April 11, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

Brick and mortar retailers need to rebuild in the face of online shopping carts.

A variety of factors have led to a less-than-spectacular March for brick-and-mortar retailers, which ecommerce retailers showed improved numbers. Analysts pointed to higher gas prices as one possible reason why consumers might have chosen to stay home and fill digital shopping carts from their computers instead of driving to a real store.

Michael McNamara is a research and analysis VP working on MasterCard Advisors’ Spending Pulse retail report. According to him, the relationship between higher gas prices and increased online activity can be summed up this way:

“typically…[we see] consumers consolidating shopping trips, shopping closer to home, and making fewer trips to the brick-and-mortar locations.”

Whatever the various reasons are, ecommerce saw a 16% increase, with consumer electronics leading the way. That marks the fifth straight month in a row of double-digit growth in the ecommerce sector – that’s a lot of people filling up a lot on online shopping carts. This could also signal a gradual shift in consumer attitudes towards making more/more expensive purchases online.

Despite the drop in brick-and-mortar sales, stock prices for a number of flagship brands are up, including Urban Outfitters, Abercrombie and Fitch, and Bed, Bath & Beyond. Experts point to domestic recovery and job growth (though far from perfect) and international expansion as possible reasons for the improved stock numbers.

Improved sales numbers will lag for a number of reasons. Despite general trends towards improvements in the domestic economy and companies adding more jobs, analysts still have reservations. Ken Perkins, president of the RetailMetrics LLC research firm, had this to say:

“The job headlines are great, but does that mean they [the newly employed] are going to Kohl’s and being able to spend?”

Even as more people are coming back into the workforce, prices on gas and other necessities are creeping up, meaning that these lower and middle class workers have more to contend with just to make ends meet. With the looming specter of higher gas prices in the distance, and a late Easter still weeks away (and the small boost in spending that will bring), retailers are wondering when the spring will start warming up for them.

April 8, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

New Balance has finally joined the likes of Nike and Puma as the iconic shoe company recently made sneaker personalization a veritable option.

A person will start out with a profile of the classic US574 runner and build a shoe that fits their personality through a plethora of color and style options on the microsite.

The site guides the wanna-be designer through every step of the styling process, beginning with the sole, through each section of the body, up to the laces, along the ‘N’ logo, and down to the color of “new balance” on the heel. Finally, to make the shoe truly personalized, New Balance gives the option of embroidering the back heel with any eight-letter word or phrase (words and phrases are subject to review).

The leather of the US574 is offered in eight colors as is the shoe’s woven label. The eight character personalized label and shoe laces are available in nine different colors, although the base ‘N’ will only offer white, navy, or black as color options (have to stay somewhat classy).

Once the shoes receive the designer’s stamp of approval and are tossed into the shopping cart, a $100+ fee will be processed and will usually ship within 4-8 days.

So, how does this New Balances shoe customization venture stack up against companies like Nike and Puma who have been offering the option for some years now?

Nike definitely takes the cake in the zone of shoe personalization. NikeiD not only offers a seemingly endless color palette from sole to shoe lace, the site allows for people to customize nearly every shoe design that Nike has come up with. The only downfall with this type of freedom is the overwhelming number of options. It could take the better part of day to create a shoe to one’s liking.

Puma used to work under the same business model as New Balance by offering only one of their classic designs to customize. Since then, the company has given us an increasing number of shoes and design options to choose from. Puma’s flaw, aside from the microsite being down, is customizing restrictions. From what I remember there were plenty of color customizing options from top to bottom, but restricted what color certain parts could be. This is probably why the site is under construction.

But I digress. New Balance’s latest venture is surely worthy of note as the company brings the brand into the interactive ecommerce dominated 21st century. If history repeats itself, as it tends to do, then New Balance will surely offer more shoes in the near future. Stay tuned.

April 6, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

Billionaire James Packer is making his presence known in the world of ecommerce through a $10 million investment toward Australia’s DealsDirect.com.au through Packer’s fund Ellerston Capital.

DealsDirect, known as the Aussie online department store, says the investment taken by Ellerston Captial was a “minority cornerstone investment,” which will allow DealsDirect to quickly expand and create a strong foothold in the extremely lucrative market of online shopping.

DealsDirect, founded in 2000 by Paul Greenberg and Mike Rosenbaum, started selling goods through eBay until it opened its own ecommerce solution back in 2004. The company sells 23 categories of retail goods, including electronics, kitchenware, watches, toys, and games. Recently, they have actually gone back through eBay as they try to branch themselves out across as many channels as possible.

“Given our leadership position in the space combined with Ellerston’s appetite, one would expect this to be a substantial cornerstone investment which ensures we are extremely well capitalized and have the resources to capitalize on the many opportunities in front of us,” says Greenburg.

DealsDirect’s first order of business for money will come in the form of developing the company’s new” deal-a-day” site, Deal Me, which launched in February.

Greenburg is also hoping to be on the lookout for a number of acquisitions of the company’s own, which could include smaller sites similar in categories that DealsDirect already has on their main site.

“We are starting to prowl for businesses that have adjacencies or similarities,” says Greenburg. “We could buy and run them or drop them into our existing business.”

DealsDirect seems to be on it way up the digital ladder and James Packer looks to have made quite a sound investment with a company that says it has more than 1.5 million unique visitors every month, buying an item once every 20 seconds. $10 million may seem like a lot to invest in something one may not be completely familiar with, but take the fact that ecommerce is rapidly becoming the single most lucrative form of retail in the world, and the idea of dropping a few million dollars into an online store doesn’t seem all that crazy anymore.

April 6, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

UK fashion house New Look has erected a new online ecommerce solution powered by HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript, specialized optimized for mobile phones. The system boasts several useful and impressive features, including crisp zoom options, inventory trackers, and an accordion style browsing system that helps reduce the number of page reloads. The mcommerce utility’s shopping cart also automatically syncs with desktop/laptop users, allowing parity across different access types. Dom McBrien, e-commerce Director at New Look, had this to say regarding their hopes for smartphones:

“Research suggests that in 2012 access to the internet via smartphone devices will even supersede the desktop PC, so this is a clear opportunity.”

Focusing on smartphones is a clever move for real world and ecommerce outlets looking to increase consumer involvement and diversify revenue streams. Research has shown that more and more consumers are becoming more comfortable with using their smartphones directly for purchases of varying types. Even those who don’t use them for purchases are using their phones’ capabilities to improve their shopping experiences, either in the real world or via ecommerce solutions like smartphone apps or mobile sites.

New Look’s highly functional mobile site features a few more user experience-driven elements designed to reduce the number of clicks from first entering the site to closing the sale (this is the Holy Grail of “conversion” – having the fewest number of clicks possible to get a customer to buy something). The front page sports a prominent search field, which is a major asset for users looking for items quickly. The ecommerce solution also allows users to pick the way search results are organized and displayed. The load-time is extremely quick as well, which is important no matter what platform you are on, but for whatever reason, when people are on their mobile phones they seem to have especially short attention spans (I wonder why).

Smartphones are an expanding form of ecommerce interaction and online access (as McBrien mentioned). The Android platform has been and is the fastest-growing smartphone operating system and has really served to democratize the smartphone market, which until that point was dominated mainly be Blackberry and iPhone. Now there are more smartphones than ever before (and more all the time) and smart retailers are seizing upon this new market to release new ecommerce solutions and mcommerce apps to capitalize on new customers.

April 5, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

Tesco lets you put a car in your shopping cart

British retail giant, Tesco, brings a fully-loaded automobile service that makes used car buying less stressful and the process as easy as putting a car in your online shopping cart. The company accomplishes this by taking out the middle man (the dreaded used car salesman song and dance) and replaces it with an online interface. Tesco has partnered with Carsite, which sells former fleet and lease cars, to operate the new platform, which is called “Tesco Cars.”

Tesco Cars comes as the the answer to the ‘tens of thousands’ of complaints that consumers were making each year to watchdog Consumer Direct, a government funded advice service,  about the traditional used car market. The complaints have been made the premise for Tesco Cars mission to bring a higher level of service, and by elevating the consumer to second-hand supplier relationship, aims to take its rightful share of the UK’s $39 billion (£24 billion) motor vehicle market.

Tesco Cars’ inventory cost 20 percent less than competitors’ because of lower overhead expenses afforded by being based solely online. Tesco Cars vehicles are sourced from reputable retail and business suppliers, which have typically had one previous owner, undergoing a strict Tesco inspection. This means it must pass a 167-point RAC and HCI inspection, and offers an RAC platinum warranty to ensure a consumer is not receiving a car without a working engine.

Sir Trevor Chinn, Chairman of Tesco Cars commented, “Consumers want to know they can trust the information supplied about a used car, that they are getting value for money and good customer service. Importantly they also want to be able to take their time to make the right purchase for them. We are delivering a positive new experience for today’s car buyer.”

Tesco Cars has seemed to really dot all its ‘i’s’ and cross all its ‘t’s’ to solidify its identity as a reputable second-hand vehicle supplier. All of the company’s sales are supported by a maintenance and repair service, delivered by the National Service Network of more than 1,000 independent garages that Tesco says will be up 30% cheaper than what franchise dealers charge. Additionally, buyers can tap into complementary Tesco services, from car insurance and breakdown coverage to financing loans.

Tesco brings its services in a time where consumers are starting to feel more comfortable with conducting higher priced transactions online only. It will be interesting to see how the company evolves its various site features to recreate a less obtrusive car buying experience, from the initial search right down to the actual test drive, which potential buyers can do by meeting the seller on location (this may be the only time the consumer actually leaves their computer).

April 1, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

In attempts to increase a small business’ presence online, Google Canada has set up a program that will give away thousands of websites to Canadian businesses.

Though Canada may be known as the most plugged-in population in the world (spending 43.5 hours per month online, nearly double the global average), the country still struggles in the realm of connecting small businesses with an ecommerce solution.

“The numbers jump off the page,” said Chris O’Neill, managing director of Google Canada. “Two-plus million small businesses in this country and less than a million have a website.”

To get these numbers up and bridge the gap between online consumer and small business, Google Canada developed the “Canada Get Your Business Online” initiative. With this initiative Google will hand out websites and domain names to at least 100,000 small and medium sized Canadian businesses, with the bill being footed by Google.

The CGYBO package will include 12 free months of hosting, after which a standard web pricing of $99.99 a year will kick in. Hosting will be provided by Yola, a shopping cart software provider and hosting company based in San Francisco. Google has also partnered with Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), the organization responsible for administering domain names ending in .ca.

O’Neill says Google has conducted studies to figure out why small businesses haven’t transitioned toward ecommerce when more than 80-percent of Canadian residents have access to high speed internet. The company concluded that most businesses haven’t created websites because they feel it’s too technically demanding and it would take too long to learn how to run the site. With the “Canada Get Your Business Online” initiative, merchants will no longer have such excuses.

This is not the first philanthropic venture that Google has made to encourage brick and mortar merchants to flip their scripts. Earlier this month the search engine teamed up with MYOB to offer free web hosting to merchants in Australia.

Online shopping is a cash cow that netted more than $142.5 billion last year in the U.S. alone. It’s no wonder why Google Canada wants to help small businesses shift toward ecommerce. It’s a great opportunity that if taken advantage of, will allow Canadians to finally say they’re getting internet money.

March 31, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

Commerce Search 3.0 (GCS) is the latest update from Google that gives ecommerce stores a hosted search solution enabling a way for retailers to customize how their consumers locate goods for purchase. This update is the most significant one to come since Commerce Search first launched in 2009, as its new features boast a way to evolve the online shopping experience for the coveted consumer living in a highly competitive ecommerce world.

First, much like the way Google Chrome’s search functions, the Search as You Type feature gives shoppers instant gratification as they type in a retailer’s search bar. Shoppers will see product results with each keystroke in a drop down menu featuring product photos and prices. Google has also provided a way to bridge the gap between online and offline sales for retailers.

The Local Product Availability shows shoppers when a product is also available in a nearby store. This feature is an added bonus because it gives the convenience of bypassing those (sometimes) nasty shipping fees and wait times that can happen with online shopping.

As far as creating a more customizable shopping experience, the Enhanced Merchandising tool gives retailers the ability to create product promotions in banners alongside related search queries, and to easily set query-based landing pages. Retailers have a huge opportunity to benefit from this tool, especially with consumers who go online ‘just to browse’ but find themselves pages deep into products. For example, if a curious shopper did a search on shoes, they’d be directed to a page on shoes.

The last feature is the Product Recommendations (Labs) which helps shoppers make purchase decisions by showing them what others viewed and ultimately bought. which is very similar to Amazon’s auto suggest feature, ‘customers who bought x, also bought y.’

Google’s Commerce Search product is also hosted in the cloud so that online retailers can easily manage their stores to scale. Google even dropped the starting price of Commerce to $25,000 per year for 3 million searches and 50,000 items indexed. A number of well-known retailers have added GCS to their ecommerce solutions such as Forever 21, GNC and L’Occitane En Provence.

The companies signed on with the hope to follow in line of current GCS integrated retailers, Woodcraft Supply and BabyAge.com, who have both increased search revenues since using Google’s technology. Woodcraft increased by 34 percent and BabyAge a whopping 64 percent, an indicator that Google has really found a more clever way for consumers to put more clothes, vitamins, and lotions in that online shopping cart!

March 30, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

Skip the farmers market, fill your shopping cart from home.

Options for getting personal and home goods without leaving your house have been crowding the online retail space for years now, ramping up in recent months with improved services from sites like Amazon, Fresh Direct, and Soap.com. Now you can fill your online shopping cart with groceries, both standard and specialty, from a variety of local retailers in the Charlottesville and Richmond, VA areas using Relay Foods and arrange for a pickup later at a convenient location.

These types of services have been gaining speed and obviously investors are seeing the value, as Relay Foods has brought in about three million dollars in investments. The fledgling startup brought in $2 million from the sale of equity shares and almost an additional million in convertible notes. It is the brainchild of Zack Buckner (now CEO) who came up with it on his way home from a grocery store (which makes sense).

Relay Foods’s system takes a page from a lot of preexisting services by bringing together a consortium of farms and other product suppliers in a place where shoppers can access them. When you land at Retail Relay you choose your area (so far just Charlottesville and Richmond, VA and the surrounding area) and begin browsing the available vendors. Then you fill your shopping cart and pick a drop-off location where you can retrieve your goodies. It’s quite similar to how CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) cooperatives sometimes arrange home delivery or rely on group dispersal points to get veggies to their supporters.

A significant concern for new startups like this is where they are going to find their revenue stream. Traditional stores shelled out for goods at a lower rate, then charged consumers a higher rate to make their money. Virtual stores like Relay Foods don’t actually buy or own any of their own stock. They simply put retailers in touch with consumers. That’s where they bring in money, retailers actually pay for the privilege of getting into the homes of the buying public.

Smaller farm-based retailers like the kinds on Relay Foods typically don’t have access to large masses of customers. They usually find an outlet at farmer’s markets and other small scale retail events. Having a chance to fill more online shopping carts is a huge boon for these retailers and the convenience of ordering online and picking up near their homes just might entice more buyers now that they don’t have to trek to the market to get access to specialty stuff.

March 25, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

Jacques-Antoine Granjon first set the bar for what a private flash sales site should be like with Vente Privée back in 2001. Now Granjon is rolling in the big bucks, billions in fact, thanks to the wild success Vente Privée has turned out to be. Carrying the title as the biggest private flash sales site in the world, Vente Privée now rakes in over one billion dollars a year through buying leftover designer fashions and luxury stock and selling it at mass discounted prices to members.

Granjon must be doing something right because it seems these days more and more companies across the globe are launching private flash sales sites. The European market is heavily saturated with Vente Privée like companies trying to duplicate Granjon’s business model, and even in the U.S., sites like Gilt Groupe and Hautelook have emerged with their own runaway successes.

However, the entrance of other companies is not stopping Granjon from solidifying his dominance in the private flash sales niche. He is looking to change the game up and set the bar even higher by expanding the Vente Privée brand with the recent launch of the Digital Commerce Factory.

The Digital Commerce Factory is a service business that helps luxury brands from various sectors including fashion accessories, homeware, and toys on downward, develop their ecommerce solutions. The new business looks to accomplish this by creating ecommerce software platforms for these brands, through website and mcommerce development, site management (launch, hosting and logistics) and creating product catalogues.

Ecommerce is booming and many brands are realizing by integrating an ecommerce solution, it will boost their product sales. Essentially, the Digital Commerce Factory acts as an ecommerce haven for the brands who may not have the same profitable expertise in running an online store the way Vente Privée has shown over the years.

Granjon is confident that the expanded Vente Privée will eventually be a company that generates $15 billion in revenue. Ambitious as it is, Granjon looks to becoming “the Amazon of the event sale” in Europe by selling everything from trips to shows to store discounts. However, his path to greatness will be a challenge as his biggest competitors are eBay and Amazon, who have both bought flash sales sites, beefing up what these two companies already offer to the market.

For now the Digital Commerce Factory has yet to reveal its fullest capabilities, as it is in its early stages; however, if Granjon has proven anything since 2001, is that when he raises the bar, people will follow.

March 24, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

How does your state size up to the 5 best & worst?

As ZippyCart last reported, the rise of ecommerce will not be seeing a slow down anytime soon, as confirmed in a report by technology research firm, Forrester, who projected US ecommerce sales will grow to $279 billion by 2015. What this means is that people enjoy putting online merchandise into their shopping carts. Perhaps due to the convenience of the world wide web, shopping has been made easier, but even with the internet to our disposal, there is still the issue of shipping and that little thing called tax.

In order for an online shopper to thrive, the best thing to know before logging on the web, is if where you are living is conducive to your spending habits. Here is a quick guide to becoming a savvier online shopper thanks to an analysis done by Extrabux, a price comparison site that rewards shoppers with cash for purchases from specific retailers:

The results are based on four specific criteria to determine its rankings– shipping/delivery time, shipping costs, sales tax rates and the chance of having to pay sales tax at all.

Top 5 Best States to Live in for Online Shopping

1. Delaware
2. Mississippi
3. New Hampshire
4. West Virginia
5. Oregon

Top 5 Worst States to Live in for Online Shopping

1. Hawaii
2. Alaska
3. California
4. New York
5. Washington

Of the two extremes, Delaware and Hawaii made the cut as the best and the worst state to live in. Delaware may come as a surprise but it made the list rightfully so because of that little thing called sales tax we mentioned earlier. Yes, Delaware simply does not have it. In addition to this, Delaware has the lowest shipping costs and fastest delivery times. It takes UPS on average 2 to 3 days to ship a product within this state and of those products, consumers will only have to pay an average of $4.07 for shipping costs.

Are you online shopper fanatics looking to move anytime soon?

Sure you could do that, but it won’t change the 3 to 5 week shipping time it will take to get that iPad 2.

As for Hawaii, the obvious reason may be clear, but just in case you didn’t pick up on it, shipping to an island can be costly. Although sales tax average out to 4.25%, Hawaiian residents have to pay the equivalent of overnight shipping for the slowest shipping times in the States. Extrabux discovered, on average, an order shipped to Hawaii costs $19.17 and spends 4.57 days in transit.

Not to be forgotten, ZippyCart’s home state of Washington did make the list because pretty much every non-Seattle shipping distribution center is thousands of miles away. Washington has the slowest average shipping time of all the states in the U.S. and not to add insult to injury, Washington carries a sales tax nearing 10% (ouch!) which is the fifth highest sales tax in the country.

So before you online shoppers decide to put another item in that shopping cart, make sure you know what it will cost you (considering time and money are the main two contributing factors to a purchase) or if that is too much work to calculate, there’s always Delaware.

March 24, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

Two words: Bling and Bling

Gemvara, a Boston-based ecommerce company that lets consumers custom make jewelry online, recently locked in $15 million from a Series C funding led by UK-based venture capital firm Balderton Capital. The company, originally founded under the name Paragon Lake in 2006, changed its name in 2010 and adapted an ecommerce solution to make its merchandise exclusively available online. Since Gemvara’s decision to pivot, the company has racked up a total of $26 million in funding.

In an exclusive interview with MassHighTech, founder and CEO Matt Lauzon revealed the new millions will be used to build algorithms for the site to understand Gemvara’s consumer preferences, with the goal to generate repeat visits, and aims to find a way for more fine jewelry to go in their online shopping carts on a frequent basis. In addition, the funding will support Gemvara’s rapid company growth as it looks to double from its 40 current employees and will look to integrate an “aggressive” internship program.

Gemvara will also look to build on top of its merchandise of more than 1,500 original designs featured on its ecommerce software platform and continue providing highly personalized customer service.

“We’re growing at a fast rate and building a team that is re-defining the rules in e-commerce. This additional capital will enable Gemvara to drive innovation that will bring the jewelry industry to the cutting edge of commerce and deliver a dramatically better experience for our customers” said Lauzon in a release.

Gemvara’s quick rise to success stems from the idea that consumers are limited by jewelry pieces within brick and mortar retailers and prefer to customize the pieces based on their own tastes without the pressure of a jeweler looking to make a sale. It seems what Gemvara is doing is working well for them, as the company now averages $1,000 per sale, and according to Balderton Capital, Gemvara has the potential to become the world’s first billion-dollar user-generated product company.

As ambitious as that may sound, Gemvara is on its way, or at least that is what the company is letting on. Lauzon has declined to discuss the company’s current valuation but remains confident in its financial future.

However, Gemvara stands among other high revenue start-ups filling the co-creation niche. Blank Label, Indochino, and FashionPlaytes are just a few who have dug their feet in this niche, and as any profitable and trendy niche dictates, many other players will look to enter this game soon.

With that said, Gemvara is not alone in the race to to become the world’s first billion-dollar user generated product company.

March 22, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

The wait is over! If rumors are true, the Amazon Appstore officially launches the same day Angry Birds sequel: Rio debuts. Those Android users and Angry Birds’ fans who have anxiously waited to fill their Amazon shopping carts with apps can relax now. But not you, Google, things are just getting started for you.

The Amazon Appstore launches right in the wake of the Google Android Market big malfunction, in which a score of virus filled apps dowloaded by some 200,000 Android smartphone users were infected by malware, resulting in users’ personal information being shared earlier this month.

Suffice it to say, confidence in the Android Market is quickly fleeting.

Despite critics who have been in a rush to say Amazon is too late in entering the app game, Google’s epic app fail highlights the leading reason for another Android app store to enter the market: curated content.

The timing couldn’t be better. The Amazon Appstore policy is a far cry from Google’s ‘if it looks like an app, smells like an app, then Google will take it’ way of accepting apps into its marketplace. Amazon has carefully curated its apps by implementing a week long review that includes a virus and malware scan, garnering a collection of apps that demonstrate quality over quantity before they can end up in someone’s shopping cart.

Additionally, thanks to an Appstore webpage “accidental” leak, where the store went live for a brief moment, it revealed approximately 48 apps and their prices. Based on this sneak peak, Amazon may be aiming to undercut its app prices to gain a competitive edge over Google’s Android Market.

The ongoing challenge the Appstore faces is how to attract a loyal user-base and furthermore, how to overcome the hurdle of Google’s Android Market being prebaked into the majority of Android phones and devices. The strength of Amazon’s super-familiar online shopping cart will definitely help people to become comfortable with their app store, but they are going to need more smartphone presence to drive this idea home.

So, how can people access the Amazon Appstore through their Android device?

The first obvious option would be to go directly to Amazon’s home page to access the store but as for the latter, that’s slightly more complicated. Google allows third parties to set up their own software stores on the Android platform, which would allow the Amazon Appstore accessible on the Android Market through a native app. However, how long Google will allow its competitor to sell apps on its own Marketplace remains unclear.

If it isn’t evident yet, we are just suckers for a good tech rumor. The Appstore combined with its competitive prices and the Angry Birds sequel possibly indicates Amazon may be prepping to release a Kindle tablet in the momentum of its Appstore launch. It is becoming clear that Amazon is bringing its A-game on many levels from eReader, to Android apps, right on down the line to video streaming.

At this point, what can’t you get in your Amazon.com shopping cart?

March 22, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

Getting new tablets onto Amazon as early as possible for preorder seems to be the name of the game for manufacturers looking to fill shopping carts, possibly to take advantage of the huge response to Apple’s iPad 2, and the fact that they are still massively backed up. Sales of the hugely successful device wiped out all in-store supplies pretty much the day they went on sale, with online shipping dates pushed back weeks (this could also be due to lack of availability of parts from the devastated areas of Japan).

A large percentage of new iPad 2 owners are first-time tablet buyers. Shipping/supply disruptions mean that this ready, willing demographic might not be able to get their coveted items in anything resembling a “reasonable” time frame (Apple’s website is calling for 3 to 5 weeks for shipping!). Toshiba and Dell (who just put up a 7-inch WiFi-only tablet last week) could be trying to capitalize on the opportunity by aggressively marketing products that aren’t quite available yet, but might be available before or at the same time as the iPad2 is getting ready to ship.

This could just work for Toshiba, especially since they are touting their new 10-inch Android tablet as being superior to the iPad 2. On paper, it might seem to be the case: right off the bat it’s sporting a superior display setup at 1280 x 800 (vs. iPad 2’s 1024 x 768). This might seem like a minor difference (and it is), but taken in aggregate with the other updates and improvements, such as Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS, micro and regular-sized USB ports, and a dual core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor system (just like the Dell Streak 7), and it starts to look like a serious competitor, worthy of an advance place in people’s shopping carts (an actual release date hasn’t been announced yet, but that’s less important than getting people’s attention).

To the seasoned technology connoisseur, this is indeed a strong challenger to the iPad 2’s “dominance.” Google’s Android OS has huge potential and has been doing its best to live up to it since bursting onto the scene, quickly outpacing other operating systems as the leading choice for smartphones. Now it’s showing chances of doing the same for tablets.

Apple’s main strengths in the tablet market (and indeed, any market where it has a major stake) is integration and recognition: if you have any other Apple hardware or software product (iPod, iTunes, etc.), then buying another product instantly integrates the two. People recognize the Apple name and its (mostly) user-friendly design focus, and feel as though they can instantly jump on-board. Attractive marketing and societal trends (posts like “OMG iPAD2 SO AWESOME!!!!!” on everyone’s Facebook walls) only reinforce this feeling. As soon as consumers realize that tablets-are-tablets and the one that they put in their shopping cart should come from personal preference and not marketing or trends, we might just see a shift in consumer habits.

March 22, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

Things are changing for artists. No longer do they have to toil endlessly in obscurity, unsure of how and when they’ll be able to sell their artwork. The people at overstockArt.com have launched a new commerce solution for artists called “Artistbe.com.” Artistbe.com brings together a variety of social media and ecommerce utilities to help artists make a living and expand their visibility and market for customers.

Social media integration is a must-have for any ecommerce solution, and Artistbe integrates Facebook functionality by allowing users to “Like” an artist or image and share it with their network on Facebook. Many artists already have a presence on Facebook with a network built around them. Artistbe is hoping that these artists will bring their networks with them when they migrate onto Artistbe.

But why should Artists bother? With the wealth of other shopping cart solutions out there, and the increasing ecommerce capabilities of Facebook, why not just go into business for themselves? Artistbe’s answer is simple: in addition to serving as a clearinghouse for hand-painted canvas reproductions of famous works of art (which is how overstockArt makes its money) they will allow artists to create fully-featured online galleries to showcase original art, and sell that art for free using Artistbe’s ecommerce solution.

This is something of a game-changer for artists, considering that most galleries take 40 to 60 percent! At those prices, it seems like it’s easy to see where the term “starving artist” came from. Even Saatchi Gallery’s new “Saatchi Online” resource takes a 30% cut when artists use their ecommerce solution. Of course the argument there is that artists are buying into the Saatchi “name” and trading off of their experience and market recognition.

OverstockArt.com is an online resource for buying hand-painted reproductions of famous works of art (from guys like Picasso and such), putting them squarely in the consumer art realm. That doesn’t mean, however, that the next new artistic genius couldn’t get his or her start selling originals and reproductions on Artistbe.

Access and availability have long been the two hurdles keeping people in the creative fields (art, music, writing, etc.) from successfully and widely monetizing and marketing their skills. With the rise of innovative ecommerce solutions like Saatchi, Artistbe, and others, professionals working in these fields may just find new ways to live their passions instead of slaving away at day-jobs.