NuCaptcha

NuCaptcha combines video-animated CAPTCHAs with behavioral analysis to improve the user experience while making it tougher for OCR (Optical Character Recognition) programs to decipher.

Video CAPTCHAs show letters moving back and forth, which could be captured as static images by OCR, but overlapping layers are much harder to recognize.

Behavioral analysis takes into account various cues to assess the security risk of a user. Legitimate users are shown easy-to-solve CAPTCHAs, while suspect spammers are given more difficult ones.

NuCaptcha is not free, details on their website.

VouchSafe

VouchSafe uses artificial intelligence to generate challenges based on object associations that humans can recognize but bots can’t. For example, drawing a line between two objects that match each other.

Hey, it’s harder than it looks! I couldn’t figure this one out. Despite the fact I got it wrong, the system could recognize I’m human by the interaction of drawing the line.

Honeypot Buttons

One of the tips from the original post was to use a “honeypot field” — a hidden CSS field invisible to humans, but fed to bots. Anton’s comment described a solution that uses 3 buttons with fake input element labels. For example:

“Don’t post this” | “Post this” | “Cancel”

You can catch robots with server-side validation easily because they tend to just “submit.”

Ask Bots to Play Nice

Finally, a bonus method. I can’t believe I forgot about this one…

Thanks again to our readers! Any more ideas? Please drop us a comment.

The new features were no secret, but we can now see them in action from 60 partner applications involved in the Open Graph Beta including Netflix, Hulu, Zynga, Spotify, Washington Post and Kobo.

So what’s the big deal?

2 New Features for Facebook Open Graph

Open Graph applications use elements of the development platform to provide ‘frictionless sharing’ to Facebookers’ Timelines and Tickers, which will also appear in friends’ News Feeds.

While Open Graph apps like the Washington Post have enabled social sharing for some time now, there are 2 major changes:

Gestures

Apps can use their own verbs (Gestures). In addition to ‘Like’ ‘Share’ and ‘Recommend,’ you can ‘Want,’ ‘Heart,’ ‘Listen,’ ‘Purchase’ — or pretty much any other verb within Facebook’s guidelines (of being simple, genuine and non-abusive). For example, Netflix could say ‘Colby just added Limitless to his queue.’

Frictionless Sharing

Frictionless Sharing is a warm and fuzzy term for auto-publishing. The new feature makes sharing the Gesture the default. Users permit the app to share once, rather than go through the ‘friction’ of approving every single action for publishing.

Email and RSS subscribers: can’t see video? View this post on Get Elastic

What this means for Facebook users

If you hate the ticker and news feed now, you’re really going to hate it once it’s spammed with every single micro-activity your social network performs online.

You’ll also need to be careful about which apps you enable to auto-publish for you. Think about what you might not care to share, or what might not be an expression of yourself. For example, if you sample songs on Pandora, it doesn’t mean you like or recommend them. If you rent movies for your kids to watch, it doesn’t mean you are watching them.

What this means for Ecommerce

For brands, this certainly presents an opportunity to pump your word of mouth marketing full of steroids, particularly if your ecommerce business sells digital content such as books, news articles, music, movies and TV shows. Such products are inherently shareable — people have been discussing what they’ve watched and listened to read offline for years.

Physical goods retailers can leverage social and shopping apps that are already available, like Pinterest, Payvment or online gift card marketplace GiftRocket.

Commercial brands that successfully build relevant, experience-based apps like the Nike+ Running Monitor should get a lot of mileage out of these new features — no pun intended.

If you plan to develop or simply tweak your existing Facebook Application to include Gestures, check out the Open Graph Checklist. Facebook apps depend on approvals like the Apple App Store, and your Gestures must be in line with Facebooks requirements.

Testing title tags: the problems

SERPs (search engine result pages) introduce many uncontrollable variables, such as Google’s penchant for showing different flavors of results, in different areas on the page, for different keyword searches. For example, a search for ‘riding boots’ shows Google Product Search results that can divert a customer from organic listings, star ratings that draw attention to search ads, and brand links to help users narrow their searches.

Notice how the singular “riding boot” and plural “riding boots” show the same page results, but slightly different related Stores results, and omits Product Search results.

If you’re really observant, you’ll notice the related Stores options are different too. Testing is difficult because you have no way of knowing how often these elements are shown or how they may be skewing your results. Not only that, but search positions are always in flux, and vary depending on the exactkeyword phrase queried, the user’s geolocation, whether the user is logged into a Google account (personalized to search history), the “freshness” of results at any given time, and perhaps even involves estimated page load speed and activities of one’s social graph. And did you know that search engines sometimes override your HTML and create their own title for you based on content on your page or what it thinks your page is about? Finally, the biggest hurdle is that even with Google’s own Website Optimizer tool, you cannot tell Google to show one title tag 50% of the time and another the rest. Google will only index your control page. Test versions are served after the referral, if applicable. This makes A/B testing individual pages’ title tags impossible. The only testing you *could* do is in aggregate.

Testing title tags: the workaround

Get Elastic reader Sander Daniels’ team at Thumbtack.com found a workaround to A/B testing title tags in aggregate, described in this case study. Using a home-grown testing platform in its ecommerce back end, the test ran for 7 days, Thumbtack split its URLs into 3 buckets, each containing thousands of URLs. The buckets consisted of a control and 2 challenging formats.

Control: Looking for the best [Service] in [City Name]? Challenger A: Get Free Quotes Today From [Service] In [City Name] Challenger B: [Service] in [City Name] – Get Free Quotes Today

To control for the uncontrollables in search, Thumbtack used the ratio of visits to its experimental titles compared to visits to pages in its control group. Rankings were also monitored, and there was no significant change during the test period. The test ran for 7 days, resulting in a 20-30% drop in traffic to its test groups. Traffic rebounded (for the most part) after reverting to the original title tags.

What to test in ecommerce title tags

If you’re bold enough to try a similar experiment (and have the technical judo chops), here are a few hypotheses you could explore:

• Keyword vs. store name at the beginning of the title
• Short vs. long, “keyword stuffed” titles
• Value proposition such as “Free shipping” or “largest selection of” at the beginning of the title
• “Shop” at the beginning of the title to differentiate from informational results such as Wikipedia articles and blog posts

Remember, to make it work:

• You need a fairly large sample size of URLs that you can experiment, and a tool to support it the test
• Your treatment versions must be tested against your control concurrently, not sequentially
• Allow enough clicks to accrue to reach a statistically significant result
• Understand what you are measuring – are search positions affected (for example, if your brand name at the beginning of the title affects your keyword relevance across the board)? Is traffic affected (can you estimate you are getting higher click through)? Are conversions affected (are you attracting the same quality of visitor)?
• And finally, revert title tags back to normal after the test is over to validate your results

Looking for help with ecommerce strategy? Contact the Elastic Path Research & Strategy team at consulting@elasticpath.com to learn how our ecommerce strategy services can improve your business results.

Indeed, some would even say that viable innovations must come from outsider organizations rather than incumbents. Clay Christensen, author of “The Innovator’s Dilemma” and “The Innovator’s Solution“, being a case in point.

As digital content becomes more prevalent, traditional ‘physical goods’ business models like individual unit sales are no longer going to suffice. To successfully build ongoing strategic relationships with customers, providing an array of flexible business models – e.g. subscriptions, rentals, metered access – is important to meet the needs of various types of online buyers. In the digital world, one size definitely does not fit all.

This information (and more) was shared in our November webinar, Digital Disruption Is Happening. Content & Online Service Providers Must be Ready to Adapt. Available on-demand and recapped here.

Business leaders looking to make money from their catalog of digital content, software, or online services must find ecommerce solutions that allow flexibility to trial these alternative business models. A recently released Forrester report provides tactics for selecting the right vendor. Get your free copy of Market Overview – Digital Commerce Solutions 2011 here.

Digital commerce Q&A

Questions asked during the webinar are answered below by special guest, Forrester Research, Inc. Senior Analyst Peter Sheldon. Additional questions? Fire away in the comments!

What type of technology solution do you need to sell digital goods?

Content providers need to find ecommerce solutions that can support emerging business models. Rather than a typical ecommerce platform that only supports the sale of SKUs, look for a platform that can support sophisticated subscriptions, time-based access, and entitlements that are tied to the content management system (CMS) hosting and delivering the content.

Do I need to host the technology in-house, or can I outsource?

It really depends on your business. Global presence is one factor to look at. For firms that only have a U.S. operation but that need to sell globally, outsourcing to a partner with existing global infrastructure that can operate on your behalf can be very attractive. For larger enterprises that already have that global footprint – with legal entities in various markets around the world like China and Japan – managing ecommerce in-house may be less of an issue because they already have distribution and customer support outside the U.S. They may see efficiencies of scale by operating in-house. If digital commerce is of strategic importance, with high revenue potential, then ecommerce should probably be in-house as well. Another factor is internal IT sophistication. You can’t make an in-house solution work without a highly capable IT team.

How do you evaluate and select a digital commerce vendor?

There is a still a place for the traditional request for proposal (RFP) but, at Forrester, we encourage firms to look at an alternative called scenario-based evaluation. It still requires a request for information (RFI) to create a shortlist of vendors who meet your criteria in terms of capabilities, features, cultural fit, and operational model. Then you use real-world scenarios to whittle down that list to one or two vendors. You ask vendors to come in to give you a mini proof of concept where they demonstrate their capabilities and map them to the scenarios that you’ve given them.

The scenarios could be customer-facing or internal day-to-day tasks. Examples are how you upload new content or manage promotions, pricing, merchandising etc. These types of scenarios allow you to take a deep look, not only at the technology, but also at the business user tools. Using scenarios, you can get a sense of how easy the platform is to use and how flexible it is.

In traditional ecommerce, success is generally defined by average order value, conversion rate, and traffic. How do you measure success in the digital world?

Typical ecommerce metrics are based around cart abandonment. But in the digital world, there really is no cart. Instead, what we are selling is access to content or a service. So service adoption – or sign ups – is important to measure. But what is more important is the conversion rate of free trials to paid subscriptions, and then tracking the lifetime value of that customer. How many subscription renewals are there? What is the uplift in subscription spend over time? These types of metrics have much in common with telecommunications operators who measure average revenue per user (ARPU).

How does a content provider build direct-to-consumer relationships, yet happily co-exist with so-called ‘walled gardens’ such as the Apple App Store?

It’s certainly a challenge. We’re seeing publishers building a hybrid strategy. They are offering subscriptions on their own sites so they can own the customer relationship and have access to the CRM data, but at the same time they are open to new customers coming from channels like Apple and Google.

Closed wall ecosystems do make it hard for content providers to build close relationships directly with consumers. For example, the Apple App Store is very closed but you must have a presence there. On the other hand, Android is a lot more open. You have to fight for the data from the third party distributors and look for creative ways to capture customer information so you can monetize it over time. We’re seeing digital content firms pushing for better terms with Apple. And those terms are becoming a little more amenable than they were a year ago.

As we move from selling individual products or SKUs to selling access to content, how does the product catalog work?

In a traditional retail environment, the catalog is typically very large with tens of thousands of unique SKUs. But in the digital world, the number of SKUs or products is often very small, sometimes even as small as a single product with variations like subscription length (e.g. 1, 2 or 3-year) or access to advanced features. Some channels might have slightly different pricing as well.

So, on the face of things, the product catalog is very simple. The challenge is dealing with entitlements to the SKUs. The ecommerce platform is not just responsible for selling items, but must also play a role in provisioning content and services over the lifetime of the customer relationship. It must know when the consumer is able to download the content across multiple touch points like game consoles, smartphones etc. It must also manage the complexities of subscriptions. For example, if the consumer fails to make a monthly payment, it needs to put the subscription on hold.

Thank you, Peter!

Looking for help with digital commerce?

A recently released Forrester report provides tactics for selecting digital ecommerce solutions and looks at some of the key platforms available in the market today. Get your free copy of Market Overview – Digital Commerce Solutions 2011 here.

Looking for help with ecommerce strategy? Contact the Elastic Path Research & Strategy team at consulting@elasticpath.com to learn how our ecommerce strategy services can improve your business results.

Digital disruption started with subscriptions

According to Peter, subscriptions are the backbone of the digital disruption business model:

• Software publishers have long used subscriptions to tie customers into multi-year relationships. But now subscriptions are increasingly important as software publishers like Intuit move to SaaS-based (software as a service) product portfolios.
• Consumers are rushing to embrace alternative video services from the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, and cutting their cable TV subscriptions.
• From Zune and Rhapsody to Pandora One, subscription music services already have a significant share of the listener’s wallet.
• Amazon’s Prime brings all-you-can-eat to the world of ebooks, emulating the public library. Kindle owners who subscribe to its $79/year Amazon Prime program are now able to download one free ebook a month from a selection of 5,000 titles.

• Digital newspaper and magazine subscriptions are still in their infancy; however, momentum is growing led by Gen Y readers.
• Subscription gaming is also nascent and currently limited to PCs and smartphones.

Now consumers want more access options

However, consumers are increasingly looking for alternative ownership models beyond subscriptions:

• Freemium and trials
  Subscriptions and trials are like Batman and Robin; one rarely goes without the other. Freemium models are increasingly popular across a wide array of service providers like Skype and LinkedIn.

• Time-based access
  Time based business models allow content distributors such as cloud gaming platform OnLive to rent access to content.

• Metered usage
  Pay-as-you-go usage, commonly used by telcos and utilities, can give individual users and small businesses access to enterprise-class features. For example, OpSource Cloud Software offers popular Microsoft and Oracle software offerings and Google’s App Engine provides web application infrastructure on a pay-per-drink basis.
• Marketplaces
  Online marketplaces like Learnable are enabling new business models for the distribution of community created content.

Firms that fail to experiment with these and other innovative digital business models will fail to survive.

Consumers also want a seamless experience across their devices

Today’s connected consumer expects to access content and online services across multiple devices … but they also expect to be able to transact and manage their accounts within the context of the touch point they are currently using. What this means, in effect, is that channels no longer exist.

Commerce APIs are the key to enabling contextual commerce experiences across all of a consumer’s various devices. Mobile and social commerce opportunities are the likely first ways in which these APIs will be leveraged. Ralph Lauren’s solo sponsorship of The New York Times iPad application in September with commerce from Ralph Lauren Magazine is just one example. Tesco’s Homeplus mobile grocery shopping solution for South Korean commuters is another. With commerce APIs and an ever connected consumer, commerce will soon be embedded throughout the web and within products like automobiles, appliances and even pill bottles (for instance, GlowCap) that support auto-replenishment. By providing buying experiences tailored to both the individual consumer and the device they are using, content providers and other businesses can start to build on-going relationships with their customers. The Holy Grail is a compelling, never-ending revenue generating experience.

Looking for help with digital commerce? A recently released Forrester report provides tactics for selecting digital ecommerce solutions and looks at some of the key platforms available in the market today. Get your free copy of Market Overview – Digital Commerce Solutions 2011 here.

Looking for help with ecommerce strategy? Contact the Elastic Path Research & Strategy team at consulting@elasticpath.com to learn how our ecommerce strategy services can improve your business results.

But for those who need a little numerical validation, here are a few stats that make it crystal clear why your brand’s online presence is more important than ever:

1. Online sales are growing faster than offline sales

Consulting firm Deloitte forecasts a 14% increase in non-store sales, driven largely by the web. In contrast, overall holiday sales are expected to increase just 2.5 to 3% over last season. According to the National Retail Federation 2011 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, nearly half of consumers (46.7%) will buy online, up from 43.9% last year.

2. The web influences almost half of offline purchases

More shoppers are than ever are checking a store website before heading out to the physical location. Forrester Research predicted in its U.S. Online Retail Forecast, 2009 to 2014 report that the web would influence 48% of 2011 in-store sales.

3. Holiday shoppers research more online in a shaky economy

Consumers use the web to research price and availability of products to purchase both online and in stores. According to the same 2011 NRF holiday survey referenced above, the average holiday shopper plans to do 36% of their shopping online – whether they’re comparing prices, researching products, or actually making a purchase. And data from Experian Hitwise indicates that website traffic increases in a troubled economy because buyers research purchases more carefully online to stretch shopping budgets.

4. Online is a major source of inspiration for gift shoppers

When beginning the hunt for holiday gift ideas this year, our own research – just released Halloween – reveals that 21% of U.S. shoppers browse retailer websites for inspiration while 29% peruse physical stores. And the younger the consumer, the larger the role the web plays. Download a free copy of the full report, Virtual Goods Mean Real Money This Holiday. 5. Consumers planning to spend more on holiday shopping have an affinity for digital channels

Our research also found that shoppers intending to buy digital gifts – ebooks, music downloads, Facebook credits, and the like – are more likely to increase their gift budgets over 2010. While only 15% of all consumers plan to spend more this holiday season, a whopping 30% of digital gift shoppers will do so. Those purchasing digital goods also have bigger budgets—$440 on average, which is 40% more than their non-digital counterparts. The vast majority of digital gift spend will happen online.

And another survey, this time by web marketer Steelhouse, suggests that higher-income consumers are more likely than others to maintain their 2010 levels of holiday shopping, and will do more of it online. While 62% of all consumers plan to spend less this holiday season, 54% of households earning $75,000+ intend to spend as much as last year. 32% of these higher-income consumers say that they will spend more time browsing for gifts online instead of at the mall this year, compared to an average of 28% across all incomes.

Act fast to optimize your ecommerce site

With your site being more important than ever, what’s a multichannel marketer to do as the holiday countdown commences? It’s not too late to act on these tips:

1. Don’t emulate Target and have your website repeatedly crashed by unexpected traffic. Plan for major traffic spikes to ensure your site can handle the load. Simulate peak loads, monitor site responsiveness, and measure application behavior well in advance of Cyber Monday.
2. Speed up your site. Investigate using a content delivery network (CDN) like Akamai to speed up the delivery of rich content, including images and videos, to shoppers.
3. As many holiday shoppers will be researching online and on their smartphones both before and during their trips to the store, integrate the in-store experience with relevant, timely and personalized website and mobile app info.
4. Maximize the findability of your products online. By submitting a feed to Google Product Search, the Internet giant’s online shopping comparison engine, lesser known websites can improve exposure. Consider trying the Amazon Marketplace too. Or use Amazon Product Ads to place pay-per-click ads on category and product pages. Shoppers will see your ads when looking for similar products.
5. Social media has hit the mainstream and, while not a primary channel for discovery, is gaining in importance, particularly to Gen Y shoppers. Add social sharing to product pages to turn customers into sales channels. Resolve customer service issues on Facebook or Twitter to publicly display your customer service chops.
6. With cash-strapped shoppers carefully researching every purchase online before buying, follow the lead of sites like Amazon-owned toy site yoyo.com in making the shopping experience simple, efficient, and fun through gift finders, well-designed navigation, product filters and comparison tools, curated recommendations, and rich product details. At minimum, spruce up the product copy and images of your most popular holiday products, reinforce your value proposition, and make your shipping and return policies clear.
7. Act fast to plug your leaky conversion funnel with simple and low cost website feedback and usability tools like Crazy Egg.
8. Ask for an email address wherever you can, both online and in-store. Then squeeze as much value as you can from each of those email addresses.
9. Implement remarketing campaigns to target shoppers who browse weeks before they buy.

Looking for help with ecommerce site optimization? Contact the Elastic Path consulting team at consulting@elasticpath.com to learn how our conversion optimization services can improve your business results.

According to ThreatMetrix survey of 722 active Internet using consumers, 37% intend to make a purchase using their smartphone, nearly three times as many as those who plan to use their tablet. (View the entire infographic on The High Low). Why? One explanation is how we use the mobile web — tablets are used primarily in the living room, not on-the-go, making it just as easy to transact from a desktop or laptop machine than fiddle with a touch screen. A smartphone is on your person most, if not all of the time. But more likely the reason is simply, despite the rapid adoption of tablets, more folks own a smartphone. According to Forrester Research, 9% of consumers owned a tablet vs 39% owning a smartphone when surveyed in June 2011.

So…smartphones win?

Not so fast… The top categories folks are willing to purchase with mobile devices are music and apps (77% and 73%, respectively), gas (69%) and travel (52%). Consumer electronics (48%) and clothing (42%) are not far behind, but pale in comparison to digital downloads that enhance the device and practical purchases like gas and travel. In other words – folks are shopping for themselves, most often for content that enhances their experiences with their own devices. If you strip out device-enhancing purchases like ringtones, according to Forrester, only 13% of consumers have purchased a physical product through their smartphone. Contrast this with 47% of tablet owners. The real growth in mcommerce will come from tablets In Why Tablet Commerce May Soon Trump Mobile, Sucharita Mulpuru cites a study by Forrester and Bizrate that found more than half of tablet owners prefer to shop with their tablets over their smartphones, thanks to larger screens. Some are using tablets as replacement for PCs, a trend that’s likely to continue. Tablet owners also spend more time on the web, and more time browsing just for fun. (A stat mentioned at the X.Commerce launch last week was the top reason for visiting mobile retail sites was because users are bored and want to kill time – 78%)! Retailers surveyed by Forrester report that 21% of their mobile traffic comes from tablets, some over 50%.

It’s not either-or

Regardless of whether a survey finds more shoppers use smartphones or tablets to access your site, you need to optimize for both experiences. You may have higher traffic Monday to Thursday, but it doesn’t mean you take down your site on weekends. The point is not to prioritize one at the expense of the other, they complement each other. Remember, mobile “shopping” consists of more than completing a purchase, including product research (search/browse and reading ratings and reviews), price comparison and store hours/location lookup. Google predicts 44% of last-minute gift and store location searches will be mobile in December. Searches are performed on both smartphones and tablets. And your email messages are accessed on both devices, too.

Maximize the value of your mobile investment

The value of mobile optimization extends beyond what you can measure through analytics, making true ROI difficult to measure. Customers who use mobile to browse and research may complete their purchases on their desktops or laptops. Features that support cross-device shopping, such as saved carts, wishlists and shopping-list style applications can help you squeeze more value out of smartphone and tablet visits, as can triggered emails for carts abandoned on mobile devices so purchases can be easily completed online (get that email address in the first step!)

Overcommunicate security

Are small screens the biggest deterrent to shopping on mobile devices? Nope. 45% of online consumers say that they would shop more if their mobile phone numbers could be kept private, and 44% if mobile payments were more secure, compared to 36% if mobile sites had more features and functionality, and 32% if their mobile devices had a larger screen. Compare the percentage of consumers who fear mobile security (44%) to those who fear sharing financial information online in general (28%). Your job to instill confidence is to overcommunicate the security of your mobile website. I recommend the following:

1. Offer an alternative payment option such as PayPal or Google Checkout (PayPal is more ubiquitous).

2. Title your checkout process “Secure Checkout” instead of “Checkout.”

3. Label your checkout button “Secure Checkout” or use a lock icon.

4. Place point-of-action assurances proximal to credit card/financial information entry fields (Verisign badges, links to details of your privacy and security policies).

Looking for help with mobile commerce strategy? Contact the Elastic Path consulting team at consulting@elasticpath.com to learn how our ecommerce strategy and mobile strategy services can improve your business results.

Just type in any URL and Google will return a report with an Overview (complete with a percentage score) and high, medium and low priority action items:

Clicking on any item in the menu takes you to more detail:

For example, Piperlime’s home page has a bit of Javascript to minify. Google lists each instance along with the percentage of load reduction after compression.

Remember, these are suggestions, not absolute rules – you may have perfectly good reasons for setting expiration for cacheable objects at 30 minutes or 6 hours instead of one week as Google recommends. But this tool is a great cheat sheet for finding low hanging fruit in optimizing your site speed, which results in reduced bounce rates (and more opportunity for conversion), more returning visits and better SEO!

Looking for help with your ecommerce strategy and site optimization? The Elastic Path research and consulting division is available to enterprises selling digital goods and services. For more information, visit us at http://elasticpath.com/ecommerce-consulting/ or contact us at consulting@elasticpath.com.

Over the past 3 days I attended the Internet Retailers Mobile Commerce Forum, where the week’s events were filled with insightful and useful information presented by some of the world’s leaders in mobile commerce.

The thing I found most interesting was each of the presenters seemed to all be in agreement on common themes. Presenters typically take different stands on items which are top priority and of less relevance, but this conference, it was really notable that there is good alignment across the key priorities when I comes to mobile commerce. The following are 10 common themes:

1. A mobile site is now table stakes (and not just an optimized version of a full sized site)

The number one theme presented across all aspects of the conference is that most people expect that a mobile site will be presented when they browse from a small screen device. This is no longer something companies should be merely thinking about — especially companies who are trying to transact in mobile, or offer any type of mobile presence, technology or mobile knowledge services.

(The number one thing everyone does as part of their due diligence in determining who to work with all the way from strategy to execution, is look at the vendor’s site and see what the mobile experience is.)

Users turn to mobile on-the-fly, and they expect to land at an “m.site” (pronounced emdot site). Many will just leave rather than pinch and squint.

That said, mobile sites do not need to offer all the content of their parent full sized sites.

A well represented idea in site design was to design the mobile site first, as your mobile site should only contain “the most important” messages and features. Full-sized sites usually offer all of the stuff from mobile sites plus a lot more.

2. The ROI of mobile is not just about transacting on mobile

Mobile sites and mobile apps are much more important to business than just for converting buyers. Many presenters spoke of the value they have been able to track using analytics that showed customers using their apps to discover, and learn about products, then utilizing them to locate a store and then transact in store with POS. While this is less relevant to digital fulfillment retailers, there was a fair amount of discussion of the convergence of physical and digital goods. For example a reward for hitting a specific in-store purchase threshold on physical goods could unlock digital content like music or games (which many not be “charged” for directly).

Also, the combination of mobile technologies like geolocation, SMS and always-with-the-user provides for synergies which allow for improved engagement, relevance and timeliness of messaging and targeting.

Recent data from various studies was presented projecting that the real mobile transacting hitting critical mass is still 1-4 years out.

3. A mobile app is not the same as a mobile site, and consumers do not expect them to do the same thing

The main purpose of a mobile app is to engage. If it doesn’t, it either doesn’t get installed or it gets forgotten. While many of the presentations this week focused on physical goods retail, the themes and concepts are consistent. Browsers and consumers expect that mobile apps will take advantage of mobile technologies. Geolocation, camera-based operations, richer interfaces and the “connected everywhere” aspects are key.

It’s very common for apps and sites to be very interlinked. For example, a rich discovery process can interact with a mobile site to provide more cloud-based content and features. (Even offline, as with SkyMall, where you can have a browsing experience while disconnected, then transact when you are back in a wifi/mobile connected zone).

4. Mobile apps and sites are becoming richer in content

Mobile apps are all going through an evolution, moving from simple text-based navigations to rich content navigations including imagery and video. This is enabled primarily due to the expansive reach of wifi, and the improved technologies for communications like 4G and other emerging technologies.

In the retail world, consumers are expecting the same type of visual impact as on larger formats. Obviously, there are challenges due to screen re-estate and connectivity/bandwidth, but this is quickly disappearing and expectations are set high due to things like Youtube and other rich media on smart phones.

5. Optimize your email for Mobile

A very high number of emails (numbers differed from session to session but it was as high as 80%) are first read through mobile devices (smart phones or feature phones with no graphics). This points to a very important aspect of ensuring that ALL email is optimized for mobile browsing, and that multiple devices are considered.

6. SMS is strong, and customers who engage using it, convert more with a higher AOV (average order value)

Opt-in SMS campaigns are still a very strong part of online engagement and communications tools used today. It was noted in many presentations that customers who engage with opt-in campaigns are more engaged with retailers, and thus convert more with higher order values.

SMS campaigns are sophisticated taking inputs from the whole engagement experience, and offering segmented and targeted two-way communications, and although automated, really do engage consumers.

7. The iPad is special (compared to other “mobile” devices)

There is mobile, and there is iPad. Many companies are building iPad specific sites and apps to engage deeper with customers and to take advantage of the specific technologies which are offered. Many speakers talked about the engagement levels being much higher on iPad. After work and weekends (couch time) are the most popular times for users to engage with commercial websites and apps.

8. The Multi-device play is paramount

A web site, iPhone, Android and iPad experience all need to share common elements like user profile / targeting information and cart / basket / wishlists. The Home Shopping Network presented a very sophisticated presentation showing how all of these devices work together to offer a rich and far reaching environment — sharing assets, and user information, but utilizing the unique features of each device in a special way.

Many uses will engage using more than one device at the same time (watching the Home Shopping Channel on TV while looking at deeper product content on an iPad, or transacting on a mobile device).

9. Location based services (both macro and micro location) and targeting is gaining momentum

As a leader in the location based specific marketing world, “ShopKicK” installs devices at the front entrance of many retailers physical stores, which identify when a user “walks through the doors”. Combined with a user installed mobile app, it offers incentives, promotions and loyalty points to consumers every time they go to a specific location. Combined with in-store specific tagging technologies, “gamification” can be enabled, drawing consumers into physical locations and actually driving them to specific locations within the store to seek out “tags” to complete puzzles and gain rewards. This can then be used in conjunction with physical and digital goods rewards. As an example, with the Shopkick app installed, you walk in the door with the app running, it rewards you for “coming to the store,” then it tells you to find a specific items in the store for a reward. Going to the specific location in the store, and using your camera to scan the tags on product boxes or displays then unlocks a digital download for a piece of music or a game or some other digital reward. Also, knowing that you have been to that location in the store, the retailer can also message you about specific other items at or near that location in the store and offer digital coupons.

Too cool.

10. User experience testing gaining visibility and traction

Many sessions discussed user experience design up front, and usability testing (in various forms) as a way to vet designs, tune and optimize. There was a lot more focus on this than I have noticed in previous workshops and conferences. It appears that retailers have learned from the past (web 1.0) that its not about just “build it, they will come.” There is a lot more energy and focus on understanding the users, and ensuring mobile apps are usable, and relevant. Momentum is definitely building around this area.

Looking for help with your ecommerce strategy and site optimization? The Elastic Path research and consulting division is available to enterprises selling digital goods and services. For more information, visit us at http://elasticpath.com/ecommerce-consulting/ or contact us at consulting@elasticpath.com.

Launching mobile commerce within an organization requires a sound Mobile Strategy and a well-defined roadmap to ensure the right items are prioritized and that actionable results can be quickly obtained. There are so many options – both technical and business based – that it is important to step back, look the business and marketing strategy, and to determine how mobile fits in at the strategic level.

On the technical side, core ecommerce and marketing services such as content merchandising and discovery, checkout and payment, and content delivery can be provided to traditional desktops, as well as new devices like smartphones, tablets, TV’s and BlueRay players through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)*. The API’s standardize the interfaces which apps, sites or products need to access, simplifying integration and providing common tools and technologies which are scalable and well documented.

*Defined at the end of the article.

One the business side, understanding core organizational Vision and Objectives for Mobile, as well as having a business value prioritized roadmap establishes guidelines to be used when making detailed scope / process decisions. Recommendations from the Mobile Strategy will guide implementation and help to avoid pitfalls as well as forming a point of reference to evaluate detailed priorities against. Mobile roadmaps that are well communicated and aligned with other priorities across the organization are more actionable, and will be supported by the many stakeholders and team members who need to provide resources and decision making inputs during implementation.

Mobile Vision and Objectives

Before diving to deeply into the functional needs of the Mobile implementation, it’s key to get a solid understanding of the Vision and Objectives. This diagram shows a high level summary of the key things to be considered:

Here is an overview of each of the components which together help shape the Vision and Objectives:

Mobile Vision – Discuss and define current vision of mobile, as it is currently understood. Keep things at a high level from the perspective of requirements; don’t get to bogged down in the details of how things will be accomplished.

Near/Long term Goals – Define what goals the mobile web or apps which are being considered will strive to meet. What goals are important to be fulfilled sooner rather than later? Which can be deferred till a later time?

Mobile SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) – It’s important to understand the landscape specific to your company’s mobile space. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What opportunities do you think mobile commerce has to offer your organization? What threats exist in regards to your mobile offering?

Mobile Competitive Analysis – What are your competitors doing in mobile currently? Do you know what they have planned for the future? Any lessons your competitors have learned which you can leverage to avoid similar pitfalls?

IT / Business Alignment – It’s critical that out of the gate there is a strong synergy between the Technical teams that will implement and operationalize your mobile implementation and the business departments including Marketing, Sales and Content who will define and refine what is to be delivered. Launching into the mobile space is just the start of a long term engagement which will require ongoing maintenance and continuous improvement from the day of your initial release.

Governance – Establishing a strong governance approach for the collection and prioritization of scope for mobile, as well as an ongoing approach to keeping Strategy refreshed and making key tactical decisions quickly is critical to keeping up with the fast moving mobile environment.

Unique Selling Proposition – What is it that distinguishes your mobile site / apps from your competition? How will you articulate your unique value proposition?

Establishing well defined Vision and a clear list of easily consumed Objectives which embodies the information collected in the items above. This is the key to starting off your Mobile Strategy with a consistent understanding across all of the stakeholders.

Mobile Strategy

Once a clear definition of the Vision and Objectives is established, diving deeper into the mobile-specific requirements / needs for the project can be initiated. The following diagram outlines the key areas to ensure focus on while defining the Mobile Strategy, in preparation for Implementation and Optimization:

User Experience – The key to any good user experience strategy is to ensure that that all interfaces are built with a strong understanding of your user and their goals. Partnering this information with the context of use (understanding who will be using it, when they will use it and why they will use) is especially critical to the design and success of any mobile app or site.

Centralized User Profile – While mobile is trending up, traditional web site access, and the plentitude of different tablet / laptop screen sizes available, customers are interacting with businesses using multiple devices on a more and more frequent basis. It’s not uncommon to begin some action on a laptop, continue it on the way home from a smart phone, then to pick up the tablet when home to finish things off. The Centralized User Profile is key to collecting all specifics about a user in a single place, and to ensuring context is saved as users move from one device / app / site to the next.

Content Management – in the digital goods space, Content is the primary product which is being sold. A well designed content management system, with well conceived content acquisition and curation tools and processes is key to ensuring customers can browse/search and access the content which is relevant and of value to them. The delivery of content, especially to global customers also requires a solid plan utilizing content delivery network (CDN) for scalability and performance.

Devices, Sites, Apps – There are more combinations available than ever when considering where to target implementation resources, and the technologies and interfaces being built today will quickly be eclipsed by the changes from tomorrow. Ensuring that data and content are structured for consumption by both today’s and tomorrow’s interfaces and applications is critical. Meta data, relationships between content, and various form factors for assets enable future interfaces to consume content as needed. Building applications to consume and test content in the many different formats and styles available today can be continuously leveraged for improvement.

Marketing, Sales, Technology and Customer Input – it’s important to have a structured was of receiving and prioritizing input from Marketing, Sales, Technology and Customers is a way which ensuring urgent input can be considered and taken action on swiftly. Inputs from the various stakeholders will impact both Tactical priorities as well as being considered when strategic updates are being made to plans and roadmaps.

IT and Infrastructure – At the heart of the whole ecommerce implementation – and even more importantly for mobile – is a solid, extensible platform and a responsive IT team who work collaboratively with business to roll out continuous improvements to the platform, its integrated services and the many front ends including mobile sites and apps.

Analytics and Optimization – Ensuring that mobile analytics systems and mobile A/B and multivariate testing tools are rolled into the overall optimization data capture, and that actionable result are generated, are key to ensuring the systems are continuously improved over time.

Entitlements and Digital Rights Management – For digital goods, a centralized entitlements engine (digital rights), which is aware and in real-time sync with all channels that customers may be using, is critical to providing an integrated experience to users who access services and content from multiple devices.

Roadmap – All requirements and inputs are grouped into items, which are then prioritized and scheduled on the program roadmap. Many organizations have multiple roadmaps, one for each major product or channel that they support. When new items are added to the queue for implementation, they often have components that span multiple teams’ roadmaps (e.g. Marketing Roadmap, Platform/API Roadmap, Mobile App roadmap, etc. could all be impacted when a new feature is added to a mobile app).

Note that each of the items above is a key component to mobile commerce, though in many cases the mobile specific requirements are shared across multiple other touch points including web sites/portals and interfaces to other systems which are customer facing.

Key Stages to Mobile Enablement

To get started, most organizations are working through a big-picture strategy, then aligning the many priorities which come out of the planning exercise into 2 stages. The first stage is the initial launch and must have functionality. The second stage is a set of roadmap items which are required following the initial launch. The Strategy will allow for a value of each item to be determined, to ensure that priorities are based on both business and IT requirements and that the biggest return items are enabled first.

For organizations where mobile is still all new, it is recommended that the initial phase of their projects includes an initial mobile-optimized web site. Once a basic mobile-optimized/targeted site is in place, additional efforts for mobile apps is often taken on as a second/third phase. Selecting which functionality, what platform, and how urgently the apps need to get to market is all part of understanding the overall Mobile Strategy and is mapped out on the Mobile Roadmap. The following diagram shows a) a typical approach to getting the Mobile Strategy in place, and b) the build out of the Mobile Optimized Web, then c) 1 or more Mobile Apps:

Next Steps?

So what are the next steps to beginning the mobile journey? Initially the strategy needs to be defined, and high level priorities need to be selected. Those priorities will be associated with multiple changes required to both platform and other aspects of the systems and internal processes. Establishing the priorities and then bringing them together with the other organization priorities for ecommerce, and then visualizing them on a common view Roadmap, is an effective way to break down the challenge, and make it actionable.

The following diagram shows how Business, Marketing, IT and Customer inputs are collected into a pool of Requirements / Needs. These items then have their business value determined and then they are prioritized and assigned to the one or more roadmaps which will be involved in enabling the new features. It’s important to note that following a functionality release, the same stakeholders are continuously involved in providing the next round of inputs for the next round of functionality extensions, optimizations and continuous improvement.

Conclusion

The most direct and effective way to provide a unified multi channel view including mobile phone / tablet / PC and other devices is to leverage existing ecommerce functionality, exposing it through an open architecture, stable integration framework, and documented APIs. This will allow rapid development of features and integrations in a scalable and cost effective way. To truly understand where to start a Mobile Strategy is used to collect input from stakeholders and to collaboratively establish a prioritized roadmap which outlines priorities and their relative sequence.

Upon completion of the Strategy and once the understanding of key requirements around Mobile Web Optimization and specific device / app needs are defined specific project estimates / budgets can be defined and the implementation stage can be initiated.

*API definition: An Application-Programming Interface (API) is a set of programming instructions which allows the software of one system to communicate with the software of another system. When a user interface needs to interact with systems to perform a specific task (for example when you click a button to check out) the front end portal/Interface sends the required information to the back end systems and receives the resulting output using an API to communicate. The benefit of API’s is that they are well documented and made available to internal and external developers providing a consistent and supported way of interfacing with systems.

Looking for help with m-commerce? Contact the Elastic Path consulting team at consulting@elasticpath.com to learn how our mobile commerce strategy services can improve your business results.