Salmon CEO, Neil Stewart receives our Smarter Commerce certificate from Melinda Matthews, Director IBM WW SWG Industry Solutions Sales, Business Partners and Steve Cowley, Vice President, IBM WW Industry Solutions Sales at the 2012 Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Madrid

Salmon are now an authorised IBM Smarter Commerce business partner.  This award is based on certifications for technical knowledge in IBM’s WebSphere Commerce and Enterprise Marketing Management software and on the strength of our customer references for implementing Smarter Commerce solutions.

Salmon CEO, Neil Stewart was formally presented with the award at the Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Madrid.  Neil commented, “we are delighted to have our team’s skills and achievements recognised in this way and look forward to continuing to deliver Smarter Commerce solutions that help our clients grow their revenues.”

Like when you’re waiting for a bus and then two turn up together, we’ve made two announcements recently regarding our eInsurance practice and our multi channel insurance solution, RiskWrite™.

First up, was the arrival of Neil Hodges who joined us in the new role of Client Executive with the aim of helping to grow our eInsurance business and to continue to develop RiskWrite™.  He will also be contributing to Upstream on Insurance industry topics. Read more »

The eCommerce marketplace is fast becoming a truly global one, and one of the fundamental questions when creating a global online strategy is whether to have one website to cover all regions, or multiple websites with separate domains (e.g. .co.uk, .it, .de). As an eCommerce supplier, we are often asked which of these approaches are “the best”. The answer, as often is the case, is that it depends on a number of factors…here’s a handy checklist of things to consider when answering the most fundamental question of your global eCommerce strategy.

How big is my website management team?

If the answer to this is “small” (okay so that’s subjective, but I usually consider a small Read more »

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 »

On 22^nd May 2012 senior executives from the likes of Novae, Axis, Chartis, Hiscox, Markel, Mitsui, Torus, Liberty, Marsh, Cooper Gay, and Allied World Insurance attended an Executive Briefing on the theme of ‘In a troubled global economy, how are brokers and underwriters responding to the threats and opportunities in 2012?’.

Feedback from attendees was very positive so I thought I’d summarise a few of the key points here.   Read more »

The ICO’s latest guidance (May 2012) sets out the changes to the cookies law and explains the steps website owners need to take to ensure their sites comply. In particular, the updated guidance provides additional information around the issue of implied consent.  A link to the new guidance and a FAQs video can be found here.

Content management is a topic that can send shivers down the spine!  Not because it’s particularly hard necessarily, but if you ask 10 people what it means you’ll quite likely get 10 different answers!  Delivering to exceed expectations becomes challenging if you’re not entirely sure what the expectation is!

An interesting  question regarding content management on eCommerce sites is how to manage “assets” that can be associated with your product range (or used more widely within the overall site).  It’s pretty well documented already that providing related, contextual “content” will add significant value to the customer in terms of branding, value-added services and ultimately in improving the shopping experience and likelihood to buy.

Nothing new here of course; this concept is pervasive throughout eCommerce right now: buyers guides, videos, alternate and enhanced images, “how to” guides, comparisons and the list goes on.  The value curve of course is, the more content the better as long as it meets some golden rules: it must be relevant, it must be contextual and it must show value. Read more »

It’s been a busy week for events here at Salmon.  We’ve been at the IBM Smarter Commerce Summit in Madrid and an executive briefing for the insurance industry in London.

As we unpack our bags from those events, we’ll also be getting ready for the Summer Graduate Fair on 29-30 May 2012 at ExCeL in London. Read more »

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. 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.