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.

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 »

Salmon have developed iPhone and Android apps for Halfords, extending their current mobile and multi-channel proposition.  The apps allow customers to shop, scan products and find their nearest store.

Mobile phone shoppers will receive a better online experience with the ability to research, locate and purchase products via the apps. The apps combine both web and app capabilities, providing Halfords with a cost effective solution and customers with a better online experience.

Jon Asbury, Halfords Channel Development Manager said: “We aim to give customers an even better online shopping experience through cutting edge technology. The apps are a natural progression from our successful mobile site. Customers will find the apps versatile, functional and easy to navigate.”

Read more »

Halfords and Salmon have been shortlisted in two categories at the awards including “Mobile Solution of the Year” and Multichannel Integration of the Year“.

Neil Stewart, Commercial Director at Salmon said, “To be shortlisted in two categories is an achievement in its own right.  Last year Halfords were “Highly Commended” at the awards for their multichannel approach, and this year we hope to go one better.  Halfords are continually investing in new technology to improve the online experience for their customers and have demonstrated this over the last year with the launch of two new offerings that make their solution more relevant to the way customers want to shop today.”

Other Salmon clients also hoping to pick up an award include:  Argos, Game Group, Pets at Home, Boots and Kiddicare.

To view the full shortlist go here.

Good luck to everyone.

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

We were delighted to announce earlier today that Halfords (the UK’s leading specialist retailer for automotive parts and accessories, cycling and leisure) has launched its first ever transactional mobile website, a project we have been planning and working on since the summer.  The project builds on the success of Halfords’ dotmobile site, which went live in August 2010 and is reported on here.

Since the launch of the dotmobile site, Halfords has seen mobile visitor numbers increase to 8% of Halfords’ dotcom total. Conversion levels have also doubled.  However, the announced enhancements enable customers to pay for orders via their mobile phone.

Chris Corbin, Head of Multichannel at Halfords said:

“More and more of our customers are accessing our site via mobile and we want them to have the same experience as they have from a computer. Smartphones point to how trends in shopping habits are changing fast.”

What was pioneering about this project was that the initiative makes Halfords the first retailer in the UK to offer such a variety of delivery options via a smartphone.

To support true cross channel shopping habits, mobile customers have access to Halfords’ extended range of products – but importantly the same fulfilment options that are offered on the main Halfords.com site, offering a compelling and ultimately valuable shopping experience. This means that mobile customers can choose from a variety of ways to shop;

In addition, mobile customers can search for products, read customer reviews, compare products, and find their nearest store with stock.

Payment for goods, a hot topic in mCommerce circles, also saw the Halfords and Salmon teams provide customer choice.  Shoppers can pay by credit/debit card, or by using PayPal; the same payment methods supported by Halfords.com.  In another first, Halfords is the first mass UK retailer to offer PayPal as a mobile payment method.

For those readers who like even more detail, the mobile platform was developed using the same underlying architecture as Halfords.com, namely IBM WebSphere Commerce. Developing the transactional capability involved complex integration by Salmon between the mobile site, DataCash and PayPal to offer 3-D Secure.  Salmon also integrated the mobile site with Multimap (now Bing Maps) , SAP and Store6.

M-Retailing’s editor Paul Skeldon talks to Chris Corbin, Head of Multi-channel at Halfords and Sue Pratt, Account Director at global commerce systems integrator Salmon, about the drivers behind extending Halfords’ online presence into mobile and why mobile is the future both in and out of store.