November 11, 2010
By the ZippyCart Shopping Cart Reviews Content Team

Just when we thought that online shopping couldn’t get better, a new dimension may be  thrown into the mix.  A third dimension to be exact. Dassault Systèmes, One of the leading suppliers of product lifecycle management (PLM) software, is hoping to bring the fashion industry into the digital 21st century by introducing 3D virtual reality to online stores.

Jérôme Bergeret, director of the consumer goods industry at Dassault Systèmes, explains that challenges facing the fashion industry include fast fashion, global sourcing, sustainability, and fragmented markets where brands operate as retailers and retailers operate as brands.

With a list of high profile clientele that include Adidas, Guess, New Balance, and Gucci, Dassault Systèmes is no stranger to the fashion industry. Their PLM software is being used by more and more fashion retailers to track the flow of information across the global supply chain, from design and development through sourcing and production.

“Today it’s not about two collections, it’s about continuous collections with a short lifecycle,” said Bergert. “…a lot of companies have lost expertise through outsourcing, so solutions are needed to support design/manufacturing anywhere in the world.”

One of the most promising solutions may be in the realm of 3D software development, which includes 3D design, 3D merchandising and in-store layout.

To test out the idea, Dassault developed a 3D application with its 3DVIA software for online department store Espacemax.com.  The intent was to get hesitant customers more comfortable with online buying and hopefully boost sales.

The new application, which is accessed via a plug-in tool on the retailer’s website, allowed shoppers to “touch and try” a product, just as they would in the store. By wearing special 3D glasses the customer was able to look at the item from every angle and view in detail the color, material and finish. To make shopping more interactive and lifelike, customers could see how clothing and accessories looked on virtual models.

So did this 3D venture work?  In its initial trial, Espacemax sent out 50,000 pairs of 3D glass to potential customers.  In the first three weeks of promotion the company sold EUR300,000 ($409,920) worth of merchandise to 2,000 new customers.

Dassault believes that online 3D shopping is not just a tool for the customer.  It’s also a way for stores and brands to test concepts in private without the risk and expense of opening a physical store.

“For retailers their store space is their greatest asset, so if they get their products or merchandising wrong, their profits will drop,”  said  Monica Menghini, vice president of the consumer goods industry at Dassault Systèmes.

November 9, 2010
By the ZippyCart Shopping Cart Reviews Content Team

ZippyCart recently added the AmeriCommerce ecommerce software solution to our site, and throughout this week we will be highlighting the company, and why so many merchants have chosen AmeriCommerce to help power their online business. The AmeriCommerce ecommerce solution has a robust set of features which include remote carting, multiple storefront technology, and more, assuring that they can accommodate the needs of a wide variety of merchants. As part of the AmeriCommerce review process,  we interviewed VP of Product Development and co-founder, Ed Sturrock. We wanted to provide our readers with additional insight into AmeriCommerce, and get answers directly from the source. Below is a recap of our chat with Ed, where you can learn more about why merchants are so happy with AmeriCommerce as their ecommerce software solution.

ZippyCart: What are the most powerful features that you feel drive merchants to partner with AmeriCommerce?

AmeriCommerce: That would have to be our mascot Carty’s good looks!  Aside from that, it’s really less about 1 feature and really more about feature depth, we just do more than a lot of others in this space regarding depth of features in pricing, shipping, payments, tracking, ordering, customer management and more.  Since we are a community driven product and listen to our customers intensely we have a unique line to the heart of every business.   Our customers care passionately about one thing, selling their stuff!  So we leverage that open communication to put the right features in that drive a customer’s sales, because they tell us to.

Besides just feature depth in general (and Carty’s ravishing looks), here are a few really unique features that really do set us aside.

• Multiple storefronts allow you to run many stores at once, but differentiate them completely both in products and in front end user experience while pulling all the orders and customer information to be managed into 1 administrative console.
• We have a rule based workflow and traffic engine that allows you to make rules that trigger any action you want.  This feature has immense power to tailor AmeriCommerce to your needs without the use of a developer.  Make rules to send orders to external systems, to send emails to customers or visitors that fit particular profiles.  Make rules that automatically import products or cancel orders with no activity.  Make rules to wash your car and feed your dog. Thousands of use cases…one groovy system.
• Ecommerce enable any website or application using remote carting and remote ordering.  Just add the product info to any website on any server running any scripting language and we will maintain the cart information and securely check the customer out for you.  We don’t have to be your front end site, pick any vendor or technology for this task and use remote ecommerce.  Don’t recreate the wheel, instead use a mature and feature rich ecommerce system and focus on your front end website.
• A robust and powerful API/SDK is essential to integrating systems and we don’t just expose a few small pieces of the system, we expose virtually everything through our API.  This allows you to integrate virtually any application with AmeriCommerce.
• Another huge feature is actually our qualified support people, this is not a call center, they are not outsourced.  Instead they ‘know’ ecommerce, web technologies and HTML/CSS deeply so you don’t have to.

ZippyCart: Can you provide any insight into the upcoming Theming system changes? How will that improve life for AmeriCommerce merchants?

AmeriCommerce: Who wants to learn HTML and CSS?  So primarily it will make editing and sharing themes even easier.  We have immense power in our theme system, as many merchants can tell you, but so much of it is in an advanced format that needs to be easier.  We really want to unlock the power the system already provides and give a better administrative skin to use it all.  Many people don’t know that we can completely customize a page by just moving elements around, or that multiple layouts are a piece of cake, even multiple live entire themes on a single site are doable today.  So we plan to expose this power in an easy to understand manner.

For advanced users, we intend to move to a more file based approach, allowing them to work with raw HTML files even for dynamic layouts right from the start.  We already support this, but you have to reference files manually…we plan to make it super simple by just making file access the default.

Ultimately, it will be about extending the interface to make the power show, but simplify the steps to use that power.  There will be some exciting features that come out of this overhaul as well but I would be shot with nerf guns if I let word of those out!

ZippyCart: Can you tell us a little about what AmeriCommerce is looking to accomplish with the new AmeriCommerce Product Blog?

AmeriCommerce: To let our customers get to know us and us them.  The new product blog aspires to become a new way to give our community of users early access to what we are up to.  A less formal and more conversational bead into what AmeriCommerce is about and the how the features we have are used in everyday life.  We intend to gather feedback on new and upcoming features as we are designing them so that customers can take part in crowdsourcing that design.  If we do that, the feature will really be for them and be built in a way that provides immediate value.

Here are the main things we want to accomplish:

• Feature Previews of things to come
• Idea Conversations to see what you think
• Real World Use Cases of Existing Features
• Training on new features
• How people are using AmeriCommerce
• AmeriCommerce Tips and Tricks

ZippyCart: What can you tell us about the Social and Mobile features in version 2010.6?

AmeriCommerce: This is such an exciting release for us.  We are including a native Facebook store and shopping application you can put right on your business profile page along with many new Facebook features that allow liking, commenting and sharing products and services.

Another great feature in 2010.6 is a mobile shopping interface that is optimized for finger friendly navigation.  This new store pulls right from your product data and is completely customizable.  Customers can even serve differently themed storefronts to iPhone vs. Android and other major phone operating systems.

ZippyCart: What kind of feedback are AmeriCommerce merchants providing about the improvements in 2010.5?

AmeriCommerce: They are loving the speed enhancements which have enabled higher rankings in Google.  This also lowered the size of sites on our platform which reduces serving fees and that has helped some customers put more money to the bottom line.  The security and reliability changes have also really added peace of mind.   We are a very fast moving platform and with that kind of speed, customers want to know that the product is still secure and that all of these upgrades we push to them are stable when their site is upgraded.

Our customers know that when we take the time to tighten ship periodically, it shows that we are truly committed to their success, not just our own.  They know we care and that we listen.  It also helps that we added a few new integrations and features too.

ZippyCart: Can you tell us a bit about what a typical day is like for the team at AmeriCommerce?

AmeriCommerce: Our day rarely stops, businesses run 24/7 and we have people working around the clock adding features, supporting the product and working on the next great thing that is designed to increase our customers’ sales.  Everyone on the team identifies and personifies our mission of owning ecommerce and we’re constantly working towards it.  If I said none of us dreamed in code or didn’t have day dreams about ecommerce features…I would be lying!  We get giddy over new features and party over releases because we genuinely have fun doing this.  We’re pretty competitive too, we like to play armchair basketball, ping pong, darts and mini pool…I could lie and say this helps us think of new ideas and features…but honestly we’re too busy trying to focus on pulverizing each other!<

ZippyCart: Do you have any 2011 predictions for the ecommerce industry?

AmeriCommerce: Facebook and Mobile commerce are going to drive additional revenue to stores, more than ever before and merchants need to be prepared to take advantage of it early.  Facebook will continue to harness the power of their user base to drive revenue and change the shape of ecommerce as we know it.

Alternative payment methods will continue to thrive, chipping away at the costs of moving money from consumer to merchant.  Every year we can move money around for less and less.  These savings go to store owners and almost always trickle down to the consumers as well.

Couponing and mass discounts will get out of hand in 2011 and shave merchants margins in the hopes that it will drive traffic.  I’m not so sure this is an effective way for our customers to grow, but it will definitely drive traffic.  It’s good for the consumers though.  If merchants want to succeed in this, they need to be sure to have proper upsells, cross-sells and calls to action to drive deeper revenue while the visitor is cashing in their deep discounts.

With the upcoming changes to the PCI regulations, I also feel that PCI is going to be pushed more heavily by Visa and businesses will really start to feel the pressure of these regulations.  The expense of PCI/DSS compliance will likely move many customers off their homegrown or self-hosted systems and towards cloud based software as a service ecommerce platforms like AmeriCommerce.  Additionally, smaller ecommerce providers will begin to falter under the expense of properly securing and complying with PCI/DSS.  This poses an opportunity for larger ecommerce players like ourselves to help them and their customers out by forging strong and lasting partnerships where everyone wins.

Conclusion:

Thanks for the opportunity to ramble away about our passion!  I hope it shows that we work hard to provide a great product that we are proud of and one that helps our customers peddle their goods on this internet thingy that seems to be catching on, ha.   Come try us out, we have a no obligation free trial to get started with.  Keep an eye out, there’s more great things to come!