Altavia Spindigital » E-commerce

Suspension

admin — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 08:45:33 +0000

Bonjour à tous,

Le blog Altavia Spindigital
Le twitter Altavia Spindigital
et La page Facebook Altavia Spindigital
sont suspendus jusqu’à nouvel ordre.

Fil Twitter intéressant sur le digital : twitter.com/spinjutsu

en vous remerciant.

;
L’équipe Altavia Spindigital.

Lancement de Shopping Flux / Interview d’Olivier Lévy

admin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 08:23:33 +0000

Vu sur : wizishop.com

Olivier Lévy, créateur du célèbre blog et de l’agence de référencement naturel Blog Ecommerce, vient de lancer aujourd’hui même un tout nouveau produit permettant aux e-commerçants de gérer et d’exporter plus facilement leur flux catalogue produits vers les principaux comparateurs de prix et market places.

A cette occasion, quelques questions lui ont été posées sur ce nouveau projet…

Olivier, en complément de tes prestations de référencement naturel, tu viens de lancer un nouveau produit : Shopping Flux. Peux-tu nous en dire plus ?

Shopping Flux est un logiciel qui permet aux ecommerçants d’envoyer rapidement et de façon automatique leur catalogue produits à un maximum de comparateurs de prix.

Nous avons aussi intégré un système qui permettra aux ecommerçants de calculer leur retour sur investissement par produit, par comparateur ou même par produit en fonction du comparateur (!!). Car vous verrez qu’un produit peut être rentable sur un comparateur de prix, mais pas sur un autre.

Quels sont les comparateurs, guide d’achat et places de marché qui sont disponibles sur Shopping Flux ?

Sur Shopping Flux, pour l’instant sont présents : Leguide.com, Shopzilla.fr, Shopping.com, Kelkoo.fr, Pricerunner, Idealo et SonicPrice (ce qui répond à plus de 80% du secteur).

Nous prévoyons d’ajouter un nouveau comparateur par semaine, minimum.

Nous allons aussi nous ouvrir aux places de marché. La première sera PriceMinister.

Enfin, Shopping Flux est compatible avec Long Tail Creator, un autre nouveau logiciel que nous avons développé chez Blog Ecommerce et qui permet de créer automatiquement des liens externes ciblés vers son ecommerce.

Est-ce que ton nouvel outil est réservé aux clients de Blog ecommerce ou bien est-ce ouvert à tous ?

C’est bien sûr ouvert à tous. Notre cible est tous les petits ecommerçants qui souhaitent aller plus loin dans leur stratégie e-marketing : donc publier de façon rentable sur les comparateurs de prix.

Combien coûte Shopping Flux ?

49€/mois, sachant que les 100 premiers bénéficieront du prix lancement, soit 39€/mois. Les wizishopiens bénéficient aussi de cette réduction, grâce au partenariat mis en place.

Est-ce que tu nous réserves encore des surprises cette année ?

Nous préparons encore des surprises pour les ecommerçants. Nous avons maintenant les moyens en interne de développer, soit des outils qui existent déjà, mais à un prix plus bas (comme Shopping Flux), soit des outils inédits (comme Long Tail Creator).

Après avoir gagné la confiance de nos clients ou des lecteurs de notre blog (www.blog-ecommerce.com), l’idée est d’aller encore plus loin qu’uniquement notre valeur ajoutée et expertise en référencement naturel : nous voulons qu’à chacune des problématiques que rencontre un petit ecommerçant, nous soyons en mesure de lui proposer soit une de nos prestations de services (ex : référencement naturel), soit un de nos partenaires (exemple : Wizishop), soit un de nos outils (exemple : Shopping Flux).

Nous savons que les petits ecommerçants sont en manque d’informations claires, précises et expertes en ecommerce : nous essayons de faire partie des agences qui y remédient.

Vendr

admin — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:30:26 +0000

Vu sur : swiss-miss.com

Tired of selling your products on someone else’s platform and your visitors leaving your site? Have you been toying with the idea of adding a shop to your website but then never got around to do it as the endeavour seems too daunting? Yup? Same here.

Well, I have come across a fantastic new service called Vendr which lets you add a “store” button to your blog or website, and your store will simply pop-up over your content — no more sending your customers elsewhere to make a purchase. Vendr functions as a part of your existing site. An elegant overlay will dim the background and light up the store to allow for a compatible look with your existing site design.

With Vendr you can sell hard goods and digital products. You can sell pictures, designs or music. You can even define different digital downloads for different product options. e.g. Hi Res, Low Res.

If you need to track inventory you can with Vendr’s simple and straight forward inventory management options. They can also alert you when you are getting low on certain products.

They really thought of everything as you can also create coupons for store wide, category or specific product use. Set expiration dates or limit number of uses. Its your call.

Vendr is integrated with Paypal and Google Checkout the two most widely used payment platforms for accepting credit cards and online payment for stores and ecommerce platforms.

How To Engage Customers In Your E-Commerce Website

admin — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 08:07:14 +0000

Vu sur : smashingmagazine.com

One of the most influential factors in our buying decisions is the opinions of our friends and relatives. Likewise, a large majority of online shoppers now trust what other customers say about the products they buy more than the e-tailers themselves. The reason is that we trust people who are “on our side,” even if we do not know them personally.

This attitude was described as the “Amazon effect” by Joshua Porter in his book Designing for the Social Web. He observed during his tests that people always started shopping on Amazon first. Their main reason was not that Amazon was better or that they had an Amazon account; they simply knew that on Amazon they could always find trustworthy information provided by people like them. They wanted to know the “truth,” not an idealistic vision of the product decorated by marketing cliches.

Amazon’s verified purchase tag increases the trustworthiness of a review.

Google search results show ratings.

[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that there is a Smashing eBook Series? Book #1 is Professional Web Design, 242 pages for just $9,90.]

Positive And Negative Effects

User feedback like Amazon’s could prove to be a valuable service for your customers and could trigger several positive effects. It doesn’t really matter how much information you present about your product, it will still be biased by its nature. Reviews with personal stories and remarks from people who just had an experience with your product, though, can elicit trust in a way that a simple product info page could never do. Detailed information about the reviewer creates a personality (and obviously a realistic story about the product) with whom we can identify. Good stories are easier to understand and remember. They show us how a product works in the real world and with real usage. They also provide a sense of objectivity and authenticity to potential customers.

First of all, reviews and ratings generate conversions as in the case of Hayneedle (formerly Netshops), which increased its sales by 26% after displaying user feedback. This percentage could be even higher, according to PowerReviews. While the fear that negative feedback might harm sales is not entirely unfounded, do not be too concerned, because reviewers are twice as likely to write positive reviews than negative ones. Even if you lose some sales of your mediocre products, you’ll win in the end because you will have sold many more of your superior ones.

Moreover, negative reviews are not all that bad. As John McAteer, Google’s retail industry director, says, “No one trusts all positive reviews.” In the absence of negative reviews, visitors will assume that all of your reviews are fake. No service or product is perfect. Potential customers want to know what could go wrong with it. But if they cannot sympathize with a negative reviewer, they may be inclined to purchase your product. (Also, see also further reasons.)

People sometimes want to read only negative reviews because they already have a positive impression of a product and want to know about disadvantages (intentionally or unintentionally) not mentioned by the provider. An unfair negative review could entice people to write positive reviews to mitigate the negative one and defend their favorite.

A review on Hammocks.com (a sub-site of Hayneedle).

Getting quality feedback could help you cut back on the number of products returned, and you might want to think about eliminating products that have gotten low ratings and focus instead on popular ones. Customer contributions could keep product pages fresh, which is important to young shoppers, who seek out social content and customer ratings. Users tend to have less trust in outdated reviews. Perhaps a product has been improved but is not reflected in the post. Or vice versa: perhaps a newer version of the product introduced some new bugs which haven’t been discovered yet.

An online shop with fresh BlackBerry reviews. The page would be even better if newer content appeared at the top.

Content and good keywords could help your search engine optimization efforts as well. To allow Google to find everything in one place, present all comments and reviews on one single page — very much like Amazon does it. Also, keep in mind that in most cases people do not mind scrolling, whereas clicking and waiting for content to load can be irritating.

User-generated content has some further risks, too: for instance, competitors could invade your website to plant fake reviews. To avoid this, moderate the review section and invite users to report any concern they have with a review. Moderating reviews is a powerful tool, but you need to make sure that you use it responsibly. If you are not careful, you could develop the habit of deleting reviews that actually do serve your business. Moderate only those reviews that state untruthful things or that are abusive or do not contain any helpful information. Otherwise, simply adding your opinion to a comment is better.

Be transparent, open-minded and authentic: reply to the negative comment and explain why in your opinion it is wrong or what other features of the product or service could mitigate the negative experience the user had. In fact, if your comment is meaningful and helpful, you may be able to win loyal customers by providing them with alternative options that are perfectly tailored to their interests. If you have a substantial group of enthusiastic reviewers, the good reviews and positive effects will drown out the negative reviews.

In the following sections, we’ll analyze how you can make it easy for users to give quality feedback and share it with other visitors. We’ll focus on ratings, reviews, the interaction facilitated by them, as well as some aspects of sharing. Obviously, there are many other ways to involve users (and we may get to them in one of the following articles), but mastering these will boost your business.

These recommendations mainly concern usability. Obviously, they alone won’t get people to immediately start writing many reviews and rate your products. Use offline and online marketing techniques to get all cylinders firing, and then build on whatever momentum you generate. Contact buyers after a sale to get their input. Use coupons, incentives, contests, prizes and email campaigns to motivate them. Implementing these techniques is a must if your target audience is not already passionate about your product.

Ratings

Collecting ratings is a quick and dirty way to collect valuable product information from users. Ratings can be given in a second, and so they do not interrupt the user’s main activity and (usually) do not require them to log in. While ratings are a simple tool, make sure they are simple and straightforward: even tiny deviations from conventions can affect their usefulness.

For maximum effectiveness, it seems reasonable to use simple metaphors such as stars for ratings (1 — 5) and thumbs up / thumbs down for voting (vote up, vote down). A website with loyal or tech-savvy users might try to add value or humor by using symbols other than stars or hands, but sometimes it’s just not worth getting creative. A particularly educated or expert audience might appreciate 10 stars. It is probably not a good idea to use an unusual number of stars, like seven, which will rather confuse most people.

Enable people to rate with one click, and light up empty stars (or whatever your symbol is) on mouse-over to suggest that the area is clickable. Even if the function of ratings is quite obvious, help out visitors with description of each level, like “Perfect,” “Good” and “Miserable.”

ibeatyou has unique rating symbols and contains text descriptions.

Ask users to rate using a very direct, precise language: nothing can beat the good old “rate the product” wording which is as clear as it can get. Communicate clearly what users are being asked to rate: depending on the current context, it may be not clear if you are asking to rate a brand, a product or customer service. And make sure that rating labels are unambiguous for novice users, too. Even if users understand the rating system, they may not know whether the ratings have been given by customers, the website owner, the manufacturer or independent experts.

When users have clicked on a rating, clearly show the results, for instance using a different color like RYZ does, which clarifies that their vote has been accounted for and prevents them from voting again.

RYZ clearly displays ratings using various colors.

Shopzilla uses custom but easily understandable icons.

Indicate the number of votes each rating has received, because one five-star rating from an enthusiastic user isn’t comparable with a hundred five-star ratings from different customers. The relevance of the voting depends on the number of votes given to the product. It may be a good idea to show every rating tally in a small table, as iTunes does, because slight variations could reinforce the belief among users that the opinions of customers are balanced.

Amazon displays detailed ratings right in the listing.

Always show ratings in sections where you actually display the main description of the product, and allow users to order and filter by rating on the search result pages. Position the ratings beside or close to the product name to enable quick scanning. The information is key, so let users find it easily.

Ratings appear near product names on Argos. The “Customer top rated” tab is an easy way to see what’s popular.

Getting Reviews

It is cruical to make the process of adding review as easy as possible. Users will not be very motivated to contribute anything at the beginning, so allow them to write a review simply by hitting a ‘write a review’-button located close to the ratings at the top of the page. If your product has variations or versions, indicate which one they’re reviewing.

You could ask customers to write reviews by e-mailing them, but be careful with timing. Customers may need time to form an opinion about your product. With an electronic device, they may know whether they like it within days. With a book, they may need weeks or months. In the latter case, asking for a review after a week could only annoy the buyer who will be very likely to block or ignore your e-mails in the future.

The “Write a review” link on Barnes & Noble.

Amazon’s simple review interface.

While the quality of reviews is crucial, you might want to invite users to choose from a predefined list of pros and cons, allowing them to suggest additional ones, which become visible after you moderate them. Letting users set their profile — such as by indicating whether they are a “heavy user,” “occasional user,” etc. — and explaining how to use a product best could give customers some useful hints. Your reviewers will probably not be professional writers; give them hints and tips on how to write a good review, even showing examples if possible.

iTunes shows tips to reviewers.

Defining pros and cons on Compact Appliance.

Users should be able to preview their own review before submitting it. Let the users correct mistakes and information that they provided. What sounded harsh in the beginning, may have turned out to be a minor issue in the end, compared with all advantages a certain product has given the customer in the end. Also, don’t forget to mention how and when the review will be process and published. Will it be moderated or will it appear right away? Provide users with a genuine estimate, not vague terms.

Compact Appliance asks for additional information from the reviewer. Requring too much is not a very good approach, but potential customers will be able to get a better understanding of the reviewer, his environment, location and interests.

How To Display Reviews

Being optimistic, you are probably prepared to receive dozens of reviews on your page, so making them easily scannable is crucial. Ratings can be displayed in a number of ways: apart from an overall overview of ratings, featuring an average score, the number of votes and their distribution, you also need to clearly display single ratings and reviews. The latter should display not only a review itself, but also maybe a summary or an excerpt, date of the review and as much information about the reviewer as possible.

The truth is that potential customers need to be able to connect with the person who provided the review; an anonymous review may be helpful but it is not trustworthy. Once we connect a review of the person with his personal activities, his work or his professional information, the information suddently seems much more reliable and trustworthy.

The well-structured review on Yahoo Shopping.

Display the author’s name as a link and the most important information about them, such as location, rank and type of user. By clicking on the link and scanning their other reviews, users can evaluate the reviewer’s trustworthiness. You might also want to reward active reviewers. Give them a separate sub-page where they can introduce themselves and show all of their reviews at once. You could also display a list of top reviewers in the sidebar. Providing bonuses or discounts for most active users is a bit tricky as it may influence their objectivity in the reviews and have biased reviews as a result. And people are damn good at detecting bias and losing confidence in a company.

A introduction of a reviewer on Rate it all

Getting in touch with Rate it all reviewers is easy. They are real indeed.

Comet displays the reviewer’s name and location, which may help users evaluate the usefulness of their opinion.

It is important to communicate to the customer the opinion of other customers about a review. If many users find the review useful, reply to it or sympathize with it in any possible way, the user will gain trust about the authenticity and objectiveness of the review and of the reviewer. Display how many people found the review useful and also how many didn’t find it useful. You can even sort your review by their “usefulness ratio”. Offer users a possibility to reply, report a concern or answer the “was this useful?” question at the bottom of the review.

Compact Appliance makes helpfulness information visible but doesn’t overemphasize it.

Amazon has tiny buttons to gain feedback about the reviews.

Being able to sort and filter reviews enables the quick scan of reviews. The most obvious options to offer for sorting are helpfulness and rating. But there are many more options, like the type of user and date, such as in the case of Buzzillions.

Buzzillions offers several ways to sort and filter. Key information — such as pros, cons, best uses and bottom line — catch the eye.

Another example by Buzzillions uses information provided by the customer to display the most popular products.

Rotten Tomatoes uses percentage points to measure quality.

A complex but well-designed rating interface on Gamespot

Interaction Generated By Reviews

Reciprocity is a most important concept related to social interaction. People who read reviews are often tempted to react to them. They may think that getting this valuable information for free obliges them to give something back to the community. Whether a review or feedback to the reviewer, and whether small or big, it does not matter. Enabling feedback on reviews could minimize the effect of rants or unfair reviews that people feel the need to rate down or comment on.

Voting on reviews could enhance the quality and trustworthiness of reviews. You could present reviews that are ranked highest for usefulness at the top. Voting provides feedback to reviewers and encourages reviewers to engage in healthy competition for reputation and the attention of visitors. The tool is most frequently used by people who are not customers as a way to express their opinion. Allowing them to vote encourages them to get involved.

Rate it all allows users to comment and send detailed yet simple feedback using the “Helpful,” “Funny,” “Agree,” and “Disagree” buttons.

Commenting on reviews brings real interaction and adds genuine value to the reviews in most cases. People can use them to give quality feedback to reviewers, correct mistakes, recommend other products, link to useful pages or write full reviews about related products. Rather than delete negative reviews, you could use comments as an honest way to respond to criticism of your products.

Comment threads for reviews can be transformed into real conversations that explore the pros and cons of the product in a much more interesting and natural way. Use indentation to display replies, or show them in a simple sequence with a “Respond to this” link.

Conclusion

Making it easy for users to keep your product pages alive is a crucial aspect of an e-commerce website. Your environment should be inviting enough to involve your loyal customers as well as unhappy customers to submit their reviews. Negative reviews can be as useful as positive ones, or even more helpful. In particular, if you respond to reviews, addressing issues and suggesting solutions, you can easily turn a negative comment in a positive one. And if your loyal customers support you, you gain an opportunity to elicit trust for customers that would probably dismiss your product page with perfect 5-star reviews. Once you have started with reviews, you could create a question and answer section, a tagging system, video reviews, marks for favorite content, product discussion forums and so on.

When you implement ratings and reviews, focusing on communication is critical. A visually adequate presentation is crucial to digesting this information. Apply patterns that best match the user’s mental process of digesting this information.

Ratings can stand on their own but could also be combined with reviews. Empty review sections and complicated forms will be significant barriers to success. Involve yourself in the communication threads and answer questions. Use social networking at the beginning, but support it with the authentic, genuine communication methods. When your system works as planned, focus on the reviewers; make your website a pleasant and encouraging place where users feel free to express their opinions.

Further Resources

User Generated Content: Product Ratings and Reviews

Fake User Reviews Can Really Hurt Your Brand

Letting Others Write Your Content

Write a Review Pattern (Yahoo)

Display a Review Pattern (Yahoo)

Yahoo rating pattern

Rating Examples 1

Rating Examples 2

Rating Examples 3

Displaying Share Icons

Why Do People Write Reviews

5 Ways Negative Reviews Are Good for Business

Improving Product Descriptions Using Competitor Customer Reviews

Ratings and Reviews Engage Your Visitors

Commenting on Reviews

(al)

Rung AndrásAndras Rung is a Hungarian usability expert who has worked for various institutions and companies since 2002. He is the co-author of the first Hungarian usability book and author of the usability blog Ergomania.

Showcase Of Big Online Stores

admin — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 07:45:21 +0000

Vu sur : noupe.com

By Tomas Laurinavicius

The main task of any store is to sell its products, so there is an important usability and user experience factor, making conversion rates and selling figures a primary consideration. However, marketing objectives often tend to conflict with design goals which way too often results in clumsy, overcrowded and busy e-commerce websites.

For this article, we researched current design patterns among the biggest and most popular online stores as well lesser known but professional outfits. The showcase below may not be very pretty, and we do not know how effective in terms of conversion rates they are, but because they exist, it is very likely to assume that they work one way or another.

Below, you’ll find 40+ online stores, with short observations on their design and usability. We hope this list helps you better understand the world of online shopping.

Content Sliders

Content sliders, also called slideshows or carousels, allow designers to squeeze more content into a block without cluttering space. They are also interactive.

Staples
Staples has a lot of white space and red accents. This store stands out for the unusual location of its navigation: the menu for its main products is in the left sidebar.

DealExtreme
DealExtreme uses mainly orange and blue in its design. All products appear with a short overview of the essential information.

Target.com
Target is an American retail company founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1902 as the Dayton Dry Goods Company. Target is the second-largest discount retailer in the US behind Walmart. Its design is very minimalist: a lot of white space and emphasis on big pictures.

HSN.com
The Home Shopping Network is a 24-hour basic cable shopping network that is accessible on cable, satellite and some terrestrial channels in the US. The company also operates HSN.com, an e-commerce operation. Its design is simple and colorful. On the main page is a big slider with pictures and special offers. To help you find what you want, HSN offers horizontal drop-down navigation at the top.

Very
Very.co.uk has a dark background with its logo repeated. We also get a big slider with the latest offers.

Puma Online Shop
Puma has some good design elements such as white space, large images and contrast. The modern drop-down navigation at the top makes it easy to find what you’re looking for.

Real.de
Real.de looks refreshing and catchy with its variations of blue. The easy modern navigation at the top and the slider on the home page beckon the user to take action.

Play.com
Play.com is an online retailer of DVDs, CDs, books, gadgets, video games, DRM-free MP3 downloads and other electronic products, as well as clothes and accessories. It has a very colorful and playful layout. Two colors dominate: blue in the logo and horizontal navigation (on hover), and orange also in the logo and in the product names and top navigation. The “Shopping Basket” is set off in light green.

Simplicity

The philosophy less is more is also followed by online stores. Simplicity done well highlights products and make them more attractive. It also creates contrast between less important and more important products.

ShopNBC
ShopNBC uses white space and gray gradients to make its design simple and easy to navigate.

Liverpool
Liverpool uses an extremely slim layout and a playful pink and white combination. Liverpool demonstrates that less is more while remaining professional.

Ozon.ru
Ozon.ru is light and simple. Browsing products is easy, but the small font sizes make it a little confusing.

Ashford
Ashford looks elegant and projects a high-end image. The simple silver, white and red keep the design tasteful.

Overstock
Overstock has a clean and simple layout, similar to that of Tesco. At the top is a big search field that lets users easily find the search options.

Next
Next has a dark layout with big pictures. For a fashion store, its layout is clean and elegant.

Dean & Deluca
Dean & Deluca is different than the other online stores here, with its unusual fonts and subtle dark-green and white combination.

NBA Store
This layout retains the NBA’s three essential colors: white, red and blue. One can find a lot of team logos. The store is easy to navigate, thanks to the drop-down navigation at the top and the useful menu on the left.

Argos
Argos is the largest general goods retailer in the UK, with 750 stores. It is unique among major retailers in the UK because it promotes goods to customers primarily through its catalogue.

Rounded Corners… Again

Good or bad: rounded corners are still popular and are used for an attractive and playful look. They are friendlier and less aggressive than sharp rectangles. Almost all stores use more than one color on rounded-corner elements.

eForCity
eForCity has bright fresh colors—orange, light green and blue—which help customers easily find darker-colored products.

Dial a Phone
Dial a Phone’s layout is colorful and confusing. A lot of offers are shown, and each of them is in a different color.

eToys.com
eToys’ layout is playful and reminds one of childhood with its red and blue combination. Toys are shown without ads or special offers—just the essential information.

QVC.com
QVC is a multi-national corporation that specializes in television home shopping. Its name stands for quality, value and convenience, the three pillars of the company’s vision. QVC uses big font size at the top for its navigation and a breadcrumb, helping users find what they want.

Lidl
Lidl is similar to ALDI (mentioned below) with its red, green and yellow combination. Lidl differs with its rounded corners and darker background.

Pixmania
Pixmania is a pan-European e-tailer of digital photography and consumer electronic goods. Pixmania has a colorful layout and broad category list, to the point of looking a bit confusing.

Walmart
Walmart is a US-based chain of large discount department stores. It is the world’s largest publicly incorporated company by revenue, according to Fortune Global 500’s 2008 report. Walmart’s online layout is slim compared to that of the other big online stores, which is good if the user is on a lower-resolution browser. Walmart also has breadcrumbs at the top, helping users remember where they are.

Portals

E-commerce portals are the most common design trend among e-commerce websites today. Shops are using a two or more columns layout, colorful illustrations, sliders and big navigation menus to make shopping online more easier.

ALDI
ALDI has subtle gradients and a simple layout. Clients can easily find what they’re looking for using the simple navigation at the top.

REWE
REWE stands out with its beautiful background and catchy product illustrations. The call-to-action buttons make this store really impressive.

Pigu.lt
Pigu.lt is the biggest online store in Lithuania. The layout is in a Web 2.0 style, with a lot of white space. The left sidebar is a little confusing, and the information is bit too much.

ASOS.com
ASOS is the UK’s largest online-only fashion and beauty store. Aimed at 16 to 34 year olds, it offers over 19,500 own-label and branded fashion goods. The design is minimalist and clean.

Zappos
Zappos is an online shoe and clothing store. It stands out with its “alphabetical brand index” navigation at the top and big footer.

Tesco
Tesco stands out from other stores with its unusual navigation. The design is clean and easy to navigate. The images in the navigation help users find what they want fast.

Macy’s
Macy’s design is minimalist. The small font size is risky because it takes longer to notice the links.

Comet
Comet’s design is fresh because of the dominant yellow. The layout is wide, allowing the company to display more information about its products.

Karstadt
Arcandor AG (formerly KarstadtQuelle AG) is a holding company located in Essen, Germany that oversees companies involved in mail order and Internet shopping, department stores and tourism services. Arcandor has a big slider on its home page to display special offers. The header has a city landscape, making this store stand out from the crowd.

Best Buy
Best Buy’s layout is slim and colorful. Everything looks good, except the sometimes annoying advertisement at the top.

Carphone Warehouse
This layout is clean and has a lot of white space. The breadcrumb at the top lets users know where they are.

Zazzle
Zazzle has a dark header that highlights the navigation and creates contrast. Essential information is contained in the dark header, and products are shown against a light background to make them pop.

Buy.com
Buy.com’s layout is simple and clean. Effective use of white space and good product pictures make for a simple and professional look.

Eastbay
This layout looks a bit confusing with its small details and busy colors. Its strengths are the modern sliders and lightboxes.

Sears
Sears looks fresh and clean. Web 2.0 colors, a wide layout and white space makes this store easy to navigate.

Shoes.com
Shoes.com effectively uses slab fonts and fresh colors like pink, light blue, orange and green. The simple and minimalist navigation at the top is functional and easy to use.

Onlineshoes.com
Compared to Shoes.com, the color scheme for Onlineshoes.com is similar, but with a dominant orange. The store stands out for its unusual left alignment.

Currys
Red and blue dominate this design. Currys uses Web 2.0-style navigation at the top and various sliders.

Office Depot
Office Depot is similar to Staples in its use of white and red, but different in its placement of the navigation and search field.

NikeStore
NikeStore is a leading online store. Subtle colors, contrast, beautiful typography and Flash elements make you feel that you’re in right place.

Newegg.com
Newegg uses blue and light orange as its main colors. The wide layout keeps the page from looking overloaded, letting users find products easily.

Further Resources

Here are some other articles and resources related to e-commerce:

Beginner’s Guide to E-Commerce Solution
All the major players are included in this complete guide to e-commerce solutions, with many free high-quality commercial resources.

30 Examples Of Well Designed Ecommerce Websites
A showcase of 30 well-designed e-commerce websites from a variety of different industries.

50 Beautifully Crafted Corporate Ecommerce Web Designs
A showcase of beautiful e-commerce websites.

An Analysis of the Amazon Shopping Experience
A discussion of a number of features in the Amazon shopping experience that, either in principle or practice, offer a model worthy of emulation by other e-commerce developers today.

(al)

About the author

Tomas Laurinavicius is a design blogger from Lithuania. He’s interested in web/graphic design, Photoshop, WordPress and social media. He runs a design blog called WebDesignFan. You can follow him on Twitter.

F-commerce, le nouveau relais de croissance du e-commerce ?

admin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:00:14 +0000

Vu sur : marketing-digital.fr

Le futur du ecommerce passera-t-il par Facebook ? C’est ce que laisse entrevoir le concept de F-commerce (Facebook commerce) dans lequel le réseau social permet aux commerçants de toucher ses 400 millions de membres et donc autant de clients potentiels.

La plupart des entreprises ont désormais des fan page Facebook. Imaginez-vous pouvoir y intégrer facilement une fonctionnalité ecommerce ? Pour l’instant, il est possible de créer un onglet shopping renvoyant vers un siteecommerce, mais l’intégration est assez succincte. L’idéal serait d’avoir une intégration poussée, avec le détails de ses produits, les prix et ceci par catégorie. C’est ce que propose la société BigCommerce:

1-800 Flowers est réputé aux USA pour être un des premiers acteurs du social shopping sur Facebook. Ces derniers se sont lancés dans leurs propres développements informatiques pour créer leur présence sur le réseau social. Avec BigCommerce, une intégration ecommerce dans Facebook est à la portée de tous…et cela devrait faire la différence car il n’y a plus de barrière de « moyen » ou de « savoir faire ».

MonShowroom.com va pouvoir segmenter les internautes selon des profils comportementaux liés à des visites précédentes

admin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:21:54 +0000

Vu sur : semepub.fr

Eulerian Technologies, éditeur de solutions pour le marketing on-line annonce la signature d‘un contrat avec MonShowroom.com, site de ventes en ligne de prêt-à-porter féminin et d’accessoires « tendance ».

A la différence de nombreux sites qui proposent des ventes privées portant sur d’anciennes collections, MonShowroom.com met en ligne les collections en cours d’une centaine de marques à la pointe de la mode.

En utilisant les solutions de Eulerian Technologies, MonShowroom.com va pouvoir améliorer et arbitrer ses différentes initiatives marketing. En effet, Eulerian Analytics permet une analyse étendue du retour des différentes campagnes online, aussi bien search que display ou d’affiliation, assurant ainsi que les budgets marketing soient évalués, optimisés et arbitrés de manière optimale.

Parallèlement, avec Eulerian Analytics, MonShowroom.com, va pouvoir segmenter les internautes selon des profils comportementaux liés à des visites précédentes (simples visiteurs, inscrits, ou acheteurs) et leur proposer des produits et des offres adaptés. En sélectionnant pour chaque visiteur un message répondant à ses attentes, l’expérience utilisateur va considérablement gagner en pertinence et en impact tout en améliorant la visite.

« Eulerian Analytics est une solution parfaite pour nous : il nous apporte à chaque instant une vision détaillée de l’ensemble de nos opérations marketing sur le Web tout en analysant les performances de notre site. Cela nous permet des actions marketing en accord parfait avec les internautes. » explique Sébastien Offant, Directeur Marketing de MonShowroom.com.

« Nous sommes heureux de pouvoir répondre aux besoins innovants de MonShowroom.com mais aussi de compter une référence supplémentaire dans le secteur de la mode et du textile pour Eulerian Analytics » souligne Jean-Daniel Courties, Directeur Commercial de Eulerian Technologies.

L’ecommerce sur iphone: mythe ou réalité ?

admin — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:40:30 +0000

Vu sur : marketing-digital.fr

Cela fait quelques années que les experts du mobile parlent de l’émergence de l’e-commerce sur mobile. Jusqu’à présent, il faut reconnaître qu’aucun business n’a vraiment décollé sur mobile… sauf pour l’Iphone peut être ? Alors l’e-commerce sur iphone, mythe ou réalité ? Trois exemples pour vous prouver que l’e-commerce sur iphone est désormais bien réel.

L’exemple Pizza Hut
A la mi Octobre, Pizza Hut a communiqué quelques chiffres sur ses ventes via iphone. Leur application permet de commander des pizzas. Pour le lancement de l’appli, Pizza Hut propose un discount permanent de 20% sur les commandes via Iphone et Ipod touch. Résultat concluant: en 3 mois l’appli Iphone de Pizza Hut a généré 1 million de dollars de chiffres d’affaires.

L’exemple Ebay
A l’occasion de la publication des résultats trimestriels d’eBay, son directeur général John Donahoe a indiqué que le m-commerce était l’un des principaux axes d’innovation de la plate-forme pour améliorer l’expérience utilisateur et stimuler les ventes. Le site mobile transactionnel d’eBay et son application iPhone – téléchargée plus de 4 millions de fois – devraient d’après le site marchand lui rapporter plus d’un demi-milliard de dollars de recettes cette année. Lors des neuf premiers mois de l’année, les ventes d’eBay sur mobile ont déjà atteint 380 millions de dollars, 60 % provenant de l’application iPhone, ce qui fait environ 200 millions de dollars.

L’exemple Amazon
Amazon a lancé aux USA son appli Iphone. Pas question de mettre en ligne un catalogue exhaustif avec une arborescence interminable et imbuvable,
mais un moteur de recherche fera très bien l’affaire. Imaginez vous à la Fnac entrain d’acheter un produit. Un check rapide, le produit est moins cher frais de port compris chez Amazon, Amazon remporte la vente! Malin non ?

23 témoignages de e-commerçants

admin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:30:40 +0000

Vu sur : wizishop.com

Depuis un an, nous avons publié régulièrement des témoignages de e-commerçants.

Du petit auto-entrepreneur qui vient de se lancer à RueDuCommerce, retrouvez l’ensemble de ces témoignages (23 en tout) dans un PDF gratuit à partager librement.

A travers ces interviews, vous comprendrez les problématiques principales des e-commerçants et vous découvrirez leurs conseils pour se lancer, leur vision de la vente en ligne et surtout un retour fort intéressant sur leurs différentes expériences.

N’hésitez pas à relayer ce dossier PDF de 60 pages qui, je pense, peut être utile à tous ceux qui souhaitent se lancer dans le e-commerce.

Parmi les boutiques interviewées : Achiduchesse, Côté Apéritif, RueDuCommerce, Oanisha, La fée corsetée, Look-Zippy, Platine Center, trampofun, bagatelles…

TradeDoubler monetise les réseaux sociaux

admin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:49:26 +0000

Vu sur : marketing-digital.fr

TradeDoubler se lance dans la monetisation des réseaux sociaux et annonce aujourd’hui l’ouverture de sa nouvelle application Td Social Network. Grâce à cette application, les affiliés de Trade pourront ainsi relayer les offres et bons plans (descriptif, visuel et mini url trackée) des annonceurs directement sur leur compte Facebook ou Twitter par exemple.

Comment ça marche ?
Pour se faire, il suffit de se rendre sur la plateforme d’affiliation de TradeDoubler, de sélectionner le produit qui vous intéresse. Vous allez ensuite obtenir une mini url type http://tdurl.fr/?mq93. Ensuite, c’est très simple, vous la copier/coller sur votre page Facebook comme sur l’image suivante, et vous partagez le lien.

Quel est l’intérêt business ?
L’intérêt est double. En intégrant leurs offres à cette nouvelle application td Social Network, les annonceurs profitent d’un canal de communication fortement prescripteur, les « followers » ou « amis » suivant en permanence l’actualité de leurs réseaux. Par ailleurs, les annonceurs touchent ainsi de nouveaux affiliés attirés par l’utilisation de cette application. De leur côté, les affiliés bénéficient d’une opportunité supplémentaire de faire du business et de générer des revenus.

Frédéric Prigent, Directeur Général TradeDoubler France, commente :

TradeDoubler France se devait de proposer une réponse adaptée de monétisation pour les réseaux sociaux. Nous avons donc cherché à créer une application, inspirée par les affiliés, et pour les affiliés, la plus simple possible à l’instar des plates-formes communautaires ou de micro-blogging.

C’est à mon sens une bonne initiative qui permet de cibler une énorme audience potentielle, qui est très dure à travailler en epub classique.