March 9, 2010
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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Details published in a Fast Company post today reveal foursquare continues the quest to make their location based service more than just a fun social networking game. The addition of analytics will increase its relevancy to businesses that may be interested in the service to drive cross channel traffic.
With recent announcements from foursquare such as the deal with Bravo, location-based content agreements with Zagat and HBO Deals, and now the introduction of an analytics dashboard, the service is positioning itself to be an highly targeted customer engagement tool.
Check out our previous...
March 3, 2010
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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With the Olympics now over and many left wondering what to fixate on, one thing is certain – the Vancouver 2010 Olympics were the ‘digital games’.
Statistics released by NBC and the Canadian Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium (a Cactus Commerce client) indicate that many viewers experienced the games across multiple channels. According to a blog post over at www.fiercemobilecontent.com, NBC announced that that mobile page views across its WAP site and iPhone application reached 87.1 million over all 17 days of the games-- that's 52 million more mobile views than the Beijing Summer Olympic...
March 2, 2010
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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Many people conduct extensive product research online prior to making a purchase decision, and product videos play an increasingly important role in this research process. Since product videos provide a visual demonstration of your products' features and benefits, they can be a great addition to a product page to help to influence conversion rates on your e-commerce site. What you may not have considered is the value of placing your product videos on video hosting sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe, etc. As ReelSEO.com founder and creator, Mark Robertson, states: The huge availabi...
February 25, 2010
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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Juniper Research has released a new study on Mobile Location Based Services. According to a summary provided over at TechCrunch the report states that revenues from mobile location-based services could jump to over $12.7 billion worldwide by 2014. LBS hotspots will continue to be China for overall usage, and Western Europe for revenue growth.
In the words of report co-author Dr Windsor Holden:
“Location-based applications are extremely interesting for brands and retailers in that they allow those companies to direct consumers to outlets in their vicinity while simultaneously providing ...
February 23, 2010
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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In a recent article, Matt Bishop at E-commerce Times provides some great tips on how consumers can take steps to protect their personal and financial information when making purchases using mobile devices. E-tailers participating in mobile commerce, or m-commerce, should also take this advice into consideration and use it to create m-commerce experiences that instil consumer confidence. Tip: Create a transactional site for mobile phones Websites can be difficult to navigate on a small screen and as a result it's not always clear if it's the right site. Further it can be difficult for consum...
February 18, 2010
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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The Haitian earthquake relief effort is a demonstration of how mobile commerce is shaping up to be a huge star in 2010. While the devastation in Haiti is not something to celebrate, the ability of the American Red Cross to raise seven million dollars via text messaging is. CIO.com reports that more than 700,000 wireless customers used their mobile phones to donate to the American Red Cross from almost every available network. The simplicity of using short messaging service (SMS) to conduct transactions is what made this donation model so successful. This outpouring of support for Haiti cond...
February 17, 2010
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Posted by
Donna Remillard ·
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Although the terms ‘cross-channel strategy’, ‘360 degree view of the customer’ and ‘customer centricity’ are nothing new, it seems that there is still ample opportunity to improve in the industry.
In a recent benchmark report from Aberdeen Group, ‘Data indicates that 67% of retailers currently lack collaborative channel operations in the areas of unified marketing, inventory management, order management and customer fulfillment. The lack of integration hurts customer’s buying experience and creates a disjoined brand, which in turn impacts business sustenance.’
Aberdeen goes on to identif...
February 15, 2010
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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Juniper Research has recently released a report stating that nearly 15 billion tickets will be delivered to subscribers' mobile devices worldwide by 2014. While mobile ticketing isn’t new especially in places like Japan, Juniper explains that “mobile tickets will spread through rail, air & bus travel, sports, & cinemas with the availability of widespread ticketing apps”.Juniper cites advances in NFC (Near Field Communication) technology as the main catalyst for the predicted growth because it significantly reduces the steps between the purchase and receipt of the ticket. Ticketing ...
February 9, 2010
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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eMarketer.com reports that concerns around ROI with mobile marketing are top of mind for marketers in 2010. A January 2010 survey by R2integrated indicates that although more than three-quarters of marketers in North America view mobile marketing as important, they are experiencing barriers to implementing them. Barriers include: unsure of the business case for mobile campaigns (32% of respondents) inability to measure ROI (28.9% of respondents) mobile not included as part of the strategic marketing road map (28.9% of respondents) target audience not yet mobile (21.7% of res...
February 4, 2010
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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Online ads on Facebook are nothing new but the idea of monetizing Facebook in other ways is something the social media giant is looking to accomplish in the year ahead. With 350 million unique users globally, creating e-commerce opportunities on Facebook makes sense. Brands and their customers are already on the site. Mashable.com reports that the "average Facebook user visits the site at least once a day and spends an astounding 55 minutes engaging friends and family." Instead of Facebook users having to leave the social network to make a purchase, the social network can provide ...
February 1, 2010
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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Google, like Chuck Norris, knows where you are. Okay, well maybe not quite, but a patent application filed on Thursday for 'Wireless network-based location approximation' indicates that they may be on their way. The filing suggests they may be close to finding a way to secure wireless user location-data, that goldmine of information typically held so close by carriers, by sniffing location data from wireless packets. The patent filing states that "Such information may identify the location of client devices and provide location-based services to them".
I recently wrote a post...
January 27, 2010
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Posted by
Donna Remillard ·
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We recently sponsored a webinar on e-commerce content management where Brian Walker of Forrester Research delivered some interesting insights into consumer demands and how this demand puts pressure on merchant strategies to deliver content across the multi-channel shopping environment.
In this webinar we learned that consumers are not only shopping across channels but are using more and more devices to do so, even in-store. Consumer interest in self-service devices such as scanners attached to a shopping cart, self check-out aisles, and in-store kiosks for coupons or accessing the company...
January 26, 2010
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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When you hear of something being called the ‘next big thing in social networking’ or ‘the next Twitter’, it’s a reason to take note. Foursquare is a location-based social network that helps you connect with friends using GPS via your mobile device. Location-based services aren’t new. If you have an iPhone, chances are you have some form of location-based weather app.
Foursquare is a self-described cross between a friend-finder, social city guide and a game that rewards you points for visiting locations multiple times. Sound a bit silly? Well it is. But it’s also proving to be incredibly ...
January 21, 2010
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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A recent survey conducted by BIGResearch on behalf of the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association finds that moms with children at home like to use social media. A lot. Findings from the study indicate these moms "are more likely to use Facebook (60.3%), MySpace (42.4%) and Twitter (16.5%) than average adults (50.2%, 34.4%, 15.0%, respectively)" and that 15.3% maintain their own blog. BabyCenter, LLC conducted its own study in 2009 and found that the number of moms using social media has jumped 462% since 2006, and the number who use cell phones increased 348% in the same per...
January 19, 2010
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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Paul Marsden over at Social Commerce Today provides some great tips on where to start when planning your social commerce strategy. He references McKinsey's LEAD strategy: Listen - Experiment - Assess - Develop And this strategy approach makes a lot of sense. It relies heavily on first understanding your audience; where they are online, how they use social tools to discuss products (think reviews, product comparisons for example) and how they make purchases. It's a process similar to executing a social media strategy - know and understand your audience and then implement a plan that ensures ...
January 18, 2010
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Posted by
Donna Remillard ·
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I recently came across this statement, while reading up on various loyalty strategies for an upcoming webinar and some related customer work we’re doing here at Cactus It stuck with me because it really made me think about what loyalty meant and if there really is such thing as ‘Brand Loyalty’. I’ve always considered myself ‘Brand Loyal’, but let’s face it, I can be as fickle as the next shopper. I’m there for you … until something better comes along.
Without looking up Webster’s or Wikipedia’s definition of loyalty, to me it means to remain constant and true to someone, in good times a...
January 15, 2010
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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We’re just back from the 99th annual National Retail Federation show in New York, and as usual it was larger than life. Cactus was one of a few select partners chosen to participate with Microsoft at their ‘Connected Experiences for Retail’ booth.
Kicking off the event on Sunday night, Microsoft hosted a fabulous Opening Night Reception at the Marriott Marquis for a several hundred of their closest friends. I haven’t seen any official numbers yet, but in general show attendance did seem to be up from last year.
We showcased the CommerceLive e-commerce microsite solution built for the...
January 6, 2010
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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On Monday, Internet Retailer cited a recent survey by Compete indicating that 37% of smartphone owners purchased merchandise via their phones in 2009. This is good news for e-tailers as we head into 2010. Opportunities for growth will widen as more and more consumers - and not just the tech-savvy ones - become comfortable with this purchasing channel. What is interesting is that the survey results show that owners of different smartphones participated in different kinds of shopping activities: 19% of smartphone owners have purchased music from their devices; 14% have purchased books, DVD...
December 14, 2009
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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When it comes to holiday shopping, eWeek.com reports that social sites like Facebook and Twitter are giving competition, or at least providing some impact, to search engines Google, Yahoo and Bing. While direct competition between search engines and social media sites is still a long way off, some shoppers in November 2009 did utilize social sites to find those holiday shopping deals. The eWeek.com article cites a recent ComScore shopper survey indicating that 28% percent of those surveyed who had started their holiday shopping said that social media influenced their purchases. Some examp...
December 7, 2009
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Posted by
Corey Gale ·
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With Black Friday and Cyber Monday behind us and the bulk of the holiday shopping season still to go, it’s a good time to look back and see if we can spot any trends that might give us an indication of how successful this season will be for retailers. NRF and BIGresearch’s Black Friday shopping survey shows mixed results. While the number of in-store and online shoppers jumped from 172 million to 195 million, the average spending of those shoppers dropped from $372.57 to $343.31, over the same period last year. The numbers indicate that people are shopping, but that bargains are a very b...
November 24, 2009
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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When it comes to site search and e-commerce, displaying relevant data is key to driving Return on Investment (ROI). While that may sound obvious, there are plenty of retailers who are missing on key opportunities to leverage data to improve product findability and of course conversions on their sites. According to a recent E-Commerce Times article, retailers can help customers find exactly what they are looking for by taking available data - such as product information, shopper profiles and buying preferences, shipping options, and user ratings - and incorporating this information into s...
November 20, 2009
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Posted by
Donna Remillard ·
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In a recent post I talked about the value of microsites beyond pure marketing campaigns. Merchants can leverage a microsite approach for a number of different on-line store types and we’ll be talking about a few them in an upcoming webinar here at Cactus.
Being top of mind lately, a colleague alerted me to an article announcing that Office Depot had just launched a new microsite Top30SmartGifts.com for the holidays. There are certainly plenty of examples of more and more merchants doing just that, but what was interesting about this one is that although they are promoting products on the...
November 11, 2009
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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How do you research products before making the purchase decision? Well if you’re a consumer who lives in Europe, you often start the process with search engines. According to a new Forrester Research report ‘How Europeans Search’, 21% of European consumers start the journey with search engines; second only to ‘in a shop’ (26%). What is interesting however, is ‘search engines’ handily beat out other channels for information, including ‘Talking with friends and family’ 13% and ‘A retailers Web site’ 12%.
The report also points out some interesting differences among the nationalities surveye...
November 9, 2009
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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We're pleased to announce another Cactus Commerce B2C project has launched! Bilka is the premier hyper-market chain in Denmark, owned by the Danish Supermarket Group (Dansk Supermarked A/S). For more information, visit www.bilka.dk or check out our news release http://www.cactuscommerce.com/news/Pages/Bilka.aspx...
November 9, 2009
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Posted by
Corey Gale ·
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For the past few years analysts and solution providers have been saying that Retailers and CPGs should consider whether or not the time was right for them to jump into m-commerce. Many tried, some failed, but many more decided that it was still time to wait and see how the space developed. In the last 2 years, tight economic times made it even harder for IT and business groups within these organizations to make an argument for the capital expense, in the absence of really hard data showing the successful adoption of these strategies, and solid ROI. Retailers and CPGs who have made the...
November 5, 2009
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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According to a recent report by Forrester Research, Web retailers have survived, and in some cases thrived, during the economic downturn by developing and implementing best practices to ensure market share and viability.
The report titled, The State Of Retailing Online 2009: Profitability, Economy, And Multichannel, is based on a Shop.org study conducted by Forrester. What the report indicates is that among the Web retailers who participated in the study, the economic downturn forced a culture of frugality and self-preservation which in turn helped them to run their e-commerce operations ...
October 29, 2009
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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Over on Mashable.com, Ben Parr gives an overview of Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker's presentation at the Web 2.0 Summit on Internet trends and the future of the mobile web. The presentation is quite long - 68 slides - but provides some key findings that could impact social and mobile commerce in the years ahead. Since all the data and forecasting is provided within the presentation, I'll just highlight the key trends Mary identifies: Mobile Internet usage is and will be bigger than most think Apple mobile share is driving the platform change from desktop to mobile and should s...
October 28, 2009
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Posted by
Caroline Zenss ·
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Have you ever wondered if your website reflects best practices? And is there such a thing as usability standards in e-commerce?
Google returns 3.66 million results for "e-commerce usability"; 4.46 million for "e-commerce best practices"; and 10.6 million for "e-commerce information architecture". There is clearly an impressive amount of information out there, but no straight answer.
When designing an e-commerce site for your consumers (because really, this is who it should be all about), keep in mind that their motivation to buy something from you is influe...
October 21, 2009
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Posted by
Corey Gale ·
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OK, so maybe you’re behind the curve, but it’s still not too late. Even now there are a lot of things that you can do to ensure that this Holiday season is an improvement on the 2008 holiday season. While the recession is not over yet, and the NRF still expects a 1% decline in 2009 Holiday sales compared to 2008, there are indications that things are going to turn around for retailers. Jeff Roster from Gartner recently blogged about the recovery and it’s likely impact on retail. He came to some interesting conclusions based on reading the NRF’s 2009 Holiday forecast, including:
The ...
October 20, 2009
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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eMarketer reported last week that data from comScore, GroupM and M80 indicates there is a clear link between social media marketing and consumers' response to paid search advertisements. Results from this collected data show that the use of social media and paid search as a combined marketing strategy is more effective in attracting consumers than paid search alone. The article states, The research firms found a 19-percentage-point lift in searches on the campaign brand among users who saw social media relevant to the brand in addition to the campaign’s paid search ads compared with ...
October 19, 2009
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Posted by
Caroline Zenss ·
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If you are thinking about creating or renewing your e-commerce presence, what comes to your mind ? Features or user experience ? Robust e-commerce or nice branding ? If you are a business owner, a merchandiser or an IT guy/gal, you may pick technology. If you are UX person like me, you may think that creativity should always come first. Branding covers your company's logo, key messaging, imagery and graphics, even your domain names. They all convey the company's unique personality, e-commerce included.Establishing a strong brand for your online shoppers will ultimately drive sales (assuming t...
October 15, 2009
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Posted by
Donna Remillard ·
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Anyone who knows me understands that I’m a huge advocate of Microsites. So when I recently came across an IMedia Connection post, by Sean X Cummings who described microsites as the ‘bane of the online space’, it peaked my interest In essence, his self proclaimed ‘rant’ described them as expensive, resource hogs, that become orphans almost overnight.
Now that post may be a bit dated, but I did some more searching and his sentiment is not entirely uncommon nor untrue. In fact, there are lots of microsites wasting away out there. It’s a little sad actually, when you think about the imagina...
October 13, 2009
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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On October 1 Forrester Research published a report titled How Email Marketers Should Capitalize On Youth Communication Patterns. The report offers some interesting insights for ecommerce marketers looking to target this market segment since it touches on the viral communications patterns of youth and how incorporating viral strategies into email campaigns can help to improve engagement with this market. And since engagement is a key component of social commerce, ecommerce marketers should take note. According to Forrester, there are some key differences in how youth use email versus adults: ...
October 5, 2009
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Posted by
Corey Gale ·
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One of the big e-commerce challenges facing retailers and CPGs today is that they want rich and engaging e-commerce experiences that are unique to their own brands. However our customer feedback has shown us that their desire to create unique experiences is tempered by the fact that custom e-commerce solutions can be expensive in terms of resources and budget, and often have longer deployment timelines than the customer is comfortable with.
For that reason some of the out-of-the-box SAAS/On-Demand e-commerce offerings have been able to gain traction in the market. But our customers are t...
October 5, 2009
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Posted by
Corey Gale ·
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With the recent announcement of the launch of our new CommerceLive offering, we thought it would be beneficial to explain some of the underlying market conditions which led to the creation of CommerceLive.
With many retailers being forced to tighten their belts or even to close stores in response to the recent economic downturn, the web channel remains a bright spot for retailers and CPGs and provides an opportunity to offset losses by other channels.
Despite Forrester’s recent prediction (Q1 2009) that e-commerce growth would be flat in 2009, they are still predicting that it will pick ...
October 2, 2009
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Posted by
Donna Remillard ·
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I just got back from the Shop.org Annual Summit in Las Vegas, where we, Cactus Commerce, launched our new CommerceLive solution. Billed as the conference requiring ‘Mandatory Attendance’ it certainly was the mandatory event to be at this year. This blog post is a bit long, but there was really so much valuable information at the show, I wanted to capture and share some of it.
According to Rich Last, Chairman of Shop.org and VP at JC Penney, there was a record crowd, with more than 2600 attendees and 150 exhibitors. Interestingly there were 16% more retail attendees, backing up his st...
September 30, 2009
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Posted by
Christine Rozak ·
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Last week, we launched our new CommerceLive Solution in Vegas. It was a huge success and the buzz is building! “So What IS CommerceLive”, you ask? Here’s what the buzz is all about!CommerceLive is a B2C cross channel solution that delivers packaged advantages with custom solution flexibility. Simply put, it is the next evolution in e-commerce. It’s about knowing that your customers shop across channels, and understanding that they spend up to 30% more when they do.It’s about creating a consistent brand experience, and integrating online, offline and mobile marketing initiatives.It’s abou...
September 22, 2009
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Posted by
Christine Rozak ·
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CommerceLive - the next evolution in e-commerce - launched today at Shop.Org. CommerceLive is a B2C, cross channel solution that delivers pre-packaged advantages with customer-specific solution flexibility. We all know that when it comes to online shopping - one size does not fit all. The same can be said for e-commerce platforms. CommerceLive bridges the gap that exists today between SAAS and custom platforms - offering a truly unique e-commerce experience.
Are you looking to get online quickly with a differentiated offering?Are you looking to excite, attract and engage your customers?...
September 9, 2009
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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In the latest Microsoft Commerce Server partner newsletter, there are 8 new case studies noted as well as 7 articles detailing the latest and greatest in terms of new Commerce Server deployments.
As one of the leading Commerce Server partners in the world, we certainly understand what all the fuss is about! Commerce Server enables robust and scalable B2X e-commerce scenarios. Since August of 2007, Cactus Commerce has strategically collaborated with Microsoft to help shape Commerce Server product innovation through our unique and deep understanding of e-commerce and digital marketing. The r...
August 27, 2009
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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We're down to the last few days of August! Don't fret. Fall brings lots of good things including back to school :-) as well as the next Shop.org annual summit. Have you checked out the slate of great speakers this year? If not, visit www.shop.org/web/summit09/speakers for more information.
We're very happy to announce that we will be exhibiting in the Microsoft booth #207 where we'll be showcasing some pretty cool stuff. More to come on that later. But for now though, check out the Shop.org website and drop us a note if you plan on attending. Hope to see you there!
...
August 19, 2009
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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A new article by emarketer.com suggests that dedicated links that allow e-mail subscribers to easily “forward to a friend” (FTAF) or “share with your network” (SWYN) are two ways marketers can help their messages go viral. While forwarding an email link to a friend may be considered old school in light of the newer social network sharing options, it remains in the lead with 41% of retailers choosing this option. In contrast only 6% SWYN, while 7% offer both options. SWYN will undoubtedly increase as more and more retailers take the social networking plunge. To read the full article, visit htt...
August 18, 2009
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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We've heard you loud and clear! Customers want in on the upcoming Commerce Server 2009 Developer Training Course! We're happy to announce that effective immediately customer registrations will be accepted for the September 29 - October 1 Commerce Server 2009 Developer Training Course in Gatineau, Quebec. For more information, visit http://www.cactuscommerce.com/services/Pages/cs09training.aspx
...
August 18, 2009
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Posted by
Kelly Andrew Heard ·
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Shop.Org recently released their Merchandising Report by Forrester Research. The Merchandising Report was the second in a series called The State of Online Retailing 2009 and highlights priorities for online retailers either this calendar year or planned for calendar year 2010.
The report identifies the following areas which retailers are turning their focus toward:
Checkout process redesign
Improved product detail pages
Site search results & controls
Home page
Better Help and FAQs
In order to help facilitate this shift in priorities, let's take a look at how Commerce S...
August 14, 2009
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Posted by
Christine Rozak ·
0 Comments·
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Most parents can relate to the Staples Back to School campaign jingle “It’s the most wonderful time of the year”. Until recently, most kids haven’t shared in their parent's enthusiasm for the Back to School season, and everything it implies. Many of us have experienced the reluctant feet dragging through the mall, or the constant bribery to ensure your kids go Back to School with at least the basics.
Now retailers are getting smarter, and engaging students directly in the Back to School shopping season. This season, savvy retailers are introducing social shopping in their on-line stores, in ...
August 6, 2009
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
1 Comment·
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Welcome to the new Cactus Commerce website and our company blog, Cactus Connects. As a leader in developing and implementing innovative cross channel e-commerce solutions, we’ve helped clients successfully connect with their customers around the world.
We invite you to explore the new website and blog to learn about our solution offerings. We're an interesting and vocal mix of e-commerce strategists, creative technologists, and experience designers. Quite simply, we design, develop and manage e-commerce solutions. E-commerce is our sole focus.
We’re also very happy to unveil our new Cac...
August 5, 2009
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
0 Comments·
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Well maybe not so much of a shocking statement as it once was. Social media has pretty much disintermediated traditional brand management allowing us common folk to broadcast our views on our favorite, and not so favorite brands. Consider the wildly popular “United breaks Guitars” video posted to YouTube. Singer/songwriter Dave Carroll had an unfortunate customer experience with United when his cherished Taylor guitar was severely damaged due to alleged reckless baggage handling. For nine months, he tried to obtain some form of compensation and was finally told in no uncertain terms that the...
July 24, 2009
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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Wetpaint and Altimeter just released their ‘Engagementdb Ranking the Top 100 Global Brands’ report. As the title suggests the report scores or ranks the social media engagement of the world’s 100 most valuable brands as measured by BusinessWeek / Interbrand “Best Global Brands 2008” rankings. The goal of the study was to measure how deeply engaged the top 100 global brands are in social media channels. The report offers great glimpses into the social media culture at such brands as Starbucks and Dell; however I question the conclusion the authors have drawn.
“While much has been writte...
July 17, 2009
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Posted by
Corey Gale ·
0 Comments·
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Some of the most popular features with consumers who shop on eCommerce sites are ones that incorporate User Generated Content. In particular Product Reviews and Ratings are consistently rated as highly valuable to both retailers and consumers. As the number of sites offering Product Reviews have increased, the credibility of online reviews has grown as well. In a recent global study by Nielson, they found that the number of people who now trust posted online reviews was 70% compared with 61% in 2007.
This has led to an increase in a “stealth marketing” practice known as “astroturfing” w...
July 16, 2009
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan ·
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Conde Naste is offering an e-commerce widget on its Epicurious.com website to let browsers 'click to purchase' recommended wines. While Conde Naste will get a small percentage of the transaction, the real opportunity lies in advertising dollars. Winemakers can pay to have their wine offered as an appropriate choice for a given recipe, as determined by keyword matching. Given the sophistication of the Epicurious.com audience, do you think a pay-for-play wine recommendation will work? To read the full article, click here http://bit.ly/1egoX8...
June 26, 2009
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Posted by
Donna Remillard ·
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The Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition was held this year at the Boston Convention Center from June 15-18th and had a great turnout with both interesting sessions and a packed floor of exhibitors. This year saw 350 exhibitors, 179 expert speakers, and approximately 5,000 attendees.
How to Out Run the Bear
The theme of the conference this year was all about not only surviving the economic storm but rising above and coming out ahead when the storm clears.
Patrick Byrne, CEO, Overstock.com kicked off the conference with an interesting keynote, where he led off with an old jo...
June 3, 2009
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
0 Comments·
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Your company has decided to launch a blog. You could have a whole slew of different reasons for launching a blog, but the end-goal is to use it as a way to engage your customers in conversations. There are key steps to take in launching a blog, and not of it is really rocket science: Set objectives Identify your target audience Select author(s) who are committed to blogging regularly Ensure you have an executive to champion the effort Select a blogging platform and social widgets Create an awareness strategy Create a blog (and/or social media) policy That last step ...
June 2, 2009
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Posted by
Corey Gale ·
0 Comments·
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A lot has been said in the press recently about the commoditization of eCommerce software, and software in general. The video below features Gene Alvarez from Gartner discussing this exact issue and what retailers can do to turn this to their advantage. For some time we at Cactus Commerce have been saying the same thing; that in order to battle commoditization, retailers need to turn to innovation and differentiation to succeed.
Gene Alvarez’s message is that in hard economic times, when most retailers are closing stores, eCommerce remains an opportunity. The main reason eCommerce is ...
May 19, 2009
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Posted by
Corey Gale ·
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While advances in credit cards like “Chip and PIN” technology have greatly reduced card fraud at Point of Sale, the same can not be said for On-line, Catalog or Phone Sales. The anonymous nature of these kinds of transactions make them more attractive to fraudsters. This combined with the fact that Chip and PIN and other new security technologies can’t currently be used over the internet has led to big increase in Card Not Present, or CNP fraud, as it is known in the industry. CNP fraud has been growing every year and now accounts for over 50% of all credit card fraud.
Visa and a company c...
May 15, 2009
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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According to Compete.com, Twitter is now the third most visited social networking website behind Facebook and MySpace. As a real-time social networking and micro-blogging tool, Twitter offers tremendous opportunities for businesses to improve and deepen interactions with customers. These opportunities translate well into e-commerce business scenarios as well.
Here’s how Twitter can help your e-business:
Create brand advocates while humanizing your brand (e.g. Marvel Entertainment, airlines like Jet Blue, sports team Chicago Bulls, electronics stores like Best Buy)
Facilitate customer s...
May 13, 2009
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Posted by
Corey Gale ·
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There is a lot going on right now in the world of Search. There are many new services popping up all the time, that strive to make search better, faster, smarter and more relevant to the individual through personalization. We’ve all heard of the next “Google-Killer” that never quite seems to get going. Most recently start-ups like Cuil and Wikia created a buzz, but failed to live up to the hype. Meanwhile Google still has over 63% of the search market share, and doesn’t look like it is going anywhere.
Google is able to maintain it’s supremacy at least partly through constant innovation...
May 13, 2009
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Posted by
Caroline Zenss ·
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Content is probably the most commonly overlooked area in Web design, and more particularly in e-commerce. Even though consumers rate it as an important factor in their purchase decision, retailers don’t seem to know how to take advantage of content in their online presence. Inevitably, the lack of content will impact sales. In 2008, Lauren Freedman, President at E-Tailing Group pointed out that “79 % (of surveyed consumers) say they rarely or never purchase a product online without complete product information”.
Content is key to the experience on your site. It’s going to attract visitors...
May 12, 2009
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Wanda Cadigan ·
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In a recent Internet Retailer article published, Gene Alvarez, vice president and retail analyst at research and advisory firm Gartner Inc. was quoted as saying “Over the next three years, we’ll see 25 to 30% of the top-tier retailers with API practices.” He also added that he’s advising several consumer-oriented and business-to-business clients on API strategy options.
Like the ‘Glasnost’ period of openness and transparency introduced to Russia by Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s, some retailers are throwing back their e-commerce covers and exposing traditionally proprietary information in...
May 12, 2009
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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There are so many resources “out there” on social media best practices, techniques, do’s and don’ts, case studies and more. At times, it can be hard to know which are the really interesting, relevant books to read. Plus, wouldn’t it be great if you could have a great face-to-face dialogue with others on your opinion about some of these books? Enter the Ottawa Social Media Book Club organized by Ottawa Web 2.0 and social media natives Kelly Rusk and Scott Lake. Book club members meet on a regular basis to discuss books related to the ever-evolving social media trends and practices of today. ...
May 5, 2009
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Melany Gallant ·
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An article by ecommerce-guide.com,an Internet.com channel, cites recent data from Nielsen Online indicating more than 60 percent of Twitter users stopped using the social networking site a month after joining. Data from Nielsen Online also reveals that while… Twitter's website had more than 7 million unique visitors in February this year compared to 475,000 in February a year ago …it still has a limited growth potential unless it can establish a higher rate of user loyalty. A lot of the hype surrounding Twitter has come from the onslaught of celebrities joining the free social network...
April 29, 2009
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Posted by
Melany Gallant ·
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Shanghai consumers will soon be able to pay for their Big Macs and Grande lattes using their mobile phones at McDonald’s and Starbucks.
An article published by China Retail News reports that China Mobile Shanghai will make the technology available in the coming months.
The new SIM card that integrates the payment function will go into volume production at the end of April or early May. The user experience will be tested by an invited group of users before major roll out.
Article excerpt:
…users can complete the small-scale payments by placing the mobile phones near the card reader. ...
April 29, 2009
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Posted by
Cam Stevenson ·
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Those of us who have been in the Mobility game for a long time have waited patiently for the Mobile Revolution, with a certainty that it would eventually arrive. And it appears (thanks mainly to Apple) that it's finally here, but perhaps not quite in the form that we expected.If I think back to the Newton days, we all imagined that eventually everyone would carry some PDA form factor device which would largely replace desktop systems both for creating as well as consuming information. If I think back a little harder, I remember how excruciatingly painful it was to, say, take notes using a s...
April 9, 2009
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Posted by
Donna Remillard ·
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I stole that tag line, but I still love it. Mobile has been a buzz word for a while in the retail industry. Seems like retailers and customers alike are just chomping at the bit to get in on this game, but to date there just hasn’t been any compelling ROI for retailers to justify the leap and customer experience in this area has been lacking to say the least.
So if you haven’t already seen the Cactus Soundriff mobile solution that was launched at NRF, we tried to take a different approach and provide real value to it’s consumers. It’s not mobile browsing. It’s using the mobile to pr...
March 24, 2009
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Posted by
Donna Remillard ·
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So just when I thought I was finally getting the most out of my search with IE 8’s new search tools, I come across an article about how much I’m missing in the Deep Web and find there’s a army of research going on and specialized search providers to access the ocean of data I’m not getting.
The Deep Web (also called Deepnet, the invisible Web, dark Web or the hidden Web) refers to web content that is not part of the surface web which is indexed by standard search engines
Last summer, Google’s search engine passed a milestone. It added the one trillionth address to the list of Web pages...
March 23, 2009
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Posted by
Donna Remillard ·
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I attended The MIX09 conference for web designers and developer’s that was held last week in Las Vegas.
There were some interesting sessions and announcements and I’ll comment on a few below, but if you want more detail you can check out the MIX09 site and see the video playback of any of the keynote presentations or sessions here.
Announcements -
Commerce Server 2009
Although briefly, Scott Guthrie announced during his keynote on day 1, the release of Commerce Server 2009. Cactus also gave a session on the topic of a ‘Next Generation’ e-Commerce experience highlighting Comme...
February 23, 2009
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Posted by
Donna Remillard ·
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This is the most brilliant and funny widget I’ve seen yet, so I had to share.
Burger King put out a viral Facebook app (Whopper Sacrifice) that rewards you with a free sandwich if you delete ten of your Facebook friends. All kinds of buckets of unpaid media (online outlets from CNET to Scientific American; the LA Times to the NY Times picked up this story).
So what’s the message here? In these tough economic times, everything comes at a cost. And everything has a value (the BK app puts the value of your friends at $0.37).
Unfortunately I didn’t get to see this first hand. By the ...
February 23, 2009
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Posted by
Donna Remillard ·
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I’m a huge fan of Widgets and Gadgets. Not because I use them so much, but because of the possibilities.
There’s a lot out there, but much of it is pretty amateur. Still the ideas are good and illustrates plenty of opportunities for retailers to connect with their customers and interact with them in a way that the customer finds convenient for them.
comScore estimates that 625 million people worldwide viewed or engaged with a widget in June of 2008. According to Forrester Research, 59 percent of adult social networking site users and 64 percent of youth social networking users use widg...
February 20, 2009
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Posted by
Donna Remillard ·
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I came across an interesting demo of a Click-to-buy interactive video created by a company called Video Infusion. It’s really worth viewing, so click on the link yourself and see how easy it is to add items to your cart and purchase directly from the video. Very nice!
https://www.viewclickbuy.com/demo.htm
And here’s another example from the same company of a Heinekin commercial with links to purchase grocery items and Ralph Lauren clothing … http://viewclickbuy.com/heineken.htm
There are a number of solution providers in this space, including Tailgate Technologies who have some on...
January 30, 2009
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Posted by
Donna Remillard ·
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LiveJournal Tags: Trends,Marketing,Video
The success of YouTube’s “click-to-buy’ ads program launched last fall in the U.S. and U.K, has led to the announcement this week that they are expanding this program into Germany, Spain and the Netherlands (not available in Canada yet, so we can’t check it out from here).
The program allows viewers to click on ads to buy content related to what they’re watching. The program started with ads that embed links from Amazon and iTunes on videos.
YouTube said click-to-buy ads had helped boost sales of Monty Python DVDs "23,000%," promptin...