Netsuite acquires Order Motion! Our congratulations to both the OrderMotion and NetSuite SuiteCommerce team!

If you hadn’t heard, or read the news reports, NetSuite acquired OrderMotion earlier this month.

OrderMotion’s order management, order processing, and inventory management capabilities will be rolled into NetSuite to bolster its existing functionality in these areas.

What does it mean when NetSuite acquires Order Motion?

It represents a continued investment in Commerce, Suite Commerce to be specific.  After acquiring Retail Anywhere Point of Sale for the brick and mortar set, Order Motion represents a solid effort to help merchants get both the ‘front of the house’ and the ‘back of the house’ in order.

Netsuite addresses challenges that growing retailers and etailers frequently encounter.   Fragmented systems don’t  scale well with data silos in multiple systems,  multiple retail locations and multiple fulfillment centers.

It’s an interesting (and exciting) development for Fast Pivot because we’re partners with both companies. (We partnered with OrderMotion several years ago to meet the needs of our Yahoo! Stores merchants, and started working with NetSuite a couple of years after that).

Partnering with OrderMotion was a good decision on our part (smart even!) because it became a trusted provider for our larger Yahoo! Merchant Solutions for order management and fulfillment information flows.

Is the NetSuite Order Motion combo a good idea?
We think certainly think so. We’ve enjoyed working independently with both companies and our customers have certainly benefitted. Because of our relationships with both companies, FastPivot is excited about the potential of an integrated future together!

If you’re interested in how this future might affect your ecommerce future, and will be at Internet Retailer June 4-7  in Chicago.
Contact us to set up an appointment with Fast Pivot founder Matt Ledford there. Matt will be connecting with clients, as well as doing on-site site consulting & reviews.

What do you think?  Good acquisition?  Good for retailers and e-tailers alike?  What are the biggest ‘pain points’ you have in your business?

Keith Enloe  and I  went on a site visit this week to one of our favorite clients and were talking business website design and  how web user experience (UX) standards change.  We also discussed that and also how continuing to build upon old code is not always the best way to do things. They have a beautiful site that continues to improve, but over the years all the legacy code has gotten unwieldy.

Scene Two:

First conversations with new prospective clients: You’ll hear, “so how recently has this business website design been updated and how many programmers have been creating the code in your web store?”  Over the years, we realized when several developers of been in another store (some in the US and some not in the US) we find whole “variety” of code. With tongue firmly in cheek, we call them “Frankenstein” and “Bride of Frankenstein” code, where things have been pieced together without regard for the whole.

Scene Three:

Fastpivot even had a client go to another developer -GASP! Why? Because they were perceived as cheaper (primarily due to offshoring). Guess what happened next: this same client (who has a fairly complex fulfillment flow) had to spend more to fix what the other developer broke (and couldn’t fix) in their system. Had they just came to us first (instead of being pennywise and pound foolish), they would have remained stable and saved money and time.

Last week, Carnival Cruise Lines is announcing they are reinvesting in their fleet.

Occasionally we will see business websites that have not been updated in years. Like Carnival Cruise Lines where the critical systems that create the experience that creates the  revenue are neglected and certainly not refined or advanced.

When the business website design is a key component of your livelihood, you cannot afford not to change.

A web centered business website design cannot stay the same and remain engaging and relevant.

Most merchants have been reeling from Google Panda and Penguin updates.

Telling the unique story of your business is more important than ever.  The business website design must present the best possible face a business can afford. Content must be updated frequently, telling the best possible story and giving the best possible service to your customers.

Things have changed rapidly in business website design standards.

Four key trends are mobilization, personalization, commoditization & socialization.

• Mobile now accounts for over 10% of most stores and web business traffic.
• Amazon is just the leading merchant creating a more and more personalized experience for their shoppers with custom saved shopping and wish lists registries
• Amazon has also become both a commoditizing market force and traffic source for merchants, while establishing a barrier to competition with Amazon prime
• Social shopping and reputation management continues to grow in importance

If you’ve been maintaining your web business like Carnival has been maintaining its cruise business, perhaps you might reconsider how you’re investing your revenues.  That is, while you still have revenues.

If you really don’t care, you can just keep those navigation menus and pages in flash.

This is the one statement that every person we talk to asks. It’s also the hardest one to answer in many cases. Having built several thousand eCommerce stores over the last 16 years and most likely having talked to tens of thousands of prospects, we’ve come to realize that there is no easy answer for this. In fact, that statement revolves around so much more than just the website itself that we’ve begun developing a brand new free learning series called eCommerce Store Redesign 101. Our hope is to shed some light on the usually overlooked aspects of creating and running a company online.

Having worked with many Fortune 500 companies, its fairly obvious that because of deep pockets and greater resources, big companies have a definite advantage when working through a buildout. I’ve found that most customers tend to focus on Cost [understandably], What the site should look like and Which type of features they would like installed. Thats a great start but there is so much more to consider. Our goal over the next few months with this series is to create a better understanding of what it takes to build and launch a successful eCommerce business.

Here are a few topics being covered in addition to the store website design | eCommerce Store Redesign 101:

1. Budget – How much do ecommerce sites cost??
2. Finding ecommerce website designers / developers and helping them understand what you need.
3. Working with your designer / developer
4. Your business Staffing and working with your team. - Should you consider using a team that is remote? Distance Management. Employee issues. Golden Rule Business/team?.  Employee work/life balance.
5. Accounting - You must be able to trust your numbers. Finding them must be efficient.
6. Product Sourcing and product data management
7. Company Data Flow
8. What numbers should you be tracking

Are there topics missing that you think should be addressed? Let us know.

So back to the topic ….. How Much Does It Cost???

Good Question! There is no cookie-cutter answer since every site looks different and has it’s own set of business rules. You’ll find now that most development and design firms have moved to an hourly based cost model simply because every site is different with its own set of problems. In the early years it was fairly simple to put a price on a template styled boilerplate eStore. Now that commerce driven stores are not just an adjunct to offline marketing and has now become an additional business entity, cost has many different facets that need to be addressed since it becomes an intergal part of the business flow.

Here are a few points that you will need to address when speaking with a qualified developer about the cost investment:

1. Needed for the actual ecommerce website build
   1. A discussion about your Brand.
   2. Who are you selling to? Make a list of your customer personas
   3. What are you selling and are there shipping, pricing, configuration and presentation oddities that need to be considered?
   4. What other sites do you like or would like to emulate in some fashion – what do you like about them?
   5. What type of features and functionality would you like built in [Part of this list will come from #3 above]?
2. Developer relations
   1. Would you need a development company to help with ongoing maintenance? Most of our clients are clients on a monthly retainer. This allows a very fluid relationship which fosters a good, healthy, store growth that isn’t stagnant.
   2. How much training do you need? We find that the clients level of eCommerce and technical knowledge play a big roll in cost. We love working with clients and teaching companies about best practices but there is a cost involved. Our Pivot360 product is a great tool for entrepreneurs needing a personal eCommerce coach… long term or short. If you are to be successful, it is important to have a firm grasp on what type of help and training you’ll need. The sooner you know this the better. It will save you a ton of dollars in the long run.
3. Additional Application development - In many cases clients need some type of custom application to help move data around. Here is a possible example: Once you receive an order, it needs to be broken up by item. Each one needs to be sent off to their different corresponding fulfillment centers. In this case you would want the papertrail to be automated and not have to touch the order. An additional application to manage the data flow must be created to minimize employee usage. Work with you developer to discuss what you need and compare it with the standard functionality that comes with the eCommerce platform you choose. Do your best to work through as much of this as possible beforehand to help manage additional build costs.
4. Don’t forget to talk about Social Media. At the moment it’s a must have.

The SuiteWorld Conference will held in at the San Jose Convention Center this year, from May 13-16. It is expected to be another record setting conference with 200 Breakout sessions and visionary keynotes from .

FastPivot president, Matthew Ledford, will be one of the presenters during the Track 6 Session: Tips from the Experts: Taking Your Website Experience to the Next Level [Wednesday, May 15 from 2:30-3:30pm] and also providing live site consultations, as a part of the SuiteGuru series.

Having a national roster of clients requires a host of conference calls and web shares to stay in touch. Conferences provide opportunities to make new friends and spend real “face time” learning with our clients in person at these conferences.

Love it!

Although FastPivot is relatively new to the Netsuite Consulting scene, we’ve been fortunate to help improve thousands of online shopping experiences over the years.

If you or any of your staff members plan to attend SuiteWorld13 (or are in/around the San Jose Conference Center area), let us know so we can make sure you’ll have a chance to meet up with Matthew. It’s likely he’ll have a lot of information to share with you as well. Ecommerce has continued to evolve rapidly over the last year, especially within the Netsuite sector and there are expected to be some significant SuiteCommerce announcements again this year.

FastPivot has continued to adapt it’s custom software and features to relevant merchant needs, and there have also been some updates on the SuiteCommerce side that are worthy of lunchtime discussion as well.

Oh, and don’t forget to tune into #SuiteWorld13 #NSW13 updates on Twitter. Follow @fastpivot and @ecommercewire for updates from our end. In past years participants have actively tweeted conference information and discussion for the duration of the conference. Who knows, there could even be a “tweet up” this year!

This week we start casually collecting & sharing news bits with insight for pivots (or turning points) in life or the web business.  What did you see this week that you found interesting or exciting in our interconnected ebusiness world?

Geek Web Business Friends are ABUZZ about Google Glass Launch

If you have been under a rock, Google has gone Star Trek with uber geek “fashionable” augmented reality glasses.  With fashion design that Geordi La Forge would love, well funded geeks are plunking down $1500 beans to be in Google geek augmented reality Nerdvana/ beta.  Just a few takeaways:

• If you haven’t already applied to be a “Glass Explorer” you are too late.
• Sergey Brin does Ted 
• Sergy can’t  take them off at the Oscars.  He could but he didn’t.  Did he get permission to record everyone?
• Google realizes they don’t do ‘fashionable‘ well.  Perhaps $GOOG should have called Warby Parker sooner?

As if most of mainstream business was keeping pace with the change world of user interface design (ux),  (As if online businesses were up with responsive/mobile strategy, Now this… )

Yahoo! Web Business Friends Disappointed but Marissa, Marissa, Marissa-  You charming brilliant evil genius.

Since my days attending SEO Conferences where Marissa Mayer was a speaker, I must admit I was impressed with her charm and brilliance.

So in a counter-cultural move, telecommuting is nixed at Yahoo effective June!  In a connected world where most of us work any time from anywhere with wifi, what’s up with that?

Is working from home dead at Yahoo!? $YHOO  Yes, for now.   After getting razzed by everyone from Sir Richard Branson “To successfully work with other people, you have to trust each other.” to Kara Swisher  and the hilarious comments at publishing ‘the Yahoo! MEMO”.

Yahoo in the Fast Lane

Fastpivot is a virtual team that prides itself on leveraging technology to build the best team in the world, regardless of location.  We  see the value of being together AND working from home: both have merits and pitfalls. At this point, I would be remiss if I didn’t share we are hiring ninja ux designers.

So, back to Yahoo!-How do you say “layoff” without saying layoff?  Telecommuter, if you like that lifestyle, opt yourself out and work from home, just not for Yahoo! $YHOO!!

Tech recruiters in Sunnyvale just ordered double-double shot espressos all around…

Groupon you are not brilliant. Naughty web business… Greedy evil genius maybe…

After reporting earnings, Groupon stock took a serious dive this week.  CEO Andrew Mason walked the plank after sharing the news.

Please permit a short rant here.  So, what happens when you take a huge chunk of the value from the merchant in your promotion formula for the low margin, high volume pricing of the offers you parlay?  Sustainable?  I think not.

To his credit, outgoing CEO Andrew Mason’s exit letter scored extra tongue in cheek points:

“After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I’ve decided that I’d like to spend more time with my family,” he wrote in a note to employees. “Just kidding—I was fired today.”  (Relevantmagazine.com) 

Further, in a great example of being ‘out’ while being ‘in’, Mason’s annotated farewell memo made it onto Rap Genius.

Rare the small business advertising twice on Groupon.  Something about losing money but trying to make it up on volume that stings…  Unless you are shorting $GRPN stock to make up the difference that is…  (Actually shorting Groupon might not even help.)

PS-If you emerged from the rock mentioned above and read our email/blog first thing! Thanks!

You permitted the rant, now for a little ‘selly sell‘. Thanks @ChrisBrogan 

We have a web design whitepaper coming next week: “Seven Tricks of the Trade to Enhance your Website.”  I guarantee it will have at least one free dose of common sense.  Email me at matt at fastpivot.com and I’ll shoot you a copy as soon as the editors give the go.  Trust me. That won’t take long.

In the meantime, discuss among yourselves:

• Would you, could you, did you order Google Glass? If so, will you let us live vicariously thru your rose colored annotated lenses on your vblog?
• How do online businesses user interface designers plan to keep up with device proliferation from large to tablet to small to now wearable watches and glasses?  (Didn’t even mention but the watches are coming…)
• Is telecommuting dead or just at Yahoo?  Does your company culture embrace ‘work at home’?
• Was Marissa Mayer’s move smart or silly as the arguments against the horseless carriage in Henry Ford’s day? Speaking of Ford, that guy could really crack a whip.
• Call me a liar: Heard any good Groupon repeat ad buy stories?

The 2013 Internet Retailer Web Design Conference set attendance records again!   Of course, getting best practices in retail web design on how to create well-designed eCommerce sites through the eyes of the experts in the field, was the purpose, but so much more was at play.

Some trends with metoric impact, that just a few years ago that had nothing to do with design,  were scorching hot topics during this year’s conference.

Several key takeaways:

• An eCommerce website should be a compilation of thoughtful design,  User Experience (UX) based testing  and SEO.  In the old days, these were often at-odds with each other; not the case in today’s eCommerce world.
• Recent SEO updates to logic and algorithms have actually brought an unification of thoughtful retail web design and SEO, hinging on unique content.
• Speaking of SEO, Google has openly supported responsive design as the preferred way to handle multiple device browsing.  Since Google can discover your content more efficiently, it stands to assume that mobile and tablet friendly retail web design will get better grades with Google too.
• Whether you have a retail web design budget for a full responsive experience or not, mobile shopping is here to stay and mobile-friendly designs for eCommerce are essential.
• Online store owners or key decision makers commonly don’t understand their visitors and these retail web design success factors:
  • Navigation & Search: If visitors can’t find items with search, navigation and organized content, you’re losing customers.
  • Continuous Improvement: Testing and analyzing again and again is the only way to get it right.
  • Personalization: For far too long, eCommerce has been distant and non-human, presenting the exact same content to every visitor. That is changing fast. ECommerce is becoming meCommerce and store owners need to engage immediately or lose forever.

What is a Jet Setting Etail-er to do?

Online commerce faces an ever-changing environment of competition, features and functionality changes and trends. FastPivot’s team of experts are here to help you understand your current limitations and recommend ways to defeat low conversions, confused shoppers or stale content.

Grade your retail web design and retail strategy on these key retail web design risk factors:  

• You haven’t changed your eCommerce store design in over a year.
• You are using the same rotating banners for more than 6 months
• You have not looked at any analytics in the past week (month)
• You have the same content on your site that others use too
• You have duplicative product descriptions on your own site(s)
• You’re eStore is not mobile-friendly
• You don’t know where to even start understanding what’s wrong

Then you need this:

FastPivot Design, UX and Marketing Report (Moving eCommerce to meCommerce):

Don’t put the cart before the horse.  Contact us to conduct a Design, User Experience and Marketing Report.  We’ll guide you  on what your next action steps should be for thoughtful design, intelligent interface, unique content, leveraging SEO and solutions driven by your brand and those who compete in your space.  For the month of March, these reports start at $699.

Retail web design benefits from Search Engine Optimization

Ps. If you are still recovering from the painful PANDA Update, you might focus on the fundamentals with the  Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.    

FastPivot president, Matthew Ledford, will be a presenter during the “Live reviews: How does your site measure up to the best?” session [on 2/11/13 from 3:15-5pm] providing live site consultations, as we have done in years past. Also, since 99% of our Yahoo! Store design and development occurs from remote locations, we love to meet our clients in person at these IR conferences. If you or any of your staff members plan to attend IRWD2012, let us know so we can make sure you’ll have a chance to meet up with Matthew. It’s likely he’ll have a lot of information to share with you as well. Ecommerce has continued to evolve rapidly over the last year, especially within the Yahoo! Store sector. FastPivot has continued to adapt it’s custom software and features to relevant Yahoo! Store merchant needs, and there have also been some updates on the Yahoo! Store platform side that are worthy of lunchtime discussion as well.

Oh, and don’t forget to tune into #IRWD2013 updates on Twitter. Follow @fastpivot and @ecommercewire for updates from our end. In past years participants have actively tweeted conference information and discussion for the duration of the conference. Who knows, there could even be a “tweet up” this year!

Over the years, FastPivot has offered services to nearly every gamut of business and industry. Serving the budding start-up, proof-of-concept projects, as well as larger brands means we have to consistently adjust our approach. We are reminded that every business has a wildly different set of goals and needs. The experience also reminds us that at a fundamental level, a business wants to be visible and serve well the needs of those it intends to serve. It’s simple.

Every so often, we get the chance to work with a brand that has not only been around for decades, but also carries a name that resonates with the general populous. Everyone knows Everlast. Everyone has had their hands on a piece of Everlast sports equipment at some point in their lives.

So, what is the difference between an established brand’s process and a new startup?

New Everlast Yahoo store launch, developed by FastPivot.com

There are business-level requirements that guide the general direction of the project. But at a tactical level, the process for assessing a build project remains the same. An established company has workflows that are firmly established. It is important to provide a solution that does not require a shift in day-to-day processes for the new store owner. Launching an online store should not require changes in protocol – just add to it. For an easy launch and scalability later on, one must make new systems work with existing systems.

Everlast chose Yahoo! Merchant Solutions for a list of reasons. Between Yahoo!’s flexible template language and our own software and customizations, FastPivot was able to not only fast track the project, but get a solution in place that works with Everlast.

www.shopeverlast.com

It was important to build shopeverlast.com in a way that did not require many third party add-ons and kept the core of the shopping experience in Yahoo! Store. A few special features:

• Automated swatch controls and image changeouts
• Non-traditional store hierarchy and dataset
• Real time changeout of system-built messaging
• Integration with backend order management system
• Custom Dynamic navigation
• …all built around graphical requirements provided by Everlast

ShopEverlast.com Item Page

The store was built in the remarkable span of a tight 60-day window, requiring everyone on both sides put in their best to make it happen. Shopeverlast.com launched on October 1^st, 2012 to maximize the opportunity of the store during the holiday season.  The FastPivot team is very proud of our process & partnership with our clients that make this amazing timeframe and impressive site possible.

The FastPivot team loves working with top brands. Every experience differs but they are not so different. In fact, we were reminded of how similar building an online brand store can be. It truly excites us to join our experience to brands we are proud to be associated alongside and to maximize the opportunity of offering their products online.

The Everlast team was a pleasure to work with. They were not only interested in what buttons to push, but how it all worked. Those are our favorite kind of clients! We are looking forward to continuing the innovations on shopeverlast.com.

We would love to hear from you!

• What do you think about the new www.ShopEverlast.com ?
• Does it surprise you that Everlast and other top brands choose to build on Yahoo! Store on Yahoo Merchant Solutions?
• How do you choose your platform?
• What has been your fastest large project delivered?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is an infographic worth?  Maybe a million?  These mobile shopping infographics hosting in our Fastpivot Pinterest Page  tell the story of dramatic growth and the increasing importance of mobile optimization andmobile strategy for internet retailers.

Droid them or dread them, love them or hate them, info graphics are here to stay too.

Here are five of the finest mobile shopping infographics we could find to help you get up to speed on the topic of mobile!

• Mobile morphs the etail environment in this graphic titled Mobile Commerce Revolution from econsultancy.com and gets at the topics of ‘tags’ or QR Codes

• SarahLynnDesign.com presents a sweet graphical comparison of mobile website development vs. mobile application development across several dimensions as well as pulling data from Internet Retailer, eMarketer and Nielsen and a sneaky little comment about changing button colors and improved conversion rates.  Yes Virginia, “add to cart” button color matters.

• The Explosion of Mobile, clearly shows… well… an explosion since 2009 in smartphone ownership and a similar growth curve in shopping and browsing online across 13 different product categories.  Hat tip to EdigitalResearch.com and Imrg.org where “Consumers can be confident when dealing with IMRG Members because all interact… using methods that are Honest, Decent, Legal, Truthful and Fair…”    What’s not to like about that?  Sounds like a Golden Rule Business network.

• SocialCast pulls data from a boatload of sources to summarize the Mobile App Economy in one page and confirms the often mentioned fact that the Japanese are mobile and app crazy!    Given our team’s smart phone addiction, It is difficult to believe that mobile internet use in the US is roughly half that of China and Japan (percentage of mobile subscribers accessing the mobile interent at least monthly.)

• No mobile shopping list would be complete without mentioning the tabletization of the web.  This data assembled by Statista underscores the affluence and importance of tablet shoppers.  Higher average order and conversion rates vs. smartphones help establish the tablet as THE NEW MOBILE Shopping Device!

With over a decade of experience as a Yahoo Store Developer and top Yahoo Store Designer, we get to work with the best clients!

Our team of  talented Yahoo Store Developers just launched these two amazing new sites :

• Everlast
  • Before the holiday rush hit, FastPivot delivered a knockout punch of a site for the brand every boxer knows: Everlast!
• Abbamart
  • One of the worlds largest makers of fine makeup brushes recently came to FastPivot for a US brand makeover. The Yahoo Store Design team put them on the runway where they belong!  World Class Abbamart!  

Stay posted for more detailed Yahoo Store Development updates and branded Yahoo Store Design makeovers for both of these awesome clients projects!

Pinterest will never be the same after the Fastpivot Pinterest Page with Infographics and Geek Gift Ideas!

FastPivot is greatful for an awesome 2012 and looking forward to an even better 2013!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanakkuah and Happy Holidays to one and all!