deliver a better customer experience, are simply a must.  We can certainly see ‘check-in’ promotions happening more often already in the US (e.g. the first 500 checkins instore receiving a free prize or a free voucher) but actually campaigns that focus on the ‘volume’ of followers will be less important than those that centre on the number of ‘influential’ customers a brand has; and as the commercial value of ‘influence’ and ‘trust’ in the social web begins to manifest, merchants will not only need to time their run toward the social web correctly, but also get their aligment spot on.  Look out for Facebook ‘Deals’ in the near future in the UK, and ‘local’ being the location battleground (offers around the corner from home/work, or where you are right now), and the continued rise of Google Places.  And they’ll be a return of older names in the mix like ‘Yell’ who understand locality (and advertising and SEO) pretty damn well.
9. The end of the browser compatibility war This year the focus on browsers will shift from negativity to positivity – and looking ‘forwards’ not ‘backwards’.  The web has changed, and it is no longer a one-size-fits-all arena and nothing like an eCommerce site brings that into sharp focus.  Complex, dynamic websites are going to look different on an iPad to an Android phone to a site viewed on IE8 etc etc.  Supporting different browsers simply does not mean that every eyeball should see the exact same thing.  And if anyone in eCommerce front end design has enough time and money to spend on IE6 vs. better desktop browsers and the host of mobile browsers then I’d be frankly pretty surprised. Here’s the rub.  If it looks different in different browsers its not a bug.  And lets take it one step further: Browser capabilities are to do with the browser maker – not the designer. It really is time to look forward not backward on browser compatibility.

   What’s missing from our list? Please make some suggestions in the comments section.

I was really excited to see that JC Penney launched a Facebook store this week, a move that will be replicated by many merchants in 2011, as they clamour to increase sales as a result of the social networking sites huge popularity.

I only had time to take a quick glance, and I can’t say that I bothered to go too far through the buying process, but a few things jumped out at me immediately, both good and bad.  On the whole though, I think this type of Facebook application is a sure sign of things to come – so fair play to JC Penney being the first major US retailer to offer proper online shopping on Facebook as opposed to a simple fan page with links.

(Click on images to enlarge)

I’ll start with the negative stuff.  As an embedded application, the navigation is slightly ‘awkward’ feeling compared to a conventional eCommerce website.  That’s fairly understandable, plus I believe that as applications like this grow in popularity, users will learn that this is the way apps ‘work’ inside facebook on a desktop.  But the app also felt very ‘mobile-like’ and I wasn’t so keen on this.  I assume it’s this way because of the way the application needs to be served, plus the fact that Facebook is assessed so readily on mobile and smart phones already (so it’s been optimised for these users first and foremost).  But the downside is that content is pretty minimal and simple, and I have to be honest it feels a little strange when I’m on a beefy laptop as opposed to my Smart phone.

The JC Penney Facebook store claims to be ‘fully integrated’.  I am not sure what that means other than the application is fully ‘enclosed’, i.e. you don’t leave Facebook to browse, register, purchase or recommend or review items.  This is great – and not to be underestimated as an approach – as personally I am not so keen on the hand-off to another domain part way through a transaction and I’d guess I am not alone.

I did spot a few glitches (again possibly understandable given this is very new?) that suggest the ‘integration’ isn’t as complete as many customers might desire.  For instance, a few items I browsed and selected to purchase were not available to buy, although I wasn’t made aware of this when browsing.  That’s frustrating and doesn’t happen on decent conventional eCommerce stores.  And a few images are missing here and there, which combined with the skinny, ‘mobile-feel’ means that the experience isn’t amazing.  Plus I also noticed that with Google Chrome, a few of the alert messages appeared over the application navigation which was a little bit annoying.

But to be fair that’s all sour grapes.  On a positive note what I liked was the proposition consistency – ‘free shipping’ on overs over $69, ‘free shipping to store’, and ‘store returns’ supported.  This is a great confidence booster and possibly hints at further multi-channel integration to follow.  And I also liked the search capability and the faceted / filtered navigation facilities provided.  This gave me confidence and felt natural – a useful combination of a standard eCommerce site and a proper mobile website.   And the way you skip through pages was simple and pretty usable in my opinion (I’d much rather this approach than a page a mile long).  And furthermore a simple, but effective, solution for customer’s on the move is that it’s easy to find a traditional store with the ‘find a store’ facility.

All in all I liked what I saw.  I’ve been waiting for Facebook to be more than a fan-page festival in terms of eCommerce – and here it is.  There is no doubt that M&S, ASOS, Arcadia Group and the like, will be following with their own facebook stores in the very near future simply because there are more than 550M facebookers out there.

Facebook is a channel that won’t be ignored.  And JC Penney is there at the forefront of it all.  Already with 1.3 million fans, they should be about to truly benefit from social commerce in the way that makes most businesses sit up and take notice.  Dollars in the cash register.  All hail f-Commerce!

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.

The Social Graph

I recently wrote about Facebook’s ‘Universal like Button’, but Mitchell Harper (co-founder of BigCommerce a provider of shopping cart software) has also written a nice post on Mashable.com which discusses Facebook’s .api based way of accessing what Facebook calls a user’s “Open Graph” ; the list of everything he or she has “liked” across the entire web.

In the post, Mitchell outlines the impact of the Open Graph for eCommerce.  These are his 5 predictions:

Go here to read more from Mitchell.  I’ll need to think about his predictions more.  But I’d like to make some observations:

1. With such a key element of an eCommerce website being developed to leverage Facebook’s Open Graph .api  and their information [i.e. product browse and product Information pages] will the .api uptime be good enough for leading merchants and professional eCommerce solution builders? With these pages being highly optimised for conversion, merchants won’t want to lose credibility (and customers) at such a vital stage of an online purchase by displaying broken links, images and missing content.
2. For this to ‘tip’ into the mainstream, will Facebook be able to satisfy those engaged in the privacy debate? Remember Beacon?  There is a massive difference in privacy ‘politics’ across different geographies and will Facebook be able to develop a flexible enough .api to satisfy the differing cultures and styles of eCommerce globally? I can’t help but think that the ‘opt-in’ vs. ‘opt-out’ issues will be infinitely more poignant when the outcome is information shared on 3rd party eCommerce sites.

Should these issues be negated, there is little doubt that those merchants that have been involved in delivering a Facebook presence for some time are in line to benefit first.  They will have established fan groups who are most likely to share their Open Graph.

And in terms of a single ‘big win’ in social-commerce, Facebook’s Open Graph appears to be an initiative worth analysing and assessing.  Just how quickly benefits or drawbacks manifest remains to be seen.  Yet somehow I can’t see too many leading merchants simply ‘waiting to see what happens’.  Facebook’s platform and reach is simply too powerful to ignore.

“Facebook Open Graph” image taken from “Facebook Cookbook, Building Applications to Grow Your Facebook Empire.” http://www.oreilly.de/catalog/9780596518172/toc.html