If, like me, you hunt down and use apps and software to make your life easier & more manageable, you may be interested to hear that the DIY and paint industry is increasing its involvement in interactive digital activities – to ensure that those home improvement projects get off to the best possible start.

And at the forefront of this innovation is AkzoNobel – the World’s largest paints and coatings company - and in particular their clever people working at Dulux.

The Problem: There is no doubt that creating colour schemes for a home, or turning disparate pieces of inspiration into an affordable offline decorative reality, can often be a painstaking task. And despite inroads made by the likes of online solutions like ColourLovers, getting the right combinations of colours from a screen, into a paint tin and then onto a wall is not child’s play (not for me anyway). To be honest, I could quite easily have a colour in mind but not really know where to start. And furthermore, it’s frustrating to see a colour I like when I’m out and about (e.g. on a poster or already on a wall) and not know what the colour is, or how to bookmark or reference similar paint colours.

The Solution: The answer to my problems is the new Dulux Let’s Colour Studio App which Salmon have been involved in developing, working closely with Dulux’s in-house team.  It’s great.  And is available already for the iPhone, with other smart phone and tablet variants to follow.

How it works: When you have downloaded the app, first up you can simply ‘Browse the Colour range‘.  Easy peasy. And I like the benefits.  No more driving to a store, to be confused by all the brands, to choose a tone, to choose a paint type (matt, gloss etc)….just to pick up the relevant paint swatch card or sample pot.

But even better, using the app allows you to ‘Pick a colour from a photo‘, providing instant colour scheming help when you are out and about.  All you do is take a photo on your phone and select the area of the photo that contains the colour you like – and hey presto, the app selects and displays the closest colour from over 1200 Dulux Tailor Made Colours, giving you its name.

Better still (and I love this bit) as ‘colour experts‘ the clever people at Dulux have then gone a big step further, by showing not only ‘similar’ colours, but multiple colour schemes that coordinate with your chosen colour.

Brilliant.  Saving the amateur DIYer like me from a certain colour coordination #fail.

But that’s still not everything.  Not by a long shot.  The app also showcases some Dulux Masterclasses – ‘how to‘ video demonstrations – with tips and tricks to get the best possible results.

And for the armchair-bound DIY enthusiast you can also order and pay for paint testers (via a neat PayPal integration) which Dulux will then deliver direct to your door.

Lastly there is a neat ‘find your nearest paint stockists‘ facility too.

Lovely.

Salmon have been working with AkzoNobel for some time. Prior to its £8bn ($15.8bn) takeover of Dulux paint maker ICI, we worked on a number of initiatives that you can read about here.  Today we still provide Application Management and Support (AMS) services for their portfolio of pan-European consumer websites.  For the app, Dulux have integrated with servers managed by Salmon and our technical services team developed the PayPal mobile checkout integration code to allow colour samples to be purchased directly from the mobile handset.

Go here to read more about the Dulux Let’s Colour Studio app for iPhone.  Download, be inspired and enjoy!

Pete Sheldon (from Elastic Path) highlights in the E-Commerce Times what’s now and what’s next in eCommerce.

In the piece he profiles Video Solutions, Customer Service, Real-World Guided Selling, Multi-Store Retailing, User-Interface Design, Navigation Tools, Effective Merchandising, Social Shopping and Customer Loyalty.  Pete’s core messsages are “if you’re unsure which cutting-edge e-commerce innovations are right for your operation, plan, test and evaluate results – and then move forward“.  And importantly, “don’t be left behind by a fear of the unknown. Embrace innovation.”

A very good piece indeed.

Hat tip to the eCommerce delivery teams at Salmon – they have just received a well deserved shortlisting for “IT Team of the Year” at the Retail Systems Awards.

Now in their fourth year the Retail Systems Awards look to recognise excellence and innovation in the field of information technology within the UK retail sector. The primary criteria for judging are the delivery of definable and significant business benefits, innovation and originality of application, ROI and project management issues such as delivery on time and within budget.

Salmon’s entry demonstrated excellent technical expertise and foresight in delivering eCommerce solutions for retailers, as a result of using our Application Framework for eCommerce (SAFE™) – a repeatable eCommerce solution which extends IBM WebSphere Commerce and can be implemented in just 35 days.

In the last 12 months Salmon has successfully implemented and supported the launch of 25 branded eCommerce websites for leading brands including:  Barratts Priceless Limited, Ben Sherman, Boots, Hotter Comfort Concept Shoes, Scotts & Co, Sleepy’s and the Regatta Group.

Today we announced the formalisation of a long standing relationship, in the form of a commercial partnership with Experian QAS, the international provider of contact data management (CDM) solutions.

QAS Pro Web, the address verification tool, has been fully integrated into SAFE™ (Salmon’s Application Framework for eCommerce). SAFE™ is a fully developed, tested and pre-configured eCommerce solution which extends IBM’s WebSphere Commerce™ platform, enabling the rapid delivery of a production-ready enterprise class solution.

Salmon’s customers already benefitting from using QAS Pro Web include, Argos, Ann Summers, Boots, Homebase, Barratt Priceless Ltd, Scotts & Co, Smartlandlord.co.uk and The Regatta Group.

Chris Bulmer, Group IT Director from The Regatta Group said, “QAS Pro Web was seamlessly integrated with our websites catering for our UK and US customers whose online experience is key to our success. QAS address verification ensures the addresses our customers provide are correct and verified, saving our customers time, minimising undeliverable goods and customer complaints and reducing costs associated with deliveries to mistaken addresses.”

Neil Stewart, Commercial Director at Salmon said, “The partnership helps us deliver even greater value to our customers.  As QAS Pro Web is now a pre-integrated component of SAFE™, we can provide our customers with an eCommerce solution that offers the best in address verification and ongoing data quality.  Customers will benefit from being able to capture online customer information accurately, the first time, critical to providing a professional first impression of their website and ensuring the smooth, quick and accurate entry of customer details.”

From minimal information provided by the user, QAS Pro Web returns a complete and accurate address that has been validated and formatted against the relevant country data file. This offers the following benefits:

• Quick, accurate data capture, with search prompts to guide users through each stage of the process.
• Effective profiling with enhanced data.  Contact data records are captured accurately, validated and consistently formatted, making database analysis simple, with reliable results. Valuable information can be added to residential and business records, allowing customers to effectively profile their database for future marketing activities.
• International datasets for 240 countries and territories worldwide are available.
• Speed of service – critical to online customers, ensuring their details are captured correctly and quickly first time round, increasing site conversions and reducing “drop-off” rates.
• Online customers receive a user-friendly and efficient first impression, inputting minimal information and ensuring they return to the website.
• Regular data updates ensure ongoing accuracy of data and support organisational decisions that are based on firm valuable information.
• Cost efficiencies are made as contact data is captured correctly first time round, saving money on wasted mailings to incorrect addresses and reducing volumes of returned mail.

There is more information about SAFE™ here and about Experian QAS here.

What is the likely consumer reaction to a poor online shopping experience?

Since the rise of online shopping in the late 1990s, we have seen many evolutions in the underlying technology infrastructure and in consumer expectations. Elements fueling these evolutions include the rise of broadband access in homes and businesses, improvements to the usability of sites and Web navigation such as search, the number of leading brands and retailers selling online, as well as improvements to the underlying technology behind sites.

In the summer of 2009, Akamai Technologies commissioned Forrester Consulting to help understand how customer expectations around online shopping have evolved and what the implications are for retailers that fail to meet those demands. In 2006, Akamai commissioned a study to address similar questions; this free white paper is a follow-up study to examine changes in consumer expectations.

Today we announced the implementation of a new US website for Regatta Group’s brand Craghoppers, and new sites (in the UK and US) for the clothing brand range named after adventurer Bear Grylls.

This announcement follows the successful launch in 2008 of websites for three of Regatta’s brands in the UK (Craghoppers, Dare2b and Hawkshead), which leverage SAFE™ (Salmon’s Application Framework for eCommerce). SAFE™ was selected by Regatta as they wanted a strategic platform which would support the whole group, as well as their international expansion plans.

Chris Bulmer, Group IT Director at Regatta said, “The UK websites have been a contributing factor to our success during 2008 and 2009, we are seeing significant cost savings as a result of the new platform, as well as an increase in sales, and we were keen to replicate this in the US. We have been very impressed with how quickly and easily Salmon were able to bring our additional brands online. We are confident we made the right decision selecting Salmon’s eCommerce solution SAFE™ and the IBM WebSphere Commerce platform. To date, it has met all our eCommerce needs and we are certain it will continue to do so as our requirements develop in line with our customers’ demands.”

The new sites developed by Salmon leverage IBM WebSphere Commerce and its extended sites functionality, which allows customers to launch new sites quickly and easily. Considerable amounts of development time and spend are saved because all the sites sit on one instance of IBM WebSphere Commerce and the majority of the data and business logic is shared. Regatta are also benefiting from having Salmon integrate IBM Sales Center for WebSphere Commerce. Regatta’s call centre representatives now have access to the same database as that used on the websites. Everything is shared between the two channels including product imagery, pricing and promotions as well as cross and up selling of information, leading to improved productivity of call centre employees, increased sales and improved service for cross-channel customers. Further benefits include considerable reduced IT cost and complexity.

eCommerce Internationalisation has many challenges. Read on to see how Regatta made sure that their technical infrastructure would scale to meet the new demands from the additional sites in the US and that the speed and functionality wasn’t put at risk.

In this youtube video, Gartner analyst Gene Alvarez discusses how IT organisations responsible for eCommerce are challenged in 2009 to improve online customer experiences to make up for closed stores, lost personnel; all at a time when IT expenditures need to be cut by 5-25 percent.

Sure it’s no easy feat.  But by levering leading off-the-shelf solutions (as opposed to building everything from scratch), Gene argues that IT organisations can free up vital resources and re-focus in areas that really make a difference to the customer.

Whilst this Build vs. Buy dilemma is not at all new, I think it is worthwhile highlighting this is exactly the approach we have taken to heart in SAFE (The Salmon Application Framework for eCommerce) which allows merchants to leverage best-of-breed eCommerce solutions on top of a robust, scalable eCommerce infrastructure (IBM WebSphere Commerce).  Afetr all what’s the point of spending £’s to re-invent the wheel?

The keynote presentation by Ashley Friedlein at Endeca’s E-Business Forum in April highlights the results of two Salmon projects.  The presentation (available for £150.00 for non e-consultancy members) aims to highlight “what you need to be doing really well online to succeed.”

Kiddicare’s implementation of Power Reviews is again mentioned (I highlighted this in a recent post) as Ashley highlights the very ‘personal’ tags attributed to products.

And also Argos’s ‘Check and Reserve‘ and ‘Text and Take Home’ services are showcased, the former a project that Salmon is so very proud of  managing, delivering and supporting for HRG.

So what does Web 2.0 mean to Retailers?

Well the term ‘Web 2.0’ means very little.  But what Web 2.0 enables is having significant bearing on retail in 2009 and beyond.   Inventory management, store systems, logistics and CRM will all be affected in one way or another. And in eCommerce, it is already having an impact.