The following is an email I received from Circuit City the other day. I think this last-minute Valentine’s Day email campaign pulls together appropriate design elements, messaging and calls-to-action. And reflects what we’ve been talking about for months here at Get Elastic about holiday marketing.

Now that you’ve given your scroll-wheel a nice workout, let’s break this email down:

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Eleventh Hour Holiday Email Marketing - Great Example From Circuit City »

Many retailers are starting to use blogs to interact with and market to shoppers. In fact, 15% of the Top 500 Online Retailers have ecommerce blogs. Some are fresh out of the gate, while others have thousands of posts and comments. We rounded them all up and have listed 75+ ecommerce blogs for your retail inspiration. Alright, let’s check out who’s blogging now…

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ECOMMERCE BLOGS: 75+ Community Sites of the Top Online Retailers »

Add to Cart buttons – they may be small, but no online retail store can do without them. These little, rectangular, sometimes colorful clickables connect the product to the shopping cart and are an extension of your branding. It’s important to put some thought into what your “Add to Cart” icon looks like in your shopping cart.

We’ve collected over 100 Add to Cart buttons from the top online retailers of 2006 to give you some design inspiration. And we’ve summarized some usability guidelines that you can apply to your own Add to Cart button. Ok, there are actually 111 shopping cart icons, but 107 just looked cooler.

And now for some stats, because percentages make it cooler.

How the Add To Cart Button Can Reinforce Your Branding

At first the “Add to Cart” button may seem like a minor detail, but it has the potential to create an emotional connection with your brand. Your choice of shape, color, font and button text all affect that connection.

Urban Outfitters’ felt pen lettering echoes the brand’s edgy, street persona (it may however be at the expense of findability as it does nothing to stand out on the screen). Northerntool’s plus sign icon resembles a screwdriver head. Petsmart’s little red doggie ball is fun, playful and instantly recognizable. Bloomingdale’s signature “big brown bag” icon captures its cachet. And Polo’s timeless, deep navy blue button brings harmony between its online and offline identity.

Button text is also of great importance. “Add to Shopping Bag” sounds more appropriate for high end department stores than “Add to Cart,” which is more believable for a WalMart or Target. “Order Now” may work for long time catalog brands now accommodating online orders. In the UK, “Add to Basket” is more prevalent terminology.

Button Design and Usability

Button Text

Web copywriting emphasizes scannabliity — perhaps the golden rule of web copywriting is don’t use 5 words when three will do. How much more should this rule apply to a small button? Nevertheless, we found 15% of the top etailers going long. Harry and David’s “Add To My Shopping Cart” — though personal — is a mouthful.

“Buy Now” may be a stronger call to action than “Add to Cart”, but may subtly suggest the user is finished shopping or is making a commitment to purchase without time to review the order. The beauty of “Add to Cart” is that it is non-committal and assumes the user is still looking around. And if you’re a good e-salesperson, you’re showing suggested products and a “continue shopping” link from view cart page (or you are using an in-line cart with Ajax’y goodness).

Text Formatting

General web usability guidelines recommend sans-serif fonts with high contrast color selection (high-contrast white on black or dark blue rather than low-contrast like Chadwick’s blue-on-blue).

All-caps are generally discouraged in web copywriting. Mixed case is the easiest to read, although all lower case is also easy. We found 45% of “Add to Cart” buttons using all-capitals. Walgreen’s slaps white all-caps text on a light colored, tiny button with a gradient and an icon, forcing some users to squint.

Button Placement

If you offer helpful features on your product pages like wishlists, enlarged photos, color switching, alternate product views, email to friend, size chart, view cart or check out buttons, make sure the “Add to Cart” button is obvious, bright and prominent in comparison. Less important functions can be lighter colored buttons or simple text links.

Stacking Text

Stacking text is not a good idea for links or navigation buttons, and the same goes for “Add to Cart” buttons. Users have come to expect some form of rectangular shape, and when quickly scanning a page, it may take longer to distinguish button from decoration, and even become frustrating. No need to reinvent the wheel, stick to the convention.

What if You Use A Button From a Template?

Even if you don’t use a custom designed “Add to Cart” button for your shopping cart, choose a button that complements your site’s theme (complements does not infer it must be the the exact same color). And make sure you pick one design and stick with it. Ecommerce thrives on trust, and random buttons erodes customer confidence.

What do you think is the best button in the collection? What about elsewhere on the web?

In Feb. 20th edition of Internet Retailer, Elastic Path’s VP Marketing was quoted in an article called, “Keeping site design to a minimum” which discussed the very relevant idea of keeping your ecommerce site design clean and simple rather than barraging visitors with a confusing clutter of linkable chaos.

Here’s what he had to say:

Generally, many e-retailers can’t seem to see the forest for the trees, contends Jason Billingsley, vice president of marketing at Elastic Path Software Inc., an e-commerce platform vendor.

“A forgotten aspect of site design is minimalism—reducing features, reducing functionality,” Billingsley says. “When you look at successful e-commerce designs like Apple’s, you see it’s difficult to get confused. It’s minimalist. And if you can get across one clear message, it’s far more effective than crowding shoppers with more features and functions.”

The article also quotes Craig Smith, founder and managing director of Trinity Insight LLC, and Troy Lawson, chief technology officer at Best Kiteboarding LLC who echo Jason’s opinion saying on minimalism, saying, “You don’t want to cause analysis paralysis, where you give shoppers so many options” and, “… take something so complicated but present it in a way that is so easy to use,” respectively.

DaveO gets a lesson on using AJAX (not just for cleaning) for advanced web interface usability from the brilliant and humourous lads of E-Business Applications, Andre Charland and Alexei White.

Note: This is an ‘enhanced’ podcast filled with relevant photos and links (use your viewer window in the bottom left corner of iTunes).

While playing with Elastic Path “thinking putty,” they discuss ways to optimize the user experience, pros and cons of various technologies, the EBA Grid and Combo Box products and recap a few Gnomedex conference highlights - plus have some laughs about ski culture (gapers), community building, fantasy sports and the fleece-filled recreational equipment district of Vancouver.

Bonus Link Stash:
Ethan Kaplan (Warner Brothers Records’ Director of Technology and editor of REM fan site Murmurs )
Marc Canter - People Aggregator
Gnomedex - Chris Pirillo - Tag Jag - Blaugh (Friendster )
Flickr pics - Gnomedex, DogLotion, Gapers