OrderDynamics Upgrades Call Center Technology in its eCommerce SaaS Platform

Toronto, ON - OrderDynamics, Canada's Leading On-Demand eCommerce Platform Provider, has recently deployed a major upgrade to its Call Center module specifically designed for online merchants with customer care teams that support multiple eCommerce websites.

As part of their regular SaaS platform feature release cycle, OrderDynamics delivers another important upgrade to its multi-channel Order Management System (OMS) within its eCommerce Platform. The recent update to the fully integrated Call Center application provides additional features especially important for multi-store retailers and additional Dynamic Merchandising to support fast and easy cross selling and upselling. In addition, the Call Center module has been overhauled for performance to make it even more appealing for large catalog merchants with SKU counts beyond 100,000 and large customer databases. Some of the new eCommerce Call Center features include: multi-store impersonation, streamlined customer lookup, guided navigation product search, autocomplete product search, customer also bought dynamic merchandising, related items merchandising, stock availability, pricing overrides, and more.

The multi-eStore (often referred to as multi-site) technology allows merchant call centers, or a third party call center, to take orders for any branded websites that they support with all per-site features such as product pricing, promotions, customer records, transactional emails, payments, shipping rates, and more. In addition, the OrderDynamics Call Center utilizes a best practice single-page checkout page and latest shopping cart features that provide support for in-cart triggers, merchandising of bonus items, ability to add and remove promo codes, shipping rates, offline payments, and the ability the save the shopping cart as quote for lookup later. Another feature that was added is the ability for a merchant to lookup a shopper's saved cart from the CRM module and load that cart into the Call Center to help the customer checkout. The merchant can also retrieve saved quotes or any frontend shopping list, such as a wish list or shopping list that is part of a shopper's account, to assist with checkout.

In addition to these new features, the OrderDynamics Call Center has always allowed the merchant to process current customer orders securely, without requiring access to the shopper's credit card, assisting with PCI compliance. "The integrated frontend and backend nature of OrderDynamics is what mid-sized online retailers are looking for in their eCommerce platform" explains Michael Benadiba, CEO of OrderDynamics Corporation. "The Call Center module is a critical part of our strategy to give high-volume, multi-store merchants the tools they need to quickly grow sales and operate efficiently" continues Benadiba.

As with all releases to their On-Demand eCommerce Platform, the new Call Center was seamlessly released into the core platform making it immediately available to all OrderDynamics Clients. OrderDynamics launched the upgrade in January as part of their winter 2011 release.

OrderDynamics Sponsors eTail Canada

For the first time, eTail is coming to Canada and promises to draw a great group of retail executives and people in the Canada eCommerce scene. Held on Toronto on May 16th-17th, eTail Canada is the only Canadian event that is completely focused on multi-channel marketing and e-commerce optimization.

Come visit us at our booth, or contact us to setup a meeting at the show.

About eTail Canada.

Since 1999 the producers of the eTail conference have been researching with senior executives from the top retailers in the world bringing them together to discuss the latest trends that impact the industry. In the last two years Canada’s astounding growth in the ecommerce sector has been a prevailing topic of discussion.

A report from Statistics Canada revealed that window shopping has become one of the most popular activities online, with 52% of Canadians reporting that they window shopped online in 2009. 39% of Canadians also reported buying goods or services online.

At eTail Canada, retailers will engage with the top-level speaking faculty, and each other, to discuss key initiatives to bring back to the office. Initiatives that will cut costs and drive revenue for 2011.

Search Merchandising: 5 Tips to Optimize eCommerce Site Search

Connecting shoppers to products quickly is the goal when planning an effective search merchandising strategy. A strong Site Search, in combination with a robust Guided Navigation system, is the first step to reducing the number of clicks for your customers. Once these tools are in place (and we realize many high-growth B2C and B2B websites are lacking in this area), it is important to constantly optimize your eCommerce platform in response to how shoppers are using your site.

Below are the Top 5 Search Merchandising tactics that should be part of your routine.

Monitor Search History
Keeping on top of what keywords shoppers are using on your website is a good way to understand how you should merchandise your products so they'll find them faster. An effective Search History report should provide you with the ability to drill down to each of your websites, define a date/time range, and immediately see the keywords used by your shoppers along with 1) How many times these keyword was used and 2) Average search results. This will allow you to zero-in on key consumer searches and prioritize the rest of your Search Merchandising Plan.

Optimize Product Keywords
Once you're armed with real-world data of how your Site Search is producing (or not producing) search results, you can begin to optimize the fields searched by your platform. This usually includes adding or removing keywords to your products, adjusting titles and descriptions, and any other fields your site search platform uses (like product attributes for example).

Create Search Overrides
Search Overrides are a great way to ensure a specific set of products are included in the natural search results or that they're the only products that are displayed. For example, if you have a promotion running for a group of products, using Search Overrides you can ensure these products are at the top search results when the shopper searches specific search terms, regardless of the natural results the platform may produce. An example might be appending these promotional products to the natural results when searching Product Sub-Categories that these products might appear in or competitive brands you do not carry.

Adding Search Redirects
Search Redirects are used to when you want to totally avoid sending shoppers to the product search results. It usually involves sending the shopper directly to a landing page that is better suited for the customer and thus more likely to result conversions. For example, some merchants will redirect shoppers to a Guided Selling Page, Category Page, or Brand page for broad-based search terms brand names, topics like "Gift Cards", and more.

Add Attributes for Guided Navigation
Product attributes that are available for use with Guided Navigation (also referred to as Faceted Navigation) make refining large search results quick and easy. This involves creating or updaing Product Attribute Groups with key attributes that can be used with guided navigation. Then each product is updated with its associated attribute value. For example, a sock that is made of wool vs. cotton. Using this efficient search merchandising tactic, shoppers can immediately filter their search results with what interested them the most.

For more information about Search Merchandising tools from OrderDynamics, contact us today!

Chiefsupply.com Launches on OrderDynamics!

Congratulations to CHIEFSupply.com on the re-launch on OrderDynamics! The CHIEF team totally redesigned their high volume B2C and B2B website to lay the foundation for significant revenue growth over the next 12 to 36 months. The website is fully integrated with the CHIEF backoffice systems for Products, Pricing, Attributes, Inventory, and Fulfillment. Checkout their huge selection of products from categories like: Law Enforcement, Military and Federal, Fire and Rescue, EMS, and Medical and Scrubs.Here are some of the cool features of the CHIEF site:

• Faceted navigation
• Multi-level category pages
• Brand pages
• Sophisticated Promotions
• Ratings and Reviews
• Multiple Images, Zoom, and Video
• Recently viewed, Top Sellers, Recommendations
• Mini Cart and Streamlined Cart and Checkout

The new www.chiefsupply.com was designed by our partners, UXER Design.

Pilotpen.us Launches on OrderDynamics!

Congratulations to Pilot Pen on their recent launch of their eCommerce website on OrderDynamics! The Pilot team completely re-designed their site to create a fast and fun way to shop for pens and refills. Go checkout the wide variety of brands, colors, and styles of your favorite Pilot Pens and many more now available directly from www.pilotpen.us!Here are some of the cool features of the Pilot Pen site:

• Multi-Select Faceted navigation
• Easy-to-use Product Finder Tool
• Brand pages
• Shop for singles, multi-packs, refills
• Multiple Images, Zoom, and Video
• Mini cart and Recommended Products
• Complete backoffice integration for Products, Inventory, Pricing, and Fulfillment

The new www.pilotpen.us website was designed by our partners, GPROXY Design.

Cascio Interstate Music Selects OrderDynamics eCommerce SaaS Platform

Toronto, ON - OrderDynamics, Canada’s leading On-Demand eCommerce Platform Provider, announces recent new client partnership with Cascio Interstate Music, a national provider of music products for over 60 years.

As part of their long term digital strategy, Cascio Interstate Music will re-launch their flagship B2C eCommerce website, www.interstatemusic.com, on the OrderDynamics eCommerce SaaS Platform to set the stage for significant retail and wholesale growth over the next 5 years. The new website will simultaneously deliver an improved frontend shopping experience and give Cascio the flexibility to rapidly evolve serving its customers online. The on-demand nature of OrderDynamics will enable Cascio to continuously leverage the latest frontend and backend eCommerce best practices and features while eliminating the need for internal software maintenance and website hosting.

“We are very excited about continuing to move forward with our digital strategy, which is an increasingly critical component of our Company's future” explains Michael Houser, CEO of Cascio Interstate Music. “OrderDynamics was selected because of their leading platform technology and service model centered around helping us grow” continues Houser. OrderDynamics wraps a proactive service model around each Client, designed to facilitate rapid growth through ongoing guidance and the prompt servicing of future projects.

“Our entire team is thrilled to be the provider chosen by Cascio” says Michael Benadiba, CEO of OrderDynamics. “The project is exciting in many ways and we look forward to a summer launch” continues Benadiba. The new website is slated to launch in August and will incorporate many exciting features like Guided Navigation, Gift and Private Label Cards, Personalization and Recommendations, and more!

About Cascio Interstate Music

Since 1946, Cascio Interstate Music has based it's business around serving the needs of musician's and schools throughout the United States. Cascio Interstate Music is among the nation's top independent musical instrument retailers, ranking 14th in the nation. Cascio as been operating for over 60 years in the suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin marketplace, which houses it's retail SuperStore, Call Center, Web Center, Quality Assurance and Testing facilities for it's own brands of drums, guitars and band and orchestra products, and corporate offices. Its Distribution Center in Waukesha, WI handles over 40,000 items and distributes direct to consumers and schools/districts from the facility. Cascio Interstate offers a wide selection from the world's top brands." More information on the Company is located at www.interstatemusic.com

Aleva Stores Continues Multi-Store Rollout with Launch of SocksAppeal.com

Today Aleva Stores launched their second of upcoming 4 additional ecommerce websites onto the OrderDynamics on-demand eCommerce platform, SocksAppeal.com. The new brand for Aleva Stores is targeted at sock enthusiasts and offers a wide selection of premium sock brands. The new site offers a fun “Sock Finder” tool, guided navigation w/keyword filtering, and an optimized cart / checkout.

Congrats on the launch Aleva!

OrderDynamics in Internet Retailer Magazine February: Everything in Order

OrderDynamics was featured in an article in the February 2011 edition of Internet Retailer Magazine. The article, called Everything in Order, showcases our Client Henry's Camera and how they use our On-Demand eCommerce Platform to handle orders from multiple sources. Here is an excerpt: "The ability to manage orders across channels is also helping retailers to leverage the strength of the web across stores and call centers. At Henry's, particularly strong growth in e-commerce sales is helping to drive sales across stores and contact centers.

Online shoppers and call center agents, for example, can view products currently available in stores as well as in the distribution center and also see how long it would take the goods to arrive at the shopper's home. Because it can view the orders a customer has placed in different channels, Henry's is better able to run promotions across multiple channels without guessing about customer interest."

Internet Retailer February 2011: Everything in Order

Read the article here

Digital Magazine to this Digital magazine article here

Back from IRWD 2011

The OrderDynamics Team wants to thank you for coming by our booth at Internet Retailer Web Design & Usability 2011 (IRWD), the only conference devoted to design and usability of ecommerce websites. The 3-day event was filled with great advice to help merchants re-platform with a new design or enhance their current website with the latest usability best practices. UXER Design delivered one-on-one website usability advice for many of the people who came by our booth and will be following up with you. Gproxy Design exhibited at the show for the first time and had a great theme of how they help their clients "score goals" complete with soccer balls and a net!

For those of you that are considering a new platform to go along with a fresh design, please give us a call to discuss how OrderDynamics powers custom designs and partners with you grow sales on our platform.

Sincerely,

The OrderDynamics Team

Re-Platforming: Top 4 Frontend Challenges

The decision to change eCommerce platforms is usually made in part because the merchant has outgrown the features and capabilities of their current provider or systems. When evaluating a new platform provider, it is critical to challenge those you're evaluating and have them explain the types of Clients (in terms of online revenue / order volumes) they're focused on and are successful servicing. It is important to be aligned with a provider that has experience working with merchants of your size (or 2X-5X larger) and have case studies helping similar companies grow to your revenue targets.

Below are some typical frontend roadblocks that lead to a re-platforming project.

Hard to find products: Usability, Navigation, and Site Search

•Creating fast, easy Brand and Category based navigation that follows usability best practices

•Effective and accurate site search and search merchandising

•Ability to filter product results dynamically (Guided Navigation Filters)

No automated selling: Dynamic Merchandising

•Automatic cross sells and up sells based on traffic and order data

•Product recommendations (e.g. People that bought this also bought that)

•Delivering targeted content based on visitor (customer, IP geolocation, time of day, etc.)

High rate of abandonment: Optimizing Purchase Path

•Usage of persistent shopping carts, mini carts, more consumer controls in the cart (coupon, postal)

•Reduced checkout steps that encourage conversion and limit spots for abandonment

•Offering alternative payments (Paypal, Google Checkout, Gift Cards)

Cannot compete in SERPs: SEO and Search Engine Marketing

•Having easy ways to optimize on-page SEO for all Product, Category, and Brand Pages + dynamic pages

•Unable to leverage latest shopping aggregation and feeds

•Usually have inadequate Web Metrics to know what’s working

Having similar challenges? Give us a call to see if OrderDynamics might be the right platform partner for you!