Undeniably, Asia is ripping shreads off the failing economies in the US and Europe.  Economic giant China is storming ahead – now it no longer just manufactures our tech products (like iphones) but has their own growing, ferocious demand for smart phones and tablets. While the fastest growing technology brands in Asia are streaking ahead, western companies are also reaping the benefit of the ‘red’ dollar.

China now delivers Apple the most revenue after the U.S and this continues to grow. When the iphone was launched in China in 2009 – it was then just two percent of Apple’s revenue – now it (and Hong Kong and Taiwan) are 12 per cent of Apple’s full-year revenue for 2011. This was hard to grasp in 2009 when it was launched in China as you can tell by the reactions on Gigaom at the time.

Chinese-made and owned brands like Huawei being sold for a fifth of the price of Apple phones combined with the bans on wi-fi made the success of the iphone seem unlikely – yet the rapidly growing middle class is changing this…rapidly.

As a flow-on effect, online stores are now increasingly being accessed through mobile and the Chinese average spend increasing.  Australian eCommerce sites should take a leaf out of the book of the Chinese eCommerce site, Yihaodian. Boasting 120,000 goods for sale, same-day delivery in many areas and sophisticated digital customer relationship management tools. Astoundingly, it posted a three-year growth rate of 19,218%.

Or China’s Jiaxing Mbaobao Technology is one of the leading designers and distributors of bags. They take the business seriously with a research centre in Venice, a presence in Tokyo and are expanding to English-language sites targeting North America. The company, which has a three-year growth rate of 6,228%, has embraced the buzz concepts of “fast fashion”, “fast marketing” and “fast logistics” and serves over a million customers.

The growth in online sales has come despite the great firewall of China, which saw the closure of 1.3 million websites last year.  In a country with such a mammoth population and so many operators trying to make a yuan, serious savvy is required.

Chinese citizens spend an average of 2.7 hours online per day — second to only the Japanese and as the country continues to open up – the floodgates are also opening to savvy eMarketers which boast a local and overseas presence.  The Australian wine industry is just one growing area where satisfying the Chinese appetite for Aussie reds is a perfect eCommerce platform.  With such a high proportion of our exports dependant on the Chinese market (25 per cent), there is no reason that Australia’s online commerce players shouldn’t get a hearty slice of the China-pie.

Online purchasing is growing while Aussies have a more ferocious appetite for social networking than most of the world.

So it makes sense that there’s infinite plugins and extensions to help e-commerce shack up with social networks.  Get it right and your social media output can be used to add value to your online store continuing the conversation and building relationships and loyalty – way beyond single transactions.

Our preferred e-commerce solution, Magento, can easily be integrated with Twitter feeds and Facebook fanpages using Magento default APIs. Similarly e-Newsletter sign-up options include features that allow recipients to share the newsletter invite across social channels.

Beyond share or like buttons, social commerce can be built across communities through all sorts of user engagement platforms, reviews, mobile apps, newsfeeds, coupons, discount and deals.

Social referrals can aid the purchasing process by spreading the word amongst shoppers’ friends and offering rewards and incentives to do so.

“Peer referrals allows consumers to gauge the product relative to their personal preferences,” explains SocialTwist CEO Vijay Pullar.  ”A key trend brands can leverage is that friends know what other friends like and they know what their other friends are looking for,” said Pullar.

There’s seemingly no end to the plugins and extensions that can be integrated with your Magento online store, here‘s a handful:

ShareThis, Socialable Allows users to share specific sites, pages or products and distribute information via Facebook, Bebo, Twitter and tell friends.

Beetailer, Storeya, Facebook Store App Integrates some or all of products from your Magento store into social networks and fanpages.

Curebit, Social Twist Get your customers to refer their friends via Twitter, Facebook or email, with useful tracking features

Groupon, Zizio Social Deals Launch social deals campaigns and coupons offering rebates for referrals for your customers to tell their friends.  This is a flooded category of social commerce to be weary of  but it can occasionally still be appropriate for certain markets.

Facebook  Referrals,  Open Graph and Comments Allowing your customers to invite people and get automatic discounts, share what they ‘want’ and ‘own’ or leave comments your webstore’s product page by logging into their Facebook accounts.

Shopalize Purchase Sharing Widget After purchase, customers can share their purchases or offers with friends in social platforms.

Tailor your social strategy to your market, capabilities and objectives as running consumables out the door at bargain prices needs a different approach to a premium product looking to create brand longevity and a loyal fan base.

While Facebook and Twitter will give you wide reach, more niche and specialised social platforms are being used by brands to supplement their broader social strategy.

These communities geared to a specific interest may give you a more targeted reach. For example, sharing photos of your clothing range and inspirational images via Instagram may help gain the attention of fashionistas or you may establish credibility with foodies by posting info on Foodspotting. These niche audiences may be the trendsetters within your category of commerce.

We recommend staggering the implementation of your social elements unless you have internal resources in place or the budget to outsource its management. Social needs to be monitored carefully and providing rapid response times or risk alienating users.

Our advice: get your store working, then plan and implement one or two social extensions or plugins at a time.

Access their effectiveness and reach through services such as Facebook Insights and Google Analytics, which includes analysis of your site and e-sales across multiples channels including social.

Socialising your online store will be an evolving process as technologies and communities change, yet it is a necessary and worthwhile investment in today’s e-commerce mediascape.

Need an expert at Magento integrations including in social extensions and plugins?

Design Industries offer tailored web solutions. Click here for more info about Magento e-commerce integrations or contact us.

The Delivery

First and foremost, Design Industries made sure that the new website kept the look and feel of Baby Bunting’s well thought out brand image. Underneath the inviting pink and blue graphics, the Design Industries team modernised the online brand by focusing on improving and enhancing the website’s core functionality.

The team chose to build the new site around Magento, which is an incredibly powerful, fully integrated ecommerce system. The talented web developers customised Magento to meet Baby Bunting’s unique needs, identifying which combinations of features would provide the strongest ecommerce system for the growing company. The new website is fully integrated with powerful reporting tools, full SEO-friendly text, a payment gateway, and optimisation for the iPhone and other mobile devices.

But the team didn’t stop there. Baby Bunting was also given a complete content management system, making it easy for Baby Bunting employees to update site content and add, modify, and delete products as the company’s product offerings change over time. The site is also fully integrated with an e-newsletter system, making it easy to communicate with current and prospective customers.

Managers at Baby Bunting can access user-friendly reports on all the website statistics with a few simple clicks. This allows the company to analyse site visits and identify ways to improve the shopping experience both now and in the future. The flexibility and strong performance of the new site have ensured that Baby Bunting maintains a strong position in the competitive market for baby products.

Web solution built & powered with Magento

Magento has reached an agreement to be acquired by eBay Inc. We believe this move will open incredible opportunities for the entire Magento ecosystem.

The Big Picture

Why is this acquisition so exciting for all of us? eBay is evolving to become a strategic commerce partner focused on delivering new ways for merchants of all sizes to drive innovation. As a centerpiece of this strategy, they are building a global, open commerce platform that leverages the worldwide developer community. And Magento will be at the core of this new, open commerce platform, called “X.Commerce.”

Magento & eBay

As many of you know, Magento has had a relationship with eBay for some time. In March 2010, eBay became our first outside investor. Over the past year, eBay has gotten to know our platform, our culture, and our community. They have experienced the passion of the Magento ecosystem, and they are eager to harness the power of this ecosystem to create the next generation of eCommerce innovation.

Moving forward: the details

How will this acquisition impact our organization, customers and partners? It’s too soon to know all the details, but there are a few things we know. Following the closing, Magento will continue to operate out of Los Angeles, with Yoav Kutner and me as its leaders. We’ll continue building our team and enhancing our product line, including the Magento Community, Enterprise, and Mobile Editions, as well as Magento Go and the Magento Go Platform. And we’ll continue strengthening our training, education, packaged consulting services and support efforts around the world.

Through it all, we’ll be collaborating with our colleagues at eBay on developing the X.Commerce platform and defining the next generation of eCommerce innovation.

Yoav and I recorded a short video about the acquisition – I hope you’ll take a few minutes to watch it. We have also prepared an FAQ with answers to many of your questions about this announcement.

Creating the future together

To all the members the Magento family: we thank you for all the passion, expertise and hard work that you’ve invested in Magento. Thanks to you, Magento finds itself exactly where we’ve always aimed to be: at the core of eCommerce. We are thrilled about becoming part of a larger organization that recognizes – as we always have – that the future of eCommerce is global, innovative and open. We look forward to creating that future with all of you.

Source: http://www.magentocommerce.com/blog/comments/ebay-agrees-to-acquire-magento/

More than a skin.

It’s not just a simple Magento template – actually it’s a revolutionary hybrid of a superior theme and a full-value extension.

We’ve enriched its functionality with AJAX cart and integrated advanced navigation. Say goodbye to annoying page reloads when adding items to cart or searching the store, and browse with ease and simplicity.

Fully automatised.

The iPhone Theme has its own automatic identification.

Advanced User Interface.

Theme layout and UI elements are developed especially for mobile devices:

• Large fonts and buttons,
• Instant search without page reloads,
• Cart access from any page,

Everything eases your iPhone clients browsing.

It detects device, when your visitors get to your website using iPhone, switches between iPhone or desktop theme, and then pushes them to the right one.

Melbourne based web design company deploys one of Australia’s first privately owned PCI compliant website’s

Melbourne – October 12th, 2010 –Melbourne based web-design studio Design Industries has announced the release of one of Australia’s first Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards compliant websites.

“There are quite a few PCI compliant systems and websites in Australia,” said Michael Dockery, owner of Design Industries. “This is one of the few privately held projects to be PCI compliant.”

The new website, Powerseller.com.au, is a shopping center styled website with a full sales-transaction management system that allows vendors to open-up-shop online without any of the hassles usually associated with creating your own e-commerce presence. Not only is Powerseller Australia’s leading multi-vendor e-commerce website it’s also one of the first Australian web based companies to fully comply with PCI standards for data security.

“PCI certification required a great many number of changes for Design Industries,” explained Andrew Dockery, Senior Software Designer. “We had to change the way we coded, the way we handled passwords and the way we accessed and configured our systems, particularly in production.”

The controversial PCI standards, which were implemented by several of the major credit card companies like Visa, MasterCard a and American Express, require that all businesses that accept, transmit or store credit card holder information, meet a stringent set of security requirements or face hefty fines.
“No one has talked to businesses about complying with the PCI requirements as it is anti-competitive behavior by the big card companies,” said Michael. “It’s going to be a massive problem over the next couple of years.”

About Design Industries

Design Industries is one of Australia’s leading web design companies, and we offer our clientele a broad range of services, skills and experience. Formed in 2000, this Melbourne based company specializes in developing custom solutions for new and growing business ventures seeking a superior web presence.

View Case Study

Click to read the PowerSeller Case Study

Contact:

Michael Dockery
Owner
Design Industries
Tel: 1300 73 63 63

When Magento was released in early 2008, it was met with excitement and interest from e-commerce site developers around the world. It quickly became the preferred software option for mid-range ecommerce sites due to its powerful administrative features and functionality. As Armando Roggio states on www.practicalecommerce.com,

“Magento’s feature list is clearly the result of years of ecommerce experience. The platform includes features like a built-in product image zoom capability, advanced pricing rules to support special promotions, a landing page tool to help with marketing campaigns, inventory management, side-by-side product comparison tools, and more.”

If you are in the market for a new platform on which to run your ecommerce site, here are some reasons why Magento may be the right choice for you.

Free

First off, Magento Community Edition is free! Not much can beat a well-built, highly functional product that you can download for no cost. However, dedicated support from Verian the company that developed Magento, is not free and can be quite expensive. Whether you need to purchase a support plan depends on the expertise of your in-house team. If you are have an experienced team, then the free open developers forum may meet your needs.

Feature-Rich

Magento is a highly functional piece of software. It has been developed with an eye on Google and includes Google analytic tools so that your statistics, traffic and search results are highly valuable and reliable. In addition, the site has strong search and sort tools that provide reliable and thorough results.

The software also includes SEO optimisation, including tags, descriptions, clean URLs, and Google site navigation. When getting a new or revamped site up and running, this is extremely important for building up your search engine results and driving in new traffic.

Another robust feature of this product is its ability to run multiple commerce sites from a single version of the software. Each site can have its own unique layout, storefront and templates all running simultaneously. Magento can combine databases to allow for a single report on all of your individual stores and sales. This allows for superior supply management and customer service to manage all your outlets from one single place.

With the Magento software, you can not only access great reporting, but also import large databases of customer and product information. This can be vital for any business and can help save countless hours in your migration process. The software does not restrict the number of sales or products on the site, unlike many competing products, which charge for any overages beyond certain limits.

A few additional features of Magento include the ability to upsell to your customers at checkout time, a single checkout page, and functionality with all major merchant accounts. Magento also offers a newsletter feature, customer review options and integration with all postal carriers for real-time rate quotes.

Some Words of Warning

There are also a few challenges associated with this software. Magneto is a robust product that provides a high level of functionality, but to take advantage of that functionality, you need a strong, dedicated IT professional who can design, build and maintain the site. In addition, Magento operates best with large drivers and a dedicated server. If you don’t have those resources at your disposal, you will likely be frustrated with Magento.

Some additional glitches have been reported when getting the product up and running, but work-throughs can be found on the solutions forum. During the initial installation, some of your directories’ permission levels may need to be adjusted to allow for all files to be downloaded. Also, when importing product databases, it is best to create product categories first, because it can be challenging to make adjustments to the database once the information has been uploaded. In addition, there are some concerns related to the creation of custom attributes.

In sum, Magento is a strong product with a good following and a very robust feature set. It merits consideration when you’re selecting the right IT solution for your business.

Using the wonderful open source eCommerce solution Magento, the new Baby Bunting website is streamlined and simplified.

Magento, with has an integrated Content Management System, eNewsletter system, integration with a Payment Gateway and seamless integration with Minder Stock Control system the new Baby Bunting website will act like a hub for prospective and current customers allowing easy access to a larger product range, helpful tips for future and new mothers plus a range of other helpful features.

You can visit the website here or visit our case study here.

If you have an iPhone handy check out how well the site works with the standard Safari browser.

It’s a familiar scenario: your web manager is diligently working away at his computer when a pop-up notification appears, saying it’s time to update to a new version of the CMS (content management system) software or e-commerce software. Instinctively and without giving it a second thought, many users click “ignore” or “remind me later,” and continue on with their work. That’s understandable, because upgrading software can be time-intensive, frustrating, and expensive. However, the benefits of upgrading far outweigh these comparatively minor inconveniences. As explained below, operating a website or an online shopping cart with outdated software can lead to potentially disastrous consequences for your business and even for your customers.

In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of upgrading CMS and eCart software and keeping abreast of developments in the newest available versions. As a successful business owner, you’ll want to regularly update software to newer versions to take advantage of the latest features, continue to receive technical support, maintain security for your website and data, and keep costs down.

Upgrading to Achieve Business Success

Software developers are constantly on the hunt to add new features and benefits to their software packages, thereby increasing the functionality and ease of use for their customers. Like most products, software really does improve over time. In some website design software packages, upgrades include new features like improved organisation and design, additional viewing formats, and inclusion and implementation of new technologies that allow a program to run more quickly or reliably. These new features enable the operator or designer to accomplish programming and design more efficiently, and often at a lower cost.

Purchasing and implementing new versions of software as they are released and introduced to the market ensures that your website and company will stay up-to-date with the latest technology and web trends. Some companies have tried to cut costs by opting out of upgrades. However, this is a risky strategy. Failing to install the upgrades not only impedes your chance of success by not taking advantage of the latest technologies, but also jeopardises your ability to upgrade in the future. Some programs require multiple upgrades over time, and if those upgrades are not performed sequentially and promptly, future versions may not be able to convert your existing data files. Other programs simply do not allow you to upgrade if you have skipped previous upgrades. In these cases, your company is faced with having to do a major overhaul of the software, perhaps even buying an entirely new program.

Another important factor to consider is the type of software that your suppliers, clients and partners are running. If they have upgraded, but you choose not to, then your software may not be compatible with theirs. This could create difficulties in data exchange which could, in turn, lead to decreased sales, increased business costs, and even lost clients

Upgrading to Eliminate Headaches

Although new programs are thoroughly tested before being introduced to the market, occasionally bugs or malfunctions will sneak through the testing process and hinder performance, negatively affecting your website functionality. Even if the bug is relatively minor, it probably hampers optimal performance for the user and may become a more serious problem for your business down the road.

Over time, software operators identify these bugs and report them back to the developers. Solutions are created and introduced to the program, but you will receive and benefit from those corrective solutions only if you choose to upgrade the software.

Also, if your business ever requires technical support from the developer or manufacturer, you may be required to be operating the latest version of the program before you are eligible for online chat or phone support. Most software companies do provide adequate support and troubleshooting, but some companies do this for only a limited period of time, so it is important to be running the latest version of their programs.

Upgrading to Stay Secure

Recently, a popular software program suddenly urged its users to upgrade immediately to an alternate version of the program. Older versions of the program wre coming under “attack,” which caused critical infections in users’ databases and jeopardised the privacy of all stored customer data. The upgrade offered significantly increased security measures and websites that had already switched to the new version were not in danger. However, businesses that were still operating under the previous version were vulnerable to the attack and had to act quickly to protect themselves and their customers.

Older versions of software are much more susceptible to security hazards, because they don’t contain the latest security patches. Computer hackers have spent time developing automated code to hack existing sites and programs, but they haven’t yet had enough time or access to hack into the newest versions. Keeping abreast of program upgrades and upgrading to new versions whenever they are offered will help to keep you one step ahead of the hackers, ensuring your security and keeping your website and data safe.

Upgrading to Keep Costs Down

Program users often complain that software upgrades are expensive and add an unnecessary cost to business operations. However, the real and potential costs of continuing to operate with an older version of software can be substantially higher than the relatively minor cost of making a minor upgrade.

In general, buying a series of minor upgrades over the years adds up to a smaller total investment than holding out and paying full price for a major software upgrade every few years. Also, a major software upgrade has many hidden costs, including employee training for a new system and the potential loss of productivity if the program is installed incorrectly. Frequent, minor upgrades ensure a smoother transition to new versions of the software and thereby help to avoid or at least mitigate these risks.

The average business owner may perceive that software upgrades are too frequent and trivial. Yet any business owner who has first-hand experience with software bugs, compatibility issues with clients, or dangerous security threats knows that regular software upgrades are an absolute necessity. Factor the cost of regular software upgrades into your business plan, and your content management system and eCart will continue to bring success to you and to your business.

The Delivery

The professional teams at Melbourne-based Design Industries tackled this large, ambitious project one step at a time, completely redesigning the site and reworking the underlying infrastructure. The talented and creative designers created an ultra-modern design that met all of CAMS’ requirements within the specified time period.
Meanwhile, developers used Sitecore, which is arguably the best content management system (CMS) available in the market today, to create a new, powerful, and flexible framework for the CAMS website.

The backend is based on fast, intuitive edging, which uses the same ribbon-style interface as Microsoft Office 2007, making the editing environment comfortable and intuitive for the end users – even for CAMS employees who have little or no experience in web-editing.

The web development work also accommodated multi-site deployment, meaning that CAMS can now manage an unlimited number of sites, sharing information and backend code across sites with ease. In addition, Design Industries focused on search-engine optimization (SEO), using Google-friendly URLs and other techniques to instantly improve the site’s organic search results.

All this work resulted in an exciting, compelling website that speaks directly to Australian motor sport enthusiasts. The state-of-the-art CMS supports a fully functional intranet and extranet, with many possibilities to accommodate and support ecommerce functions in the near future.

Web solution built & powered with Sitecore enterprise solution