Perfecting Your Online Store’s Homepage or Front Page at Wilsonweb.com

Posted on August 27, 2008
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“Your online store’s front page or homepage is the most important piece
of real estate on your site. Here credibility must be established for
both your store “brand” and for the products you sell. Here you engage
users to shop and buy.“

Check the full article by our President, Matthew Ledford’s article at: Perfecting Your Online Store’s Homepage or Front Page at Wilsonweb.com- WebMarketingToday

FastPivot’s All Women Design and Development Team Rocks RedKoala.com Store Launch

Posted on August 6, 2008
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Meeting Red Koala’s founder Abby Port, chosen as a finalist in the Seeds for Success Contest sponsored by Yahoo!, was an incredible experience. Red Koala needed a fresh, clean and customized website and as an official sponsor of the contest, FastPivot was ready to help. In May, our all-women team traveled to Atlanta to meet Abby in person and present the first round of design.

With FastPivot as their partner in web design and development, Red Koala Canvas Company launched www.redkoala.com on July 29, 2008.

Here’s what makes this store special: you can create a customized wall canvas for yourself, your kids or your friends through a nifty tool that lets you to combine images, colored backgrounds, text, and more. Upload your own photos or choose from a gallery of awesome images painted by artists. Go to RedKoala.com to give it a whirl.

FastPivot is thrilled to be a part of the Yahoo! Seeds for Success Empowering Women Entrepreneurs Contest and we are excited to watch Abby realize her dreams.

Watch Video
Read Abby’s Blog
See what the Mentors are saying

FastPivot’s Creative Director Presenting at Internet Retailer 2008 – Just One Month Away

Posted on May 9, 2008
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Internet Retailer has completed the roster of 125 e-retailing professionals who will speak at the Internet Retailer 2008 Conference & Exhibition at Chicago’s McCormick Place West convention center on June 9-12. It is the largest group of speakers ever to address an e-retailing conference—a 20% increase from IRCE 2007.

In exactly one month (June 9), Sacha Loughton, FastPivot’s very own Creative Director, will be speaking in one of the workshop sessions- From Entrepreneur to an Enterprise. This workshop is aimed at small to mid-sized retailers who are looking to advance to the next level and covers all aspects that growing retailers need to take into account.

Sacha is the Creative Director at FastPivot, the leading developer of Yahoo! Stores. She has extensive experience in the field, from start-ups to industry leaders such as 3M, Waldorf Astoria, Conn’s, & Service Merchandise. Under the management of 365 Inc. she has also directed front end store design for Fox Soccer Shop, ESPN Soccernet Store, World Rugby Shop & World Soccer Shop.

Specifically, Sacha will be discussing “The basics of web site design and content: Engaging the shopper for more sales.” She will present with Glen Halliday, Owner of Kids Crooked House (http://www.kidscrookedhouse.com/), a FastPivot client and winner of last year’s Ultimate Connection Contest sponsored by Yahoo! Seth Newman, Chief Operating Officer at Action Envelope is presenting as well.

Check your calendars and make sure you’ve signed up to attend this workshop. Registration can be found online at https://www.internetretailer.com/IRCE2008/Registration/index.asp.

Archived Webinar, and Winner of the Free Website Assessment!

Posted on April 16, 2008
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On April 9, 2008, we hosted a webinar entitled Out of the Box… Beautifully. We are proud to announce that the winner of our Free Website Assessment is K.B. from http://www.creativekidstuff.com/.

For those that missed the webinar, we’ve archived it below for your enjoyment. We hope you find it insightful, and if you have any questions, please contact us.

http://www.viddler.com/fastpivot/videos/2/

Christmas is Coming! A great December starts in April

Posted on April 14, 2008
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Despite the slowdown in the economy, online retail sits in an interesting spot. In fact, a MediaPost blog article goes as far to say that “innovation and e-commerce are looking impervious to economic ravages, at least, for now.” Internet spending for Valentine’s Day was up almost 8½% more than last year - reports Retail Decisions. The growth in U.S. unique visitors to online commerce sites rose 7% in January , 2008, compared to the same period in 2007. Online retail growth is averaging 21% so far this year, compared to 5.4% growth for offline retail.

Now for the interesting stuff…

A March news story from Internet Retailer reports “Retailers strive for a better customer experience.” We’re sure that online customers are keyed into this as well. If retailers are placing more emphasis this year on upgrading the usability of their online stores, then staying ahead of the competition takes on a new level. In addition to improving online usability, it has become important to add online functionality and use rich Internet applications to improve the customer experience.

What does this mean to you?

Planning for an optimal Christmas no matter what the economy needs to start now. The drive for more usability coincides with increased spending on technology and methods for measuring how well web sites are supporting a better online customer experience. Increased spending this year is planned for web analytics, customer satisfaction surveys, and usability labs.

Is it time to:

Creatively or strategically refresh your site?
Add more interactive features, like registries or reviews?
Add rich imaging?
Add social networking, such as page links to Facebook or Digg?

Not sure? Start with a Baseline Health Analysis of your site to see where you ”rank” with those who land on your site, as well as your competitive market.

Indeed, Christmas is coming - time to make your list and check it twice.