It was announced yesterday that eCommera are running the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic online shop.
eCommera will run the London 2012 shop on their CoreCommerce Retail e Commerce solution which uses Demandware's high scalable store front.
Other eCommera customers using the CoreCommerce solution include, ASDA, House Of Fraser, Hamleys, USC, Magasin, Garden Bird Supplies, Gardening Direct, The Gardening club and Flying Flowers
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
Marketing your eCommerce site via social networking
Facebook and Twitter provide retailers with a good way to promote their brand, both of which reach a large audience base. As the only cost to promote a brand on these social networking sites is time, it is an easy win for 2010.
Consumers can be very brand loyal and the highly motivated of these consumers will set up groups, fan bases, etc to inform other consumers of the latest news from these brands. One of the classic examples of this is Apple; consumers have set up a large number of websites, lots of Facebook groups and lots of followers on Twitter. This is great when the messages coming from these groups are positive and promoting the brand, in fact even some negative messages can easily be turned into positives by the brand; however these groups are out of the retailers control and, as such , too much negative messaging can put shoppers off the brand. Apart from the message generated by the groups, the information from the consumers that sign up to these groups is extremely important to the brand for the following reasons:
• How much money they spend on items?
• What products are these consumers interested in?
• Are these consumers also interested in completer products?
• Where these consumers live?
• What these consumers’ views on your brand are?
As this consumer data is controlled by a third party, the retailer does not have access to it and will miss out on using it to help promote your retail ecommerce site.
One of the great ways to control the message that reaches your consumer fan base and also to collect information about your consumers is to create a Facebook page
The reason that I recommend that you create a Facebook page instead of a group is because:
1. Only groups with under 5,000 member can send email blasts
2. Access to pages can easily be controlled.
3. Pages can host applications
4. Pages can benefit from social ads that publicize the fan connection.
Once you have created a Facebook page, look around Facebook for groups that are interested in your brand and then have your new Facebook page join on these groups. The next step is to spread the word around that you have a Facebook page, eg. post on the groups that there is a new Facebook page. Also provide links from your Retail eCommerce site to the new Facebook page, and of course vice versa!
To build up the interest in joining your Facebook page do one or some or all of the following:
• Put limited 1 day voucher codes on the site for anyone who has signed up to your site. The reason of putting a 1 day voucher code is that these codes can easily be distributed by 1 person and which will limit the amount of people who can sign up.
• Provide merchandising press releases on the site on the latest offers or Sales. Remember don’t overdo it, or else your consumers will naturally ignore your message (eg. Viagra emails, need I say more!).
• If you have some new products coming out, promote them first on you new page before these products are released. Make sure that the message is clear about where these products will be sold and the date that these products will be released.
• Provide quizzes on your page that test how well the consumer knows your brand.
Once you have a large fan base, start collecting the data on these consumers, eg. where they live, what other pages they signed up to, are they male or female, married or single, age, etc....
Once you are successful, don’t stop, spend the time each week to ensure that there is new data on the page. Also setup a Twitter account and promote this in the same way of the Facebook.
If you have found this information useful and have set up a Facebook page please add a comment to this blog with the Facebook/Twitter URL.
Consumers can be very brand loyal and the highly motivated of these consumers will set up groups, fan bases, etc to inform other consumers of the latest news from these brands. One of the classic examples of this is Apple; consumers have set up a large number of websites, lots of Facebook groups and lots of followers on Twitter. This is great when the messages coming from these groups are positive and promoting the brand, in fact even some negative messages can easily be turned into positives by the brand; however these groups are out of the retailers control and, as such , too much negative messaging can put shoppers off the brand. Apart from the message generated by the groups, the information from the consumers that sign up to these groups is extremely important to the brand for the following reasons:
• How much money they spend on items?
• What products are these consumers interested in?
• Are these consumers also interested in completer products?
• Where these consumers live?
• What these consumers’ views on your brand are?
As this consumer data is controlled by a third party, the retailer does not have access to it and will miss out on using it to help promote your retail ecommerce site.
One of the great ways to control the message that reaches your consumer fan base and also to collect information about your consumers is to create a Facebook page
The reason that I recommend that you create a Facebook page instead of a group is because:
1. Only groups with under 5,000 member can send email blasts
2. Access to pages can easily be controlled.
3. Pages can host applications
4. Pages can benefit from social ads that publicize the fan connection.
Once you have created a Facebook page, look around Facebook for groups that are interested in your brand and then have your new Facebook page join on these groups. The next step is to spread the word around that you have a Facebook page, eg. post on the groups that there is a new Facebook page. Also provide links from your Retail eCommerce site to the new Facebook page, and of course vice versa!
To build up the interest in joining your Facebook page do one or some or all of the following:
• Put limited 1 day voucher codes on the site for anyone who has signed up to your site. The reason of putting a 1 day voucher code is that these codes can easily be distributed by 1 person and which will limit the amount of people who can sign up.
• Provide merchandising press releases on the site on the latest offers or Sales. Remember don’t overdo it, or else your consumers will naturally ignore your message (eg. Viagra emails, need I say more!).
• If you have some new products coming out, promote them first on you new page before these products are released. Make sure that the message is clear about where these products will be sold and the date that these products will be released.
• Provide quizzes on your page that test how well the consumer knows your brand.
Once you have a large fan base, start collecting the data on these consumers, eg. where they live, what other pages they signed up to, are they male or female, married or single, age, etc....
Once you are successful, don’t stop, spend the time each week to ensure that there is new data on the page. Also setup a Twitter account and promote this in the same way of the Facebook.
If you have found this information useful and have set up a Facebook page please add a comment to this blog with the Facebook/Twitter URL.
Monday, 11 January 2010
House of Fraser Online Christmas sells up by 91%
Well done to House of Fraser, who have increased their Year on Year on-line Christmas sells by 91%.
House of Fraser use eCommera to provide the Software as a Service solution for running their on-line retail ecommerce shop. At the heart of this Software as a Service solution is Demandware a leader in the space for providing a 99.97% uptime storefront framework.
House of Fraser use eCommera to provide the Software as a Service solution for running their on-line retail ecommerce shop. At the heart of this Software as a Service solution is Demandware a leader in the space for providing a 99.97% uptime storefront framework.
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