Interview on rich interfaces using Ajax and flex with Graeme Grant, COO of Allurent from the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition 2008 in Chicago.

See More IRCE 2008 Interviews…

We conducted 16 interviews with various ecommerce vendors at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition 2008 in Chicago.

1. How to choose ecommerce software and technology - Bernardine Wu, CEO, FitForCommerce
2. How retailers can sell more online with social commerce - Jay Shaffer, VP Worldwide Sales & Marketing, Powerreviews
3. Hackersafe is now McAfee Secure - Rich Murphy, McAfee
4. The benefits of RIA’s for ecommerce stores - Graeme Grant, COO, Allurent
5. Why online retailers should be blogging - Darren Tomey, VP Sales, Compendium
6. How do ratings and reviews help online retailers? - Sam Decker, Chief Marketing Officer, Bazaarvoice
7. When bad people ruin good online marketing - Ryan Douglas, PlumberSurplus.com
8. Direct international shoppers to local sites automatically - Justin Skogen, Director, Enterprise Sales, DigitalElement
9. The state of affiliate marketing in online retail - Larry Joseloff, VP Content, Shop.org
10. Multi-store retailing - Roy Rubin, CEO, Varien
11. How online stores use images to improve customer experience - Stephen Kristy, CEO, LiquidPixels
12. Comparison Shopping Engine Tips for Online Retailers - Michael Lambert, CEO, MerchantAdvantage
13. Link building strategies for Internet retail SEO - Stephan Spencer, Founder & President, Netconcepts
14. Direct to consumer manufacturers can reduce channel conflict - Ed Stevens, CEO, Shopatron
15. New eCommerce service lets you shop online with a friend - John Jackson, CEO, DecisionStep
16. Product recommendation engines improve customer experience - Scott Doan, VP Sales, Strands

Subscribe to the Get Elastic RSS feed or by email at the top of the page to be alerted when the remaining interviews become available.

Scott Wilson from the Cart Blog recently interviewed Elastic Path’s VP of Innovation. We don’t talk about it much here on Get Elastic, but we’re actually an ecommerce software company (that is also hiring). Jason answers questions about Java, entry-level ecommerce solutions and open source ecommerce software.

Scott, AKA “That Software Guy” is a Zen Cart master who blogs about ecommerce topics when he’s not busy with his client projects and side gig at Nielsen Media Research. Do “check out” the Cart Blog.

Our own VP of Innovation, Jason Billingsley shares his social media marketing wisdom with Internet Retailer today in “MySpace opens it doors, but retailers may walk on by.”

This article is timely as MySpace has recently opened its developer platform, similar to what Facebook did ages ago. We’ve had enough time to watch the attempts of Facebook applications by online retailers to determine whether MySpace application efforts are worth the time or not.

“… merchants have had little success so far selling products through Facebook,” says Jason Billingsley, co-founder and vice president of innovation at Elastic Path Software, whose company has studied the e-commerce applications created for Facebook.

Some merchants have created popular promotional applications for Facebook, such as a JanSport back-to-school contest last summer that offered JanSport products as prizes to Facebookers who posted the best pictures of the contents of their backpacks. “But they weren’t selling products,” Billingsley says. “They were giving away products through a fun contest.”

There is one aspect of MySpace’s offer that makes it more appealing than Facebook’s, says Billingsley. MySpace has adopted a Google standard called OpenSocial designed to allow an application created for one social networking site to run on others. While Facebook has yet to adopt OpenSocial, Billingsley says an application built for MySpace will run on other social networking sites using the Google standard, such as U.K. social networking leader Bebo.”

Check out the full article at Internet Retailer, and subscribe to GetElastic if you haven’t already to stay in the loop on social media marketing trends and tips for ecommerce marketers.

Our own VP of Innovation will be rapping with Ray about RSS feeds and more this afternoon (or evening for you East coasters). You can catch him live at 3:30 PST or pick up the archive over here: http://www.rssray.com/itune_feeds.php

All buzzwords aside, companies really want something that will work with their business model and manage to do so at a cost which allows a reasonable chance of reaching profitably goals. In a comprehensive editorial package of articles and related resources about Service Oriented Architecture in Ziff Davis’ Baseline Magazine on July 12th 2007, David F. Carr explores Aeroplan’s use of open source and standards-based components - including Elastic Path - in their complicated business scenario.

Carr’s report, “Improving Ties to Business Partners” explains Aeroplan’s modus operandi, “Aeroplan “sells” mileage credits to partners, such as credit card issuers—who then offer them as rewards to customers. These customers can trade credits for air travel, car rentals and merchandise. SOA enables Aeroplan and its partners to exchange customer and other data in legacy systems to make the rewards program work.”

More after the break …

Continue Reading:
SOA Package on Baseline Outlines Aeroplan’s Plan »

In a portent of things to come, on May 22nd on the heels of the ACCM show in Boston, DM News published an article called “Elastic Path to launch video parodying online shopping.”  Besides declaring a war on boredom, Jason provided Chantal Todé

a sneak preview of the clips which you can enjoy in full over at the “Crazy Messed Up World of Ecommerce” page.

E-commerce services provider Elastic Path Software hopes it can shake up BTB marketing a little when it launches a viral video on YouTube about what would happen if real-world shoppers were treated the same as online shoppers.

“Other companies are boring — these conferences are boring,” said Jason Billingsley, vice president of marketing at Elastic Path, about why the company decided to create a viral video.

Some of the scenarios in the video included a consumer who asks Google for an orange and ends up in a store where everything is the color orange, and another who asks for a turnip and the clerk keeps to trying to cross-sell her by asking if she wants a t-shirt with her turnip or a warranty or a peeler.

Also noteworthy on this topic is Jordan (a Vancouver-based marketing consultant) Behan’s comments about both the funny ecomerce videos and Capulet’s blogger outreach approach, as he described thusly:

Full disclosure: I am an acquaintance of a few of the Elastic Pathers, and the firm that produced the spots as well. That being the case, it should be noted that the email I received containing the link was a terrific example of blogger relations.

I thoroughly enjoy the immediacy of the web, post a project and get real-time, unfiltered opinions from cool acquaintances like Jordan as they spread the word by telling ten more friends.

The fine ecommerce community / online and print magazine, Practical Ecommerce, published an article by Ryan Welton called “Selling With A Blog - Add value to your venture without a hard sell” today (4/26/07).

Ryan starts by breaking through some of the hype around blogging (”Heck, the blog has gained such widespread popularity that it’s almost become passé in some circles “) and then seeks balance between writing for interest and writing to encourage sales.

The ’soft-touch’ technique makes his Top 5 Tips list, … {drumroll} … in at #2 is, “Write about subjects related to your business, such as news and trends. Establish yourself as the expert in your field. As you do so, subtly link to pages within your website that showcase products and services.”

Chiming in on that delicate fine-line is EP’s VP Markerting, Jason Billingsley, (followed by fellow BC biz blogger Tris Hussey),

A notable byproduct of blogs is the way they provide websites with a ton of fresh, original content.

Jason Billingsley, vice president of marketing for ecommerce software company Elastic Path, says blogs also give businesses the opportunity to associate their websites with popular keywords related to products and services.

“We still keep it at arm’s length,” he said, referring to posts that could be considered too promotional.

Hussey noted, though, that blogs can still indirectly boost your business.  “People come to the blog to read interesting stuff,” said Hussey, “but you are allowed to earn a living and still blog.”

Read Ryan’s whole article Selling With A Blog at Practical Ecommerce for tips and talking points on effectively using a blog to energize your online retail sales.

DM News published an article titled ‘Copywriting for better online retail SEO‘ by Elastic Path’s VP Marketing (and search enthusiast) Jason Billingsley in their March 30 2007 online edition.

Anyone who has chatted with Jason at a trade show or other event quickly learns that he is passionate about search engine optimization and enhancing usability to increase conversions. Show him your site and, after a quick and calculated look, he’ll rattle off a dozen tips and tricks which will increase your site visibility resulting in more (cheap) organic hits allowing you to reduce spend on (often expensive) Pay Per Click ads while maintaining or increasing your traffic levels.

No, Google is not too worried ;-), but your competition will be worried if you study Jason’s tips and follow them.

Anyhow, the article hands out a big concept which is basically a new way of looking at something you are already doing for your site - writing words. The gist of Jason persuasive case is ‘write how your customers search.’

People search similarly to how they speak. The content created should match closely to the content sought and, therefore, will rank toward the top of the search engine results page.

I find watching people use search engines remarkable due to the words they use to search - more often than not, casual phrases and conversational snippets are the norm rather than one-off, specific word strings like found in a products’ technical specifications.

Jason sets up an example of this:

For example, a typical description of a sheet set may read as follows: ‘100 percent cotton, 300-thread count, cross-woven machine washable.’ However, the product will be much more findable, and will rank higher in organic searches, if the name and description contained the same language searchers are using.

The shopper would respond much better to this: ‘These winter white soft bedsheets will whisk you off to a comfortable dreamland every night. No other luxury bedding will make your bedroom as regal as the Queen Collection’s 300-thread count, 100 percent cotton sheet set. The only trouble with a luxurious, warm and comfortable set of sheets like this is having to get out of your dream bed each morning.’

As you see, these words are more persuasive and contain sets of phrases shoppers are actually looking for: white soft bedsheets, luxury bedding, cotton sheet set, comfortable set of sheets, dream bed.

So when writing your descriptions, commit the time and energy to doing it right. Think ti through and write a little story for each product. This seems like a lot of work and it is. Writing isn’t necessarily easy and writing well takes practice and well, … time.

As such, seek advice from experienced writers (freelance if needed) and absolutely talk to people outside of your vertical universe. Talk to your nieces, grandmothers and neighbors to find out how they talk about your type of goods (ergo: a ‘couch’ to one person is a ’sofa’ to another and a ‘chesterfield’ to someone else). Make sure to get out of your company echo chamber where everyone uses and understands the same industry jargon and parlance. By doing so, you’ll find fresh insight into the ways customers search for what you have. By doing so, you’ll attract more qualified buyers, more cheaply.

Make more + Spend less = Great Success! Start by reading Jason’s tips.

DM News published an article about the crew over at Power Reviews concerning the announcement of a multi-language platform being used by none other than our Vancouver neighbours Mountain Equipment Co-Op whose flagship store is just around the corner.

Anyhow, in the March 8, 2007 article “Voila! PowerReviews lets users review in French, Spanish, Italian and German” by Dianna Dilworth, we are grouped in with PR other partners who are a heavy hitting list of ecommerce vendors.

As regular readers likely know, Elastic Path customers are spread around the globe and many more sell goods internationally - as such, we enthusiastically support cool tools which combine global mindedness and the openness user customer generated content.

Already ready to go along with the French and English used by MEC are Italian and German (apologies to our Icelandic friends) with Chinese, Japanese and Korean coming later this year.

Article snippet after the break to get you started:

Continue Reading:
Multi-language Customer Reviews in DM News »

Another article appeared in Internet Retailer featuring some of Elastic Path wisdom. Written by Bill Siwicki, this article is called, “Designs on Success” with a provocative subtitle of “Web site design lives in Internet years, and retailers who don’t get regular makeovers risk being left behind.”

The article goes into great detail about the gulf which often exists between the design sensibilities of marketing and branding types and the technical constraints of the IT crew. Of course both sides’ whims are tempered by the endless promotions and calls to actions ostensibly needed to feed the sales machine.

Continue Reading:
Internet Retailer - Designs on Success article »