Instagram & Facebook – Why?


A few hours ago I read that Facebook had acquired Instagram for $1bn… aptly enough, this news came to me via my Facebook feed. There’s also an official release here from Mark Zuckerberg My first thought once I checked the legitimacy Read more

Return On Influence: The New ROI


There is not a single activity in business which is exempted from a query regarding return on investment.  Focused strategic planning and expenditure to optimise your e-commerce mix is known to be an investment worth making for product and Read more

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Ecommerce

Why you should be using Pinterest

Posted on February 12, 2012 by Mike in Ecommerce, Internet Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0/3.0, Web News | 4 Comments

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Excerpt: One of the most fascinating things about social media micro-sites and gamification modules is their widespread adoption if the concept is novel and innovative.  There is no shortage of social networking sites to explore and it seems like a new one comes out every month.  Is there a promotional benefit to being on social sites?  Yes.  Do you need to be on all of them?  Probably not.  However, if the micro-site has the potential to successfully build community and interactions around your products or services, it may be worth the effort. And if you think you have seen it all when it comes to social networking sites we encourage you to explore Pintrest, an exciting new platform developed by Cold Crew Labs in Palo Alto, California.  Pintrest was launched in March 2010 and by December 2011 the site had achieved more than 11 million visits per week according to metrics at HitWise.   In 2011 the start-up also raised $27 million dollars of venture funding from Andreessen Horowitz. From the start the innovative social bookmarking and sharing program generated huge laurels and interest and was covered by Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and Mashable.  The social site in its beta version received a 4.5 star iTune App rating and a Twitter following of 396,728 (Although they could follow a few back!) users by February 2012.  The network remains a closed application available by qualified invite only for the time being. How It Works Visit the Pintrest site and download the toolbar shortcut for…


Instant Flood Sandbags : The latest technology

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Kim in Blogging, Ecommerce, Featured, Internet Marketing, Local Search, Other stuff, Web Design, Web News | Leave a comment

Generate UK recently purchased the rights to Instantsandbags and in doing so designed and developed a new website called Instantfloodsandbags. The product itself was not only innovative and new to the market but it’s ingenious space saving design and it’s real ability to keep the water out was exciting to us. The passion and drive behind the project from day one has been fantastic; symbolising the belief and high potential in the product. From the initial thought process Generate UK utilised the internal skill set to create a brand new site which really markets Instantfloodsandbags. In the last 2 weeks the product is being marketed through it’s dedicated Facebook and Twitter page which you can follow or like. The website is now reaching  out to local counties surrounding Berkshire, Somerset and even Ireland. The sandbags are made of a jute material together with a thin layer of cotton and they contain a water absorbing gel. You are also able to securely purchase the sandbags via Paypal on the website. Flood alerts may not give you sufficient warning, but an instant flood sandbag can be stored easily to defend your home or business! Please feel free to visit the website for more details Instantfloodsandbags


10 E-commerce Tips for Increased Christmas Sales

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Mike in Ecommerce | Leave a comment

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Excerpt: It is that time of year when online retailers are making improvements to their websites and looking closely at competitors to ensure that vital sales are not lost. This year it is expected that online shopping will again break records making it vital to not become complacent and relax. The following pointers will hopefully help you on your way to increased sales. 1.Add new delivery options and review  The competition online is getting bigger and better and many retailers are set to offer standard next day delivery this year. If you can’t dispatch and deliver the goods quickly and efficiently, you won’t close a sale.  The difference in delivery time could only be 1-2 days, but shoppers are impatient especially if competitor X is offering a quicker delivery service. This doesn’t have to be a year round offer or service but should definitely be used during peak trading periods. 2.Incorporate a countdown’ on your homepage Incorporating this into your store and have a big impact on impulse purchases and actually lead to improved conversion rates on lower priced items. 3.Add gift cards to your store With the added pressure of buying for others is often very stressful, Avoid this completely by offering a gift card which can then be redeemed online. This will also help improve sales after Christmas especially if your brand or business is not a focused on reductions during traditional sale periods. 4.Offer incentives based on order values Incentives for your shoppers to spend more work by highlighting discounts based on higher than average order values. Offers such as 10% off when you spend…


Is Your Website Tablet Friendly?

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Mike in Ecommerce, Mobile and Apps, Web Design | Leave a comment

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Excerpt: In the last quarter of 2010 more than 4.5 million tablet personal computers were sold worldwide according to ABI Research reported here in February of 2011.  That number is staggering when considering the short four month span for consumer purchases, and while 93% of the tablets were the popular Apple iPad, the key factor to note is that a global conversion of user preference is well underway. People prefer tablet personal computers for a number of reasons.  Naturally, portability is the number one advantage to owning a tablet computer.   They are lightweight and easy to pack and carry which makes them the ideal technological companion for travel.  For first time users the format of a tablet is less intimidating with a large interface that is very user friendly in its touch screen format.  Larger fonts are ideal for aging populations as well, and with fewer things to complicate the user experience (such as keyboards, speakers and other desk top additions) more late adopters are diving into a new world of mobile computing thanks to the scaled down and simplified design of the tablet computer. With so many individuals accessing content online via tablet personal computers it is important to access your website with that new (and growing) user base.  How does your business website look when displayed on a tablet?  Does your theme work when condensed to a smaller screen aesthetically or is navigation impacted in a negative way?  Any of these factors can limit opportunities with potential customers if their experience…


HSBC CPI Integration for 3D Secure and Interspire

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Mike in Ecommerce | 4 Comments

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Excerpt: For the last couple of weeks, I have been working with one of my customers upgrading their merchant account on their ecommerce website. They had (until recently) used the HSBC API payment system with Interspire Shopping Cart. This is where the physical payment is kept on the website in order to maintain branding, single page check out etc. The issue here is that HSBC upgraded their payment systems to take into consideration 3D Secure payments. The problem – This new functionality and Interspire do not play well together. In fact, Interspire does not support this functionality with HSBC at all. This has caused quite an issue, particularly with UK based customers. One way to resolve this issue would be to use HSBC’s CPI integration; this is the merchant account which takes the user into HSBC’s secure area for payment. On paper, this was a good way to resolve the issue; all the customer needed to do was to decide whether they were happy that their customer was going to go to a different site to complete their order. Quick note on this before carrying on:  It used to be that ecommerce stores were keen to keep the payment functionality on the site. It gave the impression of a joined up ecommerce shop and marketers argued that it meant less chance of losing the customer. The argument seems to have gone the other way now, PCI compliance and cover against fraud purchases have dictated that ecommerce site owners are happy to pass this responsibility…


Improve your E-commerce Sales

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Mike in Digital Marketing, Ecommerce | Leave a comment

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Excerpt: As we get closer to the key trading period for the majority of online retailers I thought I would cover some points related to all industries to help boast your sales over the coming months. Some are very quick wins others will need some research and time invested but all with the end goal of increasing sales. Navigation - The vast majority of online shoppers are getting used to using big shopping platforms such as eBay and Amazon to purchase. They feature clear and easy to use navigation and as online shoppers become accustomed to this they will of course expect the same quality from your site. If you utilise internal links to help your customers navigate through your products, now is the time to check for broken links and fix any navigation issues. Amazon are superb at ensuring the navigation is relative to the category and providing customers with links to related products. Pricing – Online shopping will almost always focus on pricing. If you surveyed 1000 online shoppers asking what factors drive them to shop online, price will feature very highly. Transparency is key for any online retailer, even more so since the huge rise of comparison websites. Make sure you highlight your prices especially if your product is competitively priced. Discounts - If you are able to offer and run discounts across items ensure you make it easy to redeem at the shopping cart. If you use a next day shipping service as standard, focus your marketing message around this – ‘FREE next…


Ecommerce Top 10 Considerations for 2011

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Mike in Digital Marketing, Ecommerce, Internet Marketing | Leave a comment

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Excerpt: We are fast approaching that time of the year when all retailers start to look at their e-commerce offering and how they can increase sales on last year’s effort. We have a number of ecommerce clients and based on our suggestions to them, online trends and our experience within e-commerce, these are my top 10 considerations for 2011 and advice to ensure that you have another successful, online trading period. 1. Traffic drives Sales The most important thing to remember is that without traffic your ecommerce website will not flourish with sales. You need to focus on driving qualified visitors through your site from a mixture of online and offline marketing efforts. Re-run your keyword research to ensure you have optimised for the correct keywords, start building a targeted PPC campaign using targeted ad groups and smaller volume of keywords. 2. Conversion Now you have built and established varying streams of traffic it is vital to convert these into sales. Tried and tested special offers such as FREE shipping and BOGOF deals should ideally be built into your buying plans and used as bait to increase the conversion rate in peak periods. Review your checkout process and refine if possible making it as simple as possible for your customers to purchase without compromising on security. 3. Tracking Without recording the processes and streams used to drive traffic it will be impossible to act upon results. Utilise Google Analytics ecommerce tracking to ensure you know exactly what is driving sales to help you make more…


An Online shop with no name; who are ya! Who are ya!

Posted on May 27, 2010 by Ian Fergusson in Ecommerce | Leave a comment

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Excerpt: Summer seems to have finally arrived and the world cup is just around the corner. Sounds like good news for online retailers, but sadly a lot of e-commerce businesses will miss out on sales because their products and website will never be found or visited because of a poor or non-existent on-page and off-page SEO strategy. It astounds me to see so many companies that sell online, have not optimised their websites for search engines. It is like having a shop without a name, people will just walk on by. With continued internet sales growing year on year and the dawn of web 2.0, the online marketplace has become very advanced and highly competitive and customers are turning to search engines to find products, services and more often than not, reviews. Search engine placement should be a vital part of an ecommerce website, yet many businesses fail to realise this or take advantage of it. Google products, formally known as Froogle, is becoming increasingly popular within Google’s search results and more and more buyers are turning to it instead of some of the more prominent search comparison sites and e-commerce retailers should be looking to get their sites fully optimised to take advantage of this. One of the most important areas that should be focussed on, is Improving and optimising page content, adding reviews and how to guides to compliment pages can be the difference between having your products listed high up on search engines to not being found at all.  Another…


Are you optimising your store for Google Product Search results?

Posted on April 29, 2010 by Mike in Ecommerce, Internet Marketing, Other stuff | 1 Comment

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Excerpt: Out of the ashes of Froogle and Google Products is Google’s take on what a price comparison website should be. Google Product Search is still officially in Beta; however any application where Google is involved is bound to attract attention and more importantly traffic and users. It’s an interesting move by Google and it must have made the likes of Kelkoo, Pricerunner and the like sit up and take notice. These are the current incumbents in the price comparison market; their business model is to take a commission from sales of products they have referred (they also charge to place products higher in the searches). So their search engine ranking in the most popular search engine in the world is very important to them….. So now they are in direct competition with the very same search engine they need to be ranked on in order for their business model to work. If that was not bad enough, Google has confirmed that there will be no charges to list products and they won’t accept payment in return for rankings. So on the face of it, not good for the price comparison chaps and it does not bode well in the future for other sites offering price comparison for insurance, mortgages, credit cards etc. Surely, it is just a matter of time before Google start to enter these markets too. The good news for a lot of ecommerce store owners is that there is a new channel for them to showcase their products and services…


Project Title: The Accessory Queen – The queen of accessories available for all to see!

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Ian Fergusson in Customers, Ecommerce, Web Design | Leave a comment

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Excerpt: The Accessory Queen, founded in 2004 is a niche fashion accessory store based in Newbury. The fashion store has established a fantastic client base and has continued to grow as a business despite the challenges faced by many high street stores. They were keen to continue their growth and recognised the next step for their business was to establish and extend their brand to the Internet, which would provide them with a platform to sell and showcase their products to a wider audience. PROJECT AIM: The Accessory Queen approached Generate UK to help build a new ecommerce website which would help expand the company’s operations and provide the business with a future proof website ecommerce platform to grow as the business develops. As a result the ecommerce system was critical to the project. It was important that the backend system was exceptionally easy to operate, to process the orders whilst automatically keeping customers informed throughout the ordering process. It would also allow The Accessory Queen to easily manage products, pricing, content and promotions. Just as important was the systems front end allowing the ordering process to be efficient, without a lengthy account sign-up procedure, ensuring that the whole process was as simple as possible. Design was essential, developing a site design which represented the traditional retail shop, the quality products and service on offer, whilst showcasing the products through easy navigation was critically important. SOLUTION: Generate UK’s Shopping Cart, providing The Accessory…


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