Non-transactional sites used to be reserved for luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Rolls-Royce. They served as a digital preview of what A-listers could expect once they made their way to the shops on Rodeo Drive. Primarily, the sites showcased the high-end products, leaving off details like the cost. After all, if you had to ask the price, you probably couldn’t afford it anyway. Today, however, non-transactional sites are finding VIP status for a wide range of businesses. Manufacturers of... Category - eCommerce
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Non-transactional sites used to be reserved for luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Rolls-Royce. They served as a digital preview of what A-listers could expect once they made their way to the shops on Rodeo Drive. Primarily, the sites showcased the high-end products, leaving off details like the cost. After all, if you had to ask the price, you probably couldn’t afford it anyway. Today, however, non-transactional sites are finding VIP status for a wide range of businesses. Manufacturers of... 
From Aug. 19, 2013, through Aug. 22, 2013, marketers from around the nation convened in Boston for the Inbound 2013 conference, hosted by HubSpot, the leader in inbound marketing software. During the four-day event, Sam Mallikarjunan, the head of eCommerce marketing at HubSpot, headed up a session titled, “How to sell better than Amazon.” To say the least, the session was busting at the seams with attendees. During Mallikarjunan’s 45-minute presentation, he focused on the nearly $100 billion-in-annual-sales gorilla... 
Buyers are becoming much more demanding when they shop online these days. And when merchants aren’t bringing on new features to match those buyer expectations, shoppers shift their purchasing interest to sites that do. The rub, however, is that more often than not, eCommerce vendors can’t provide new functionality at the pace that merchants need it. So considering that consumers are an impatient bunch, what's an online merchant supposed to do? One option is to add new functionality through the use... Last year when the lights went out at Super Bowl XLVII, the ad team for Oreos took advantage. They tweeted a picture of a single Oreo standing in a spotlight coupled with the text: "You can still dunk in the dark." Not surprisingly, the simple, yet brilliant on-the-go thinking won the ad team a boatload of awards. But the tweet didn’t just put Oreo's creative team in the spotlight, it put real-time marketing there, as well.
Even before the Oreo tweet made its marketing slam dunk, so to speak, Twitter had always been the go-to avenue for real-time interactions with consumers. Several months later, however, and organizations want that on-the-fly capability for more than just their social platforms. And that’s just what IBM is giving them with the new Digital Experience software.
“IBM digital experience software combines with IBM customer experience management capabilities so marketing professionals can analyze customer activity on a specific channel, such as a mobile device,” said the editors of a recent IBM press release. “With these unique views, marketers can gauge the behavior of customers across all digital channels, identify patterns and then adjust the digital experience based on this insight to improve the quality and appeal of the user's experience.”
The software allows marketers, sales reps and business owners real-time control over customer interactions and digital updates without the need for IT technical skills or outside assistance. This in and of itself will allow the user experience to improve by leaps and bounds.
“Building on these demands, IBM's Digital Experience software allows CMOs to provide customers with relevant information and offers that are based on their preferences and can be published quickly to all digital channels and mobile devices,” the press release relayed. “For example, while at a conference, marketing and event teams can develop professional grade assets that incorporate client interviews, show floor footage, audio and text overlays and in a few simple clicks publish it to the broadest range of social, mobile and online channels.”
The possibilities for leveraging the new IBM tool are truly endless. From HR’s hiring and training purposes to product development initiatives, it's a powerful addition to the WebSphere Commerce platform.
To learn how the technology has already helped companies enhance their digital presence, check out the video above. To put it into real-time play at your company, get in touch with the eCommerce experts at NetSphere Strategies. We’d be happy to help with its implementation.
In December of last year, the retail team at Alix Partners, a global firm of senior business and consulting professionals, summarized the 2012 holiday shopping season as less than what retailers were looking for. In the same report, they delivered their annual predictions for 2013, which included topics ranging from the Internet sales tax issue to omni-channel selling. Nearly six months later, as retailers head into the 2013 holiday shopping season, Alix Partners revisited those earlier predictions to determine their... 
Using an abacus and churning butter add a bit of comic relief to the list of outdated tasks found on the Obsolete Skills website. Other skills, like writing in cursive and flipping over a cassette tape just add insult to injury for anyone pushing the age of 40. But, give it a few years and who knows what else might find its way onto the list. Using a desktop computer perhaps? Although it might sound farfetched, the use of mobile... 
If you’re a webstore owner who has handled your own data updates and encountered numerous problems, don’t fret; you’re not alone. Even the most successful online business owners have encountered moments when they had to reach out for help to troubleshoot various problems. To solve current issues and potential problems moving forward, more often than not, automation is the way to go – especially before the busy holiday shopping season when oodles of new products are slated for promotion. Data load... 
Web presence – almost everyone has it. The problem is that not everyone knows what to do with it. A long, long time ago, in a browser far, far from where we are technologically today, a lackluster website seemed to be "better than nothing" for businesses trying to gain exposure. Today, however, we've advanced to the point where a teenager can put together a website with their hands tied behind their backs. And as anyone in the eCommerce world knows,... 
At this year’s IRCE in Chicago, Alibaba Group was nestled in a fairly discrete location in a small booth. For a company about to file for an IPO with a potential $100 billion valuation, it was a wonder that the company wasn’t front and center taking up a substantial amount of exhibitor real estate. Part of the reasoning behind Alibaba’s modest showing at IRCE might have to do with the fact that U.S. companies aren’t as familiar with the company... 
Making last-minute changes to a website is like opening the door for error. And introducing the possibility for errors can potentially create difficulties for shoppers. As most webstore owners know, there’s no room for errors of any kind during major shopping events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday or the holiday shopping season in general. And that’s why it’s understood between the developers who make changes to a site and the business owners who oversee it that changes shouldn’t be made...