The clock is counting down on the holiday season. Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday are this week and that means companies around the country are ready with big sales.

The average American will spend more than $800 this holiday season — that’s up about 17 percent from 2010, according to American Express Spending & Saving Tracker.

Significantly more people said they will be shopping on Black Friday. About 35 percent of those polled said they would be surfing the web on Cyber Monday — up from 20 percent in 2010.

Almost half of consumers said they plan to shop online this holiday season, according to another report, Deloitte’s Annual Holiday Survey.

The Internet is now tied for 1^st place as the top shopping destination. Discount stores share the top spot.

And it’s not just young people. Consumers of all ages said they planned to do about a third of their shopping online.

“Social media will play a big role in how shoppers follow company sales announcements this holiday season,” said Phil Rist, Executive Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, BIGresearch, as part of a report by the National Retail Federation. “From Facebook to Twitter and even group buying sites, ‘social’ retailers may be rewarded this season in terms of additional holiday sales.”

More than 17 percent of those polled said they will keep an eye on companies’ Facebook pages with just over 11 percent eying sites like Groupon and LivingSocial, according to the NRF.

Filed under: eCommerce, Marketing Your Site, Social Media
Tags: black friday, cyber monday, holiday shopping, online shopping
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It’s kind of a groovy feeling whenever you discover that you use the same products and services as famous people. Like the other day when I read somewhere that Matthew McConaughey is a member of AAA, I thought, Alright, alright, alright…Matthew and I get our cars towed by the same guys!

When small business owners find out they have something in common with multi-million dollar corporations, there’s a similar feeling. Small business owners can pat themselves on the back when they know they’ve made the same choice as a company with seemingly unlimited resources. It probably means the products or services they’ve selected are pretty top-of-the-line.

Last week we let you guys know that we’ve started using mighty Magento as our e-commerce platform when we put together websites. What we didn’t tell you then is that this means that our clients are sharing an e-commerce platform with enormous, super-successful companies. We’re talking about household names that rely on their e-commerce sites to bring in ridiculous amounts of revenue.

Like Who?

If the IntelliSites Albany Web Design team builds you an online store, it’s going to have Magento in common with Office Max. And Samsung. And Fiji Water. And Harbor Freight Tools. And Zulily. And the North Face. And Vizio. That’s right, should you ever find yourself in an elevator with the CEO of any one of these pretty legit corporations, you could make small talk about how Magento is working for you.

And chances are, it would be a pretty positive conversation. After all, Magento offers a lot of features that will make e-commerce management easier for you and shopping easier for your customers. So whether you’re a small business with just a few products to sell or a big company that involves multiple online stores – you’ll be impressed with what Magento can do for you.

Filed under: eCommerce
Tags: e-commerce, Magento, online shopping, online store
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The IntelliSites Albany Web Design team has a new bag of tricks to use when we set up online stores for our clients.

We’ve recently started harnessing the power of Magento. This open-source superhero e-commerce platform makes our job easier and our clients’ online stores mightier.

Magento’s Magic

Magento is killer for a lot of reasons. It allows users to incorporate tons of features into online stores. Everything from a well-designed shopping cart to a smooth checkout process are simple to build with Magento, and the end products are fantastic. A customer shopping at an online storefront made with Magento’s goodness can easily browse the online catalog, place desired items in a shopping cart that estimates shipping and tax, set up a user account if desired, and check out securely. And on the business owner’s end, an Administration Panel and analytics will help you keep tabs on anything and everything that goes on in your online store.

We love the features that Magento provides, and we also love that it’s open-source. That means we can tweak it to make it do whatever we need it to do without making anybody mad. We can pick and choose which features we think will work for one of our clients and add our own flair to make each e-commerce site we build unique. It’s like having a refrigerator full of really, really high quality ingredients at your fingertips that you can mix and match and season to make a perfect recipe.

So you can see why we’re pumped to bring Magento – and its product browsing features and shopping carts and checkout screens and analytics and administration panels and awesomeness – onto the scene.

Filed under: eCommerce, Web Design
Tags: e-commerce, Magento, online shopping, online store
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Remember video stores?

Or when the only way to buy the music you loved was to drive to the record store?

Technology has turned the music and movie rental industries upside down.  And the e-book craze is spreading like wildfire. And it looks like the video game industry is on its way to making the big transition from physical media to digital media as well.

Advances in technology have always moved toward making things smaller and more powerful. And since there’s nothing smaller than invisible, it makes sense that eventually anything that didn’t have to exist physically would take on digital form.

What Digital Distribution Means For Your Business

If your company is part of one of the industries that has already taken the leap into digital distribution, then certainly you’re familiar with the way it’s changing your world. If you haven’t done so already, you need a plan for how you’re going to keep up with your competitors by digitizing your business.

But let’s say you’re not involved in an industry where digital distribution has taken over. Let’s say you’re a hair stylist. Digital distribution doesn’t affect you, right? You obviously can’t offer a digital haircut, right?

Or can you?

Sites like this one provide users with the opportunity to upload photos of themselves and see how various hairstyles will look on them. Why couldn’t you have a similar application on your site? Or instead of reinventing the wheel on your own site, you could just provide links on your website to existing sites like that one. You could even set up a computer in your salon and allow customers to surf sites that provide this service (provided that you choose sites that allow for commercial use, of course).  To make your waiting area more fun, you could even have your clients design a digital hairstyle for you before you provide them with a real one!

What I’m getting at is that even if your industry doesn’t seem to lend itself well to digital distribution, there are probably ways you can make your business more digital. Whether it’s making use of fun websites or apps related to your specialty, setting up an online ordering system to replace a printed order form, or offering digital coupons, there are ways to take advantage of the digital world that’s developing. And even though making changes like these might not revolutionize the way you do business, they will give your company a Netflixy, iTunesy, 2011-ey “cool” factor.

Filed under: eCommerce, Maintaining Your Site, Web Design
Tags: digital coupons, digital distribution, online shopping
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Okay, we did example #1, so now it’s time for Sample Problem #2.

This week, we’ll be taking a look at a pretend non-profit organization as it attempts to use e-marketing to collect some paper for its noble cause.  We’ll call the nonprofit something a little corny and obvious like Holy Shirts and Pants.  Whoops, that’s already taken.  Okay, we’ll go with Kollecting for Kids, and we’ll say their role in the community is to collect money to buy toys for underprivileged children.  We’ll say the NPO has a pretty good following on social networking sites – including 3000 Facebook fans and 500 followers on Twitter.

So, with our background set, let’s look at the sitch that Kollecting for Kids was in when their campaign began.

They needed to market their annual campaign to raise money to buy holiday gifts for kids.  Our recommendation to them was to put together a campaign that leverages their social media connections to generate donations.

We encouraged them to start by coming up with five blog entries that each focused on convincing people to donate money to their charity.  The idea was to really pull on the readers’ heartstrings and move them to donate.  These blog entries incorporated specific anecdotes about real children who would be helped by this campaign, and every entry included a section specifically asking for donations and linking to a donation site.

With the blog entries prewritten, KFK published one entry every Monday for the five weeks leading up to Christmas.  They connected their blog to facebook and twitter too, so every week the Facebook fans and Twitter followers had another opportunity to hear a compelling reason to donate.

So without spending any money, KFK was able to generate 17,500 impressions.  And if even 1% of the fans and followers were moved to donate, there would be a lot of happy kids on Christmas.

That’s right, boys and girls.  You too can use the magic of Twitter and Facebook for free advertising!  And whether you run a non-profit or a for-profit business, you’ll be shocked at how effective it can really be.

Filed under: eCommerce, Social Media
Tags: blogs, e-marketing, Facebook, non-profit organization, twitter
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