iQliving Selects OrderDynamics to Power their Online Storefront and Enhance its Multi-Channel Experience

JULY 31, 2012 – TORONTO, ON – OrderDynamics™, Canada’s leading on-demand commerce platform provider, today announced that iQliving, a Canadian specialty housewares retailer, has selected OrderDynamics to power its online storefront and enhance its multi-channel retail strategy.

The Toronto-based retailer sells more than 5,000 different product lines including bath, kitchen, and storage within their 3,500 square foot flagship store, and has built a strong customer base due to their attention to detail and exceptional customer service.  

iQliving opted to replace their legacy eCommerce solution after determining their online storefront didn’t match the premium experience, quality, or detail of its in-store counterpart.  After a rigorous selection process, iQliving selected OrderDynamics due to their experience in providing eCommerce solutions capable of integrating with in-store point of sale systems and existing offline loyalty programs.

With OrderDynamics, iQliving now has the ability to deliver an exceptional end-to-end online shopping experience with advanced online marketing and merchandising functionality, a fully integrated order management system, and OD Endpoint™ - a solution specifically designed by OrderDynamics for warehouse and pick-pack-and-ship fulfillment scenarios.

“It’s important for iQliving to incorporate the best elements of our in-store experience in our online store as we continue to grow that part of our business.  OrderDynamics enables us to create true multi-channel strategies and initiatives to better serve our customers,” said Vince Menchella, CEO at iQliving.  “OrderDynamics experience connecting online and offline channels, as well as their passion for eCommerce made it clear they are ideal partners for iQliving. They’ll help give us a distinct competitive advantage,” he added.

“iQliving recognizes the opportunity that exists today in the Canadian online marketplace and are aggressively pursuing growth with cutting edge tactics and advanced technology,” said Michael Turcsanyi, President at OrderDynamics.  “We look forward to working with the iQliving team to help them achieve their goals.”

Walking on a Cloud Increases Social Media Fanbase by 70% through OrderDynamics H.I.V.E. Partner ShopSocially

JULY 24, 2012 – TORONTO, ON – OrderDynamics™ Corporation, Canada’s leading on-demand commerce provider, today announced that Highly Integrated Virtual Environment (H.I.V.E™) technology partner ShopSocially, a social media platform that improves engagement, decision and conversion between consumers and retailers, recently helped multi-channel retailer Walking on a Cloud increase their overall social media fanbase by more than 70% over the course of two weeks.

H.I.V.E is a network of pre-built integrations between leading web and eCommerce technologies and the OrderDynamics On-Demand Commerce platform.  By proactively building H.I.V.E integrations into its commerce platform architecture, OrderDynamics significantly reduces the complexities and costs involved for retailers looking to leverage best of breed third party tools.  ShopSocially, and hundreds of other leading solutions, are available to all OrderDynamics Clients to leverage through seamless and easy implementation.

ShopSocially uses pre- and post-purchase incentivized sharing to stimulate social media exposure and build customer databases.  The social media tool allows online shoppers to either share a brand on Facebook prior to a purchase, or share just-purchased items for entry into contests, or to receive discounts on future purchases, helping brands drive web traffic, increase revenue and optimize exposure.

With ShopSocially, Walking on a Cloud ran several campaigns, including unique Canada Day and Independence Day promotions highlighted through their weekly email newsletter offering 20% off all products for the day.  Walking on a Cloud’s impressive results included:

•    Growing their social media fanbase by more than 70% in under two weeks
•    47.8% of email recipients used their coupon code from “Liking” the Walking on a Cloud Facebook page
•    More than 250 Facebook “Likes” in the campaign’s first 48 hours
•    More than 13,200 total social media impressions
•    An average acquisition of at least 35 new “Fans” per day since launching the campaigns

“Growing our online fanbase has been a big priority for us over the past few months,” said Mark Zuckier, President of Walking on a Cloud’s eCommerce division.  “We’ve tried several strategies in the past, but nothing has generated the kind of results ShopSocially has for us.  Having the pre-built integration into the OrderDynamics platform made turning on ShopSocially fast and extremely seamless.  We need this kind of flexibility to keep pace with our evolving customers,” he added.

“It’s always exciting to see how our third party integrations can truly help our clients.  We pride ourselves in offering pre-built integrations with the best technologies available to help our clients deliver incredible online experiences,” said Michael Benadiba, CEO at OrderDynamics.  “I am extremely pleased to see the online growth Walking on a Cloud has achieved in such a short amount of time.  I am also confident that ShopSocially can help many more of our clients too,” he concluded

Google to Transition from Google Product Search to Google Shopping – What This Means for Retailers

On May 31, Google announced that the free ride on Google Product Search would soon be over. Over the course of Summer 2012, they will be rolling out small changes to Google Product Search, and the way products are displayed in SERPs to eventually complete the transition to Google Shopping through the Fall.

How it Works

Google Shopping will essentially be an amalgamation of current Google Product Listings and Google Product Search results, and will appear in SERPs similar to the way Google Product Listings presently do. The items that show up just above or to the side of organic listings will come from only from online merchants who pay to be there; campaigns will be set up through AdWords, however rather than bidding on specific keywords, eretailers will instead bid on the maximum cost per click or action they are willing to incur.  In addition, eretailers who pay to show up in Google Shopping results can also enlist in the Google Trusted Websites program with which they will be able to have badges shown in their Google Shopping results indicating their status. However, payment alone is not the key to success with Google Shopping.

Google asserts that the transition aims to provide a better user experience. As such, their hope is that merchants who choose to pay for their inclusion into Google Shopping results will understand that this means they need to feature quality content, and up-to-date content and pricing to prove that their listing should be shown. With only limited space in the proposed Google Shopping area in SERPs, just because a retailer pays, doesn’t mean their ad will show up – the information must be relevant

What it Does

The new Google Shopping results will aim to make it easier to access more content in one space, building on the previous Search Plus Your World changes to Google Search. The tool will be able to identify broad terms and present sub-categories, should they be necessary, as well as additional filters to further narrow results.  Product listings will also feature Buying Guides in a pop-up tab, providing information for high-level product research on features and benefits without having to leave the Google Shopping arena.

What It Means for Online Retailers

As mentioned above, just because a retailer chooses to pay for inclusion into Google Shopping listings, it doesn’t mean they are guaranteed to be displayed. Also worth mentioning is this payment has no effect on organic search listings – rank won’t decrease by not paying, but it won’t increase with payment either. Google has increasingly been emphasizing the importance of quality content and its disapproval of spamming, notably with the Google Penguin algorithm. This means not only will retailers need to incur the extra cost for inclusion, but they will also need to step up their efforts in regards to producing content that will be useful to searchers.  An argument by Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land contends that Google Shopping is counter-productive with its additional emphasis in content because many retailers may be willing to make the transition to Google Shopping without ever having that money help them. With content being a blatant necessity for Google rank anyway, it may make sense to bypass the financial investment and focus whole-heartedly on SEO alone.

Alternatively, those who are accustomed to the current Google Product Search and Google Product Listing models may not be ready to let go of the type of SERP exposure they yield from these services, and will be entirely willing to pay. Google has taken this into account by stating on their blog incentives to encourage retailers to enlist in Google Shopping:

•  Retailers currently utilizing Google Product Listing ads, and those who enlist in them prior to August 15 will be granted a monthly 10% credit on their total spend until year end.

• Retailers who currently upload products through the Merchant Centre to Google Product Search will receive a $100 credit toward setting up an AdWords account to begin their Google Shopping initiatives, needing only fill out a form with Google prior to August 15.

Google Shopping will be in full effect through Fall 2012, officially phasing out Google Product Search, merging Google Product Listing, and taking on the Google Shopping name.

The Emerging Importance of Order Management in eCommerce

In the last few years there has been a dramatic shift in the requirements retailers have when building eCommerce projects (both re-platforming or first time online projects). Order management and fulfillment, are rapidly becoming two of the most critical pieces in these projects, largely because of how shopping and retail landscapes are evolving.

At OrderDynamics™, we're experiencing this first hand with Clients and prospects on a daily basis. Prominent eCommerce analysts are also observing this shift. So when did this transition start? While there's no exact date, the short answer is it's been happening for some time now as eCommerce and online retailing continue to mature.

Retail is in the beginning stages of reinventing itself. Of course, this reinvention is directly in line with today's consumer who purchases goods out of convenience or targeted marketing efforts, rather than "channel loyalty". That's a concept OrderDynamics™ refers to as "Connected Commerce".

Forrester Research's Brian Walker recently outlined what retailers need to address as part of the evolving retail landscape (and subsequent "channel merge"):

• Manage orders across a diverse set of customer touchpoints
• Enable inventory visibility across all  retail channels
• Support a growing variety of payment types and tiered fraud screening
• Support customer service scenarios more effectively

While these capabilities are vital for the long term success of online retailing, there are several other factors to consider, too.

Consumers are paying for more order transparency
We've seen significant increases in conversion rates across numerous verticals (apparel in particular) when providing better frontend clarity into actual stock availability and fulfillment ETAs before ordering. Repeat shopping has also increased (in cases where multi-item orders need multi-location fulfillment) because of superior customer service through detailed, line-item level order status information at every step in the order lifecycle.

Stock availability display rules need to account for cross-channel inventory and fulfillment business rules to enable more specific and trustworthy messaging to the consumers. Having intelligent transactional email messaging and order tracking is critical. Consumers are likely to cancel their order due to confusion and/or lack of trust if they see blanket statements about their order status.

With enhanced Order Management System (OMS) support within an eCommerce platform (ECP), many of these OMS capabilities should be wired into the frontend of a website within My Account, Shopping Cart, Checkout, Product Catalog sections, etc.

Tighter merchant control with payment capture
In complex, multi-location fulfillment location scenarios (or in back order scenarios), there has been a growing desire to tightly control payment processing steps in relationship with fulfillment policies. The days of "full authorization" and "full capture" at time of shipping doesn't work well in these instances. Merchants want to deploy OMS workflows and invoicing policies that align with distributed inventory availability. Some supply chain systems can be the "brain" to determine what SKUs will be shipping from where based on inventory policies. In many cases the OMS needs to support the ability to invoice, capture funds, and ship individual shipments.

Roll up cross channel orders to the frontend
Providing a single view into the customer's order history, preferences, and loyalty has become a burning desire for many multi-channel merchants. They want to send orders from either their retail ERP, catalog system, or call centers to their ECP so the marketing and merchandising team(s) can leverage that data on their websites. This would allow the consumer to see their entire account history with the merchant. This is driving OMS support to easily receive orders from other sources into the ECP/OMS, while also forcing ECP/OMS systems to natively support linking external systems into order work flows. Stored value databases like in-house gift cards or loyalty programs need to be intelligently and reliably plugged in to the ECP/OMS so that these kinds of features can be leveraged.

To learn more about order management and its growing importance in online retail, download the new whitepaper, "5 Organizational Steps to Plan for Connected Commerce".

How Retailers Are Using Social Media - Facebook

Facebook has come a long way since it launched in 2004, for college students only. Now, the social network, which seems omnipresent featuring pages on any subject imaginable, is a fruitful business tool and integral to the marketing efforts of many retailers around the world. 

Facebook remains the most popular social network with 845 million active users, 47% of which earn on average $50,000-$99,999 per year. Also taking note that on average, each user visits the site 40 times per month, around 23 minutes per visit, and more than half of total Facebook users are women, it suffices to say that Facebook holds great opportunities for retailers.  By presenting a brand to Facebook users in an inherently social setting where they can interact and share favourite products and brands with friends, retailers target Facebook users in a relaxed state, where they are likely to be more receptive to new products introduced to them, especially by friends. 

The interesting thing about marketing and selling through Facebook as opposed to traditional television advertisements is that it’s much cheaper and much less-intrusive, though its highly casual nature makes people much more receptive to it.  Facebook’s core features provide several ways for retailers to reach out to potential customers, with the focal purpose seeming to lie heavily on building relationships with them, where in Britain alone people spend on average a half hour longer per day on Facebook than they do watching television, and 73% of the British prefer to be browsing Facebook than watching television. Some big name retailers have done a great job of capitalizing on Facebook’s primary features to introduce their brand, promote new products, and stimulate purchase behaviour:

Starbucks – Starbucks hosts a regularly updated Facebook page that shares information on current company initiatives, new product releases, and promotions. What is novel about Starbucks’ Facebook page is the Starbucks Card app, featured in a mini tab. By swapping basic information with the app, Facebook users are able to manage their Starbucks Card and Rewards – basic and boring, right? The app also accesses the birthdays of a user’s Facebook friends, and sorts them into a sub-group so that a user can easily send a fun Starbucks eGift Card. Of course, all other friends can also be sent eCards by removing the birthday filter.

Old Spice – With a revamp of the Old Spice brand featuring “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” came a shift from Old Spice being the cologne and after-shave dad uses, to the cologne and after shave every girl wants her man to use. The outcome was a quirky, obscure ad campaign that started on television and percolated to all things Old Spice, including their Facebook page. Old Spice utilizes a Facebook store tab that links to the respective page on Old Spice eCommerce site. The interesting thing about this Facebook store, however, is that there is no trace of after-shave or cologne being sold in it. Rather, it features paraphernalia building on the new, highly popular theme including t-shirts, flasks, belts, beer sleeves and hats boasting clever phrases, allowing men to not only smell like an Old Spice man, but dress like one, too.

Stila – Stila Cosmetics utilizes the Facebook to its advantage by regularly running contests wherein a Facebook user must interact with the Stila Facebok page in order to enter. Subscribers to the Stila e-newsletters will receive information about Stila contests, wherein they must click through the email to the Stila’s Facebook page. Once there, the Facebook user must then ‘Like’ Stila to be able to access the entry form.  In the example below of a past email contest, Stila redirects recipients to post their review of their favourite Stila product on Facebook in order to enter the contest.

Smashbox – The Smashbox Facebook page focuses on building relationships between Smashbox products and the Facebook users that Like them. Instead of selling products, or promoting them in an overtly commercial way, Smashbox presents its followers with fun activities to interact with the brand. Currently on the Smashbox’s Facebook account are pages entitled “Click, You’re It!” wherein users can use their favourite photos to create a custom magazine layout, and “Star in your own Smashbox video!” with the present theme being a review on Smashbox’s new BB Cream.  An interesting extension to the video activity was that Smashbox partnered with a popular fashion blogger who held a complementary contest to win $300 worth of Smashbox Cosmetics by creating a video on Smashbox’s Facebook page, then Tweeting it to her, thereafter. 

C&A – A fascinating take on using Facebook to drive sales comes from European retailer C&A, who use Facebook to help their brick-and-mortar stores, rather than their eCommerce site. C&A synched their Facebook page in real-time with counters displaying each item’s Facebook Likes on the hangers of merchandise in their Brazil locations. This allowed shoppers to see which items were most popular globally. The assumption is that the more popular an item appears to be, the more likely shoppers are to try it on, and subsequently buy.

To learn more about social media tactics leading online retailers are using to engage consumers and drive additional revenue, download the new whitepaper, "20 Social Media Tactics for Online Retailers".