June 22, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

On Tuesday Apple made the announcement that it will be releasing Final Cut Pro X through its ecommerce solution.  The new 64-bit, multi-core performance version has radical new changes that are causing quite a bit of fuss among video editors.  Apple wanted to make it clear to its fans that the program is not merely an update but a total revamp.

The new editing program from Apple will include some major changes in the user interface.  Final Cut X will now have a “Magnetic Timeline.”  This means that clips can be inserted with ease and rearranged, without the worries of audio sync and various other issues.

One feature many video enthusiasts are raving about is Pro X’s ability to take video from multiple camcorders and not have to convert it.  Previous versions didn’t have this capability and the time it took to convert video was very tedious.  Also the shocking price reduction from $999.00 to just $299.00 for the current and faster version has many people curious.  Apple has done something interesting by making the product only available on its ecommerce solution which heavily reduces supply chain costs allowing the company to slash prices.

The new price could also be a marketing strategy for Apple to sway customers into upgrading their desktop or laptop.  The $700 price savings doesn’t seem to add up with all the new high quality features that Apple packed in.  Final Cut Pro X is “completely rebuilt from the ground up,” said Apple’s release for the product.

Despite all the positive attributes of the program some are saying Apple is making a risky move by possibly alienating their professional crowd.  The new Final Cut is eerily similar to the interface of iMovie which is a much cheaper editing program.  The Social Network and other large budget productions were edited on the program which proves that it caters to the best.

Larry Jordan, a well respected Final Cut trainer said bluntly, “Some people will hate it.”  He added, “this is so radically different from anything we’ve worked with before.”

But, on the other hand, we are talking about Apple here – they are kind of indestructible.

June 22, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

pricegrabber logo

There is an interesting survey making its way around the web that will most likely have an effect on how the daily deal industry will operate in the future.  PriceGarbber, a part of Experean, released results from a Local Deals Survey wherein they collected some revealing and interesting statistics.  44 percent of respondents said that they use, search, or otherwise take advantage of daily deal websites.  However of those, 52 percent expressed feeling overwhelmed by the number of bargain emails they receive on a daily basis.  The survey is composed of 2,088 U.S. online consumers, and was conducted from May 20 to 25, 2011.

This new information may come as a surprise to an industry that’s slowly refining their business model.  Overloading customers with emails isn’t the only thing that has now got the industry worried.  According to a Rice professor, not enough businesses are throwing in with the daily deals groups – they run one deal and never come back.

Professor Utpal Dholakia was quoted saying, “The major take-away from the study is that not enough businesses are coming back to daily deals to make the industry sustainable in the long run.”  Dholakia also said, “And our results from three studies and close to 500 businesses surveyed show that the deals are nowhere close to the rates of financial success for participating businesses that some companies claim to be having.”

This however doesn’t mean consumers aren’t adding daily deal items to their shopping carts.  According to PriceGrabber, 63 percent of consumers receive emails from two or more local deal Websites a day.  But once again some bad news, 60 percent of polled respondents said they feel the daily deal industry is getting flooded with too many sites.

The company that issued the survey, PriceGrabber thinks that they may have a solution to the problem.  On June 1, 2011 the company launched their own solution, a one-stop shop for consumers who want to browse thousands of deals from more than 20 local deal sites.  In addition the company harasses its users much less by providing only one single email per week.

June 22, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

You don't want to be associated with this site

BeautifulPeople.com, a dating site in which only hotties are allowed, was hit with a virus last month that caused an ugly problem. The virus, dubbed “The Shrek Virus,” infiltrated their system, disabling their member screening program – the thing that keeps membership so selective to begin with. The service charges around $30 a month for membership through their ecommerce solution. The virus’ name (for those who can’t figure it out) comes from the cartoon character who teaches people that looks do not matter.

30,000 not-so-beautiful people were allowed onto the site, each paying their obligatory $30 a month. Once the error was found, the site had to kick out all these people and refund their money. That’s close to $100,000 lost from their ecommerce solution!

Greg Hodge, managing director of the site, wanted to make sure “the real beautiful people” were getting what they are paying for; not to see “ugly” people:

“We have to stick to our founding principles of only accepting beautiful people — that’s what our members have paid for, we can’t just sweep 30,000 ugly people under the carpet.”

Last holiday season, BeautifulPeople kicked out 5,500 people after they had seen the users gain some weight. The site made people update their profile, and if you weren’t “beautiful” anymore, you had to go. Again creating lost revenue. Isn’t the idea of a dating site or an ecommerce solution to make money?

The company has set up a help hotline for people to call if they need help coping with their rejection. One would think if you’re one of those attractive hotties, you could pull a girl or guy with the snap of a finger. Right? This site proves that even if you have an attractive outside, you still need some help finding someone to be with. With exclusionary tactics like this, those people might be making it harder on themselves than it already is.

It looks like Hodge, the founders, and other supporting employees need to see the movie “Shallow Hal,” or even the movie the virus was named after!

June 22, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

There are so many daily deals programs running around these days that it can make your head spin - luckily, like most things, "there's an app for that."

We’ve been talking about this a lot lately: there are these things called “daily deals” sites. They allow you (and a million of your closest friends) to get a special deal on a local retailer or service near you – but only for a limited time. The biggest name in daily deals in indisputably Groupon. Their first-to-market ecommerce solution paved the way for wave after wave of copycats. Well “deal wallet” CityPockets is here to help make sense of all these offers with their new app. Apparently the time is right, because they just raised $735,000 through a team of venture capitalist companies.

These reproduction daily deals sites range from the exact clone (LivingSocial) to specialized deals (restaurants, excursions, fashion, etc.). The incredible upsurge in daily deal sites has led to what CEO Cheryl Yeoh calls “daily deals fatigue.” Forget about the fact that there are so many different ecommerce solutions out there offering daily deals that it can be difficult (impossible?) to keep them all straight in your head. There are so many of these different services that most of the time they’ll be offering something you’re not even remotely interested in. This market saturation is probably part of what has made specialized daily deals sights with one target market so much more popular.

However, even when you do happen to find a special offer that you do want, it comes with  an expiration date. For some people, this is no problem. They buy the deal through the ecommerce solution (increasingly through an app or mobile device) and cash it in right away. This quick turnaround has led to catastrophic conditions at some retailers, whose stores are hit incredibly hard by a tsunami of customers the first day or weekend that the deal is in effect. When the flood waters recede, instead of an ocean of regular customers, the businesses are left high and dry.

However, the alternative is holding on to your coupons until you pretty much forget about them. Even if you have an ecommerce solution app on your smartphone, the chance of waiting too long and losing your coupon is very real. This is where CityPockets comes in.

The CityPockets app allows users to truly take charge of their daily deals by aggregating them all into one easy-to-use screen. You can see all the offers you have waiting for you and how long you have until they expire. It also allows you to combine two different email addresses, like if a couple wants to manage their deals together in one spot. Far from being just another convenient way of managing deals, their ecommerce solution system also allows users to sell their unwanted deals. While CityPockets does take a slice of the transaction, you can sell the deal for more than you paid for it – if you can find someone to pay the rate you want.

June 22, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team
A few years back Alex Chang, CEO of Roost, had an idea: build a real-estate search engine with an ecommerce solution twist to help people find homes. With over 25,000 agents listing on the site, it did fairly well at first. Then the housing crisis hit and let’s just say it was not a very nice time for Roost. So Chang decided to take his $8 million in investor money and go in a entirely different direction.

Running a small business takes a lot of time and energy, and there is more to it than people just pushing a shopping cart through your store. An incredible amount of emphasis is being put on social media marketing, and reaching your customers through those channels. Roost has reinvented itself to be an incredibly easy social media manager for your small business.

You connect your business’ Facebook and Twitter, choose one or more RSS feeds to draw content from, and watch the magic work. You can set Roost up to make single posts, or lay out a whole campaign designed to drive business.

The company will provide content suggestions based on your business sector that can be helpful if you do not know where to start. Roost has also come up with a concept called “Roost Circle.” This program makes it possible to connect with other similar firms to share content, photos, and promote each other. The idea behind this is for businesses to help other businesses gain business (that’s a lot of business!).

The service is totally free, but does have an ecommerce solution for premium features. This is not the first time we’ve seen this type of service being offered. There are plenty of other websites that will post to your Twitter and Facebook accounts automatically, but none are free, nor have the great user interface that Roost has.

Roost recently launched another feature to the site called Roost Local Scorecard. It looks at how many likes on Facebook are from the business’ local area, in order to give users an idea of how they’re doing locally with their social media campaigns. The scorecard is rated from 1 to 100 and has different levels once you reach a certain amount of points. The highest being “Local Legend.”

Small business blogs, and pretty much every other outlet on the internet has stressed how much a social media campaign can help your business. The biggest problem is that small business owners don’t necessarily have the time or money to promote in a consistent and effective manner. Roost aims to solve that.

June 22, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

When driving along you might occasionally see a truck that is delivering groceries to people at their homes.  It’s a pretty simple system: users of these services order their items online, pay through an ecommerce solution, and have it all shipped to their homes.  Last year consumers spent $12 billion buying groceries online.  In 2014 it is expected to hit $25 billion.Some readers might remember online grocer “HomeGrocer,” the startup that pioneered the online grocery industry.  Webvan later bought them out (that’s when some say they went downhill) and then ultimately out of business.

Other companies have been diving into the online grocery business and, by the numbers, things are looking pretty good.  Safeway is doing it nationwide, Amazon’s “Amazon Fresh” has been roaming the Seattle streets delivering groceries, and even the giant Wal-Mart is delivering fresh foods in San Jose, CA.

Nielsen, a corporate research firm, has been increasingly interested in the online grocery sector.  So interested that they are teaming up with MyWebGrocer to start a new service in Q3 to track online grocery sales.

Some staggering statistics have emerged showing how much more people are likely to spend on a grocery ecommerce solution, versus your standard brick and mortar grocer.  Consumers said they would pay $80 online for food and beverages, versus $30 in store. They also said they’d spend three times as much for high-margin beauty and personal products on an ecommerce solution.

Since the ecommerce solutions do not have to worry about shelf space, they can carry a much larger variety of products to ship to your house.  That means no more going to a specialty Norwegian store to get lutefisk, just go to your online grocer and order it from them.

Even with all the growth that online grocery services are experiencing, buying food online will still be a tough sell for a lot of people.  Many consumers like going to the store and picking out that perfect avocado or peach.  Some like going to the butcher counter and picking out that perfect slab of meat.  If you’re like me, you have to touch every loaf of bread to find the softest one for that perfect turkey sandwich.

Online grocery has been taking off but it will take them some  time to grow.  Don’t expect your standard brick and mortar grocer to close its doors anytime soon, if ever.  For many consumers, nothing will ever replace the experience of buying food firsthand.

June 21, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

News of hope for independent authors struggling to make a living has spread across the World Wide Web this morning.  Crime novelist John Locke has officially been declared the 8th member of the “Kindle Million Club,” joining authors such as Suzanne Collins, Michael Connelly and James Patterson.  He did it all on his own without the help of an agent or publishing house through Kindle’s Direct Publishing ecommerce solution.

Locke has self-published nine novels through the Kindle Store, including a New York Times bestseller called Saving Rachel.  Recently he released his first non-fiction title, How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months. Locke attributed much of his success to his 99 cent pricing model, pulling in 35 cents for ever book sold.  It must not have been that bad of a model.  To date Locke has sold 1,010,370 Kindle books.

Locke had this to say about the ecommerce solution.  “Kindle Direct Publishing has provided an opportunity for independent authors to compete on a level playing field with the giants of the book selling industry. Not only did KDP give me a chance, they helped at every turn. Quite simply, KDP is the greatest friend an author can have.”

The interesting thing about Locke is that he isn’t even an author by trade.  It turns out Locke ran an insurance company but saw the potential in Kindle’s ecommerce solution.

“I saw that a self-published book could be offered on Kindle for 99 cents, and still turn a 35 cent profit… I walked around in a daze for, well, days, trying to explain to people what that meant. No one seemed impressed. To me it was like receiving the keys to the kingdom, and I immediately set a goal to become the world’s greatest 99-cent author.”

Kindle Direct Publishing is been seen now as the fast and easy way for authors to start selling eBooks to a large audience they’ve never had access to in the past.  With the news of Locke’s massive success many more aspiring authors may begin jumping on the Kindle bandwagon.

June 21, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

eBay has announced that it has acquired GSI Commerce (GSIC) for a whopping $2.4 billion dollars. That comes out to $29.25 a share for the publicly traded company. GSI is an ecommerce solution for online retailers of any size. They also provide interactive marketing services in addition to functioning as a simple shopping cart. GSI Commerce works with over 180 companies spread over 14 merchandise categories.  The firm helps companies such as Adidas, Mattel, MLB, PBS, and Ace Hardware run their ecommerce solutions. The acquisition will be financed with cash and debt on eBay’s part. The consideration for the acquisition on eBay’s part was a 51% premium on the share price of March 25th, the day the acquisition was announced.

eBay says that GSI’s clients will likely benefit from eBay’s own ecommerce solution dubbed “the Marketplace,” and Paypal as well.

GSI Commerce plans to run as a separate company, independent from eBay, and will be led by Chris Saridakis. He will have to report to eBay’s president and CEO John Donahoe.

Donahoe has stated that with what eBay has to offer (the marketplace and Paypal), GSI will be able to give potential clients more functionality than the competition. When looking at eBay’s, there’s not always a lot of obvious competition. But there definitely is one ecommerce solution that stands out – Amazon.

Amazon also allows users, and other stores to sell on their website. eBay is trying to get an edge on the competition and some say this was the easiest way.  Such as Rob Diana, accredited blog author:

“This is the easiest way for eBay to get into ecommerce for larger brands without affecting their auction business. They get a known name in ecommerce and an excellent client list. In addition, they also get the warehouses and distribution facilities that GSI manages for some of their clients. Yes, they have warehouses which contain either merchandise for their clients or merchandise that they own and sell through their clients stores”

Having a huge network of warehouses (with all their power and complexity) is a definite win for GSI and their clients. This is also a huge acquisition for eBay and plunges them right into a major ecommerce sector that they hadn’t tapped yet. Both sides have rewards and challenges.

June 21, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

Google Ventures and AOL Ventures announced Monday that they are supplying a new ecommerce solution called Shopobot with seed funding. Shopobot is an online ecommerce solution that allows consumers to track fluctuating prices from online retailers for products ranging from cameras and TVs to laptop computers and iPods. When prices go up or down, Shopobot members are notified and linked to the new price.

The site is currently in beta and sports a very simple user interface. You choose what products you’re interested in tracking. Then, Shopobot comes up with a list of featured items from your selection. When looking at a Macbook Pro, for example, Shopobot shows you a nice, clean graph that displays the online price fluctuation of the past 30 days for both new and used items.

When taking a closer look at the products detailed page, you can view details on the price changes and the current pricing trend. The little Shopobot mascot resides at the top of the page, giving you a thumbs up or a thumbs down based on recent price changing activity.

Shopobot could develop as a useful tool for economists. By tracking retail prices, economists can analyze purchasing trends and help retailers to adjust their online business plans to be more successful. The site crawls the top 12 online ecommerce sites, including Amazon.com, Newegg.com and Wal-Mart.

Similar to online stock market utilities, consumers using Shopobot will be able to set a price warning when an item they are tracking falls below a certain price. So if you’re looking to buy an iPod Touch, but don’t want to pay more than say $200 for it, Shopobot will alert you when that item falls below your price limit on, for example, Amazon.com.

Ultimately, Shopobot is an ecommerce solution to a complicated problem. Online retailers change their prices constantly, sometimes many times in a week. They like to experiment with different price-points, and consumers often reside on the losing end of that experiment. The founders of Shopobot want to take the guesswork out of when to buy, and offer consumers insight to how online retailers set their prices.

June 21, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

HP has a daunting task ahead of itself as it makes its final preparations before releasing the TouchPad to market.  The launch is creating an online buzz with many critics wondering if it will even come close to touching the iPad.   However others are predicting that tablet consumers will add the HP product into their shopping cart and give Apple a run for its money.

The company’s first WebOS tablet is expected to have an entry level price of $499.00 for a 16BG model.  Customers can double their memory with the 32GB version and pay $599.00 which puts it on a price level with the iPad.  Upon news of this pricing structure many critics sounded off, questioning why anyone would pay for the HP when they could get the iPad for a similar price?

The TouchPad has nearly identical specifications as the iPad 2 but almost identical pricing. This has many consumers asking what’s HP’s competitive advantage?  Some would say that the HP product allows a better multi-tasking user interface and synchronization between related products.  This may not be enough thought to compete with the dominating force of the iPad 2 and other related Android products that are coming to market.

PC World is reporting that contrary to many user opinions HP executives see the product as close to perfection.  HP chief executive Leo Apotheker reported one simple rule for the TouchPad: be perfect.  The exec said, “We will not release a tablet that isn’t perfect.”  One must wonder what metric HP is using to define perfection.

The TouchPad is reported to be heavier and thicker than the iPad.  It also appears to have a bigger battery according to some blogs.  Whether that means more life or a flawed design is still in the air.  The main problem for HP could come with the lack of apps.  It’s not easy to compete with an already established tablet that has more apps than you could possibly dream of.  It will be interesting to see how consumers will actually respond to the new tablet during next months release and if they will add it to their shopping carts.

June 21, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

A Forrester Research report is making its rounds on the web this morning with the claim that mobile shopping is set to grow steadily over the next 5 years.  Currently shopping on smarphones accounts for $6 billion, or 2 percent of total sales on ecommerce solutions.  That number is expected to rise to $31 billion by 2016 with an increase of 40% per year.

So why is mobile shopping not currently were it should be?  For one, the whole idea of an  “ecommerce solution” on mobile is a heavily debated topic among retailers due to security concerns.  Retailers are seen as hesitant because consumers see a greater risk in using the smartphone vs. a PC.  Forrester however predicts that retailers will begin shortly to making the changes necessary to increase ecommerce activity via a smartphone.

Forrester analyst Sucharit Mulpuru gave her opinion saying the topic is still a hotly contested topic among retailers.  “Security is one reason, as well as retail sites that aren’t optimized for mobile devices. Shopping behavior and higher-priority activities on smartphones are also partly to blame.” She added that consumers frequently use mobile phones in a retail context — but to compare prices and look up product information, rather than make purchases online.

Currently tablets aren’t included in the definition of what is mobile shopping.  Using the tablet to interact with an ecommerce solution instead of a smartphone may be what many shoppers who own both types of devices are turning to.  “Many of those people naturally prefer to shop on the device that has the larger screen when given the choice,” Mulpuru says.

The mobile commerce transition will also have an effects on customers’ in-store experiences at brick-and-mortar retailers.  Introducing technology that  allows mobile devices to check out customers, prevent lost sales and help customers search for goods, could be a beneficial future strategy for these types of retailers.

Some examples of retailers already getting involved with the mobile revolution can be found in Seattle.  Starbucks has been working on its mobile capabilities by creating a digital wallet that allows consumers in some cafes to make purchases with their smartphones. Nordstrom  announced it will bring in handheld check out devices within the next month.

June 21, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

Don’t you wish that there was an ecommerce solution that would tell you when you should buy something based on when the price is going to drop, or when a new version is going to come out? Well, a company that has been under wraps for the past two years has finally emerged from the clouds in Seattle.

June 21, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

For years artists have been tied to record labels, and ecommerce solutions such as iTunes in order to sell their music. VibeDeck launched in beta last month and plans to change all of that.

The web service enables music artists to sell their music directly to listeners…for free. The company has just raised $2 million in funding from several U.S. and international investors. With this new investment, VibeDeck says it will ramp up hiring, add marketing efforts, and improve the site’s user interface.

The ecommerce solution hopes to improve the transaction experience from the artists to the fans, and enable the artists to receive 100% of the profit. With record labels and other online selling platforms taking as much as 90% of revenue from the artist, this is a huge change in the way business is done.

The company hopes to provide tools mainly for small-medium sized bands. They offer a customizable landing page for the artists and include a music player so that consumers can preview the songs right on the ecommerce solution before they buy.

VibeDeck enables artists to connect their Paypal accounts to the web service in order to receive payments. The Paypal transaction fees are the only costs the artists will incur for selling. VibeDeck founder and CEO Lior Shamir says that advertisements to monetize the site are out of the question as well. This makes you wonder though, what is VibeDeck’s business model?

The company has said that with the $2 million in funding they will also try to find a way to make money. After all, this is a business. Shamir has stated that VibeDeck is first and foremost an ecommerce solution for artists. Places like BandCamp offer a service to allow bands to sell merchandise to fans directly, but that company is mostly focused on providing a “website” or landing page for bands.

VibeDeck says that it is focusing primarily on small/medium sized bands. This is the largest population to concentrate on, but with Paypal as the only payment option it could be hard to get bands bringing in a significant enough amount of revenue to use the service. Using Paypal is one way to go, but another company might choose to use a merchant system to collect payments for the artists and have monthly or bi-monthly payouts. It will be very interesting to see how this ecommerce solution for music artists develops.  Monetization with no ads and a completely free service will be pretty hard to implement, but Shamir probably has some ideas up his sleeve.

June 21st, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

Sega’s online gaming network “Sega Pass” was hacked on Friday, according to the Japanese company’s website. The personal information of approximately 1.3 million account holders was compromised in the breach. This is the most recent attack in a string of security breaches in the entertainment industry, the most notable victims being Sony and Fox. No hacking group has accepted responsibility for the attack.

Sega Pass is the company’s e-commerce solution for distributing game demos and other content online. Sega announced that while customers login details and email addresses were compromised in the breach, none of the users credit card information was available to the hackers. Sega uses an outside payment processing client, and therefore stores no personal payment information within its database.

In mid-April, Sony’s gaming ecommerce solution called the PlayStation Network (PSN) was brought down by the hacking group LulzSec. It is estimated that Sony has lost almost $170 million as a result of the attack. The PSN was down for more than a month after the initial LulzSec attack, possible aimed at Sony because they took PS3 twenty-something hacker George Hotz to court. Sega had put in place new security measures to protect against a similar attack, but clearly those measures failed to protect them.

LulzSec denied any involvement with the attack, and used Twitter to offer their help with bringing down the hackers who broke into Sega’s database. Sega Pass was taken offline on Thursday, and is still down at time of writing. No news on when Sega will bring the network back. Gamers, with no new game demos, are hitting the forums to complain. The company’s official release expressed their “sincerest apologies to…customers for the inconvenience.” Sega promises users that they are investigating the infiltration.

One thing is very evident as the result of all these security breaches: online entertainment companies such as Sony and Sega need to focus their energy on securing their ecommerce solutions. LulzSec and Anonymous announced a hacker-merger today, uniting their efforts at bringing down government and gaming sites. The hacks will just keep on coming, and these companies need to be working towards a goal of enhanced security for their customer base, if they are to have any chance of survival.

June 21, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

Skype released beta 5.5 of its video calling software on Monday, adding even deeper Facebook integration than prior versions. Skype users who are also active on Facebook will be able to IM their online friends and comment or “Like” status updates all from the new Skype interface. The beta version also includes a dedicated Facebook friend contact tab.

These new features are in addition to Skype’s previous Facebook functionality, which allowed users to send a text message to their friends’ phones as long as the number was listed on Facebook. Skype users can currently view their news feed or update their status directly to Facebook without logging out of the Skype application.

Towards the beginning of this year, rumors were flying around that Facebook would be adding Skype to its shopping cart of social media acquisitions. Not long after, Microsoft came forward and purchased Skype for $8.5 billion. Many former Skype executives left the company after the merger, including Skype’s VP of Business David Gurle and Russ Shaw, VP and general manager. There was no official word on why the executives left Skype after the acquisition.

With its new owners, Skype is likely to develop into a more business-oriented application that will offer companies the opportunity to communicate face-to-face without the expenses of board meetings or business trips. Microsoft is allowing Facebook, a close partner, to access some of the new pieces of Skype and the two are working closely to develop new communication tools that social and business companies will no doubt want to put in their shopping carts somewhere down the road.

The next logical step for the Facebook-Skype relationship is to integrate video chatting on Facebook’s popular Chat client. Currently, the social networking giant does not offer video chatting, and combining the two into the web interface would be a challenge but would certainly benefit both parties involved. Rumors of Facebook Video Chat, powered by Skype, have been circulating for some time now.

Someday there may be a joint Skype-Facebook application that businesses can add to their web-based app shopping cart that will allow for expanded lines of communication between customers and businesses. One thing’s for certain, Skype and Facebook may be on the brink of making great progress in creating a seamless and ever-evolving social networking tool that will change how we communicate.

June 20, 2011
By the ZippyCart Content Team

It’s always sad when we have to write one of these articles, but Ryan Dunn, a noted cast member of the infamous Jackass TV and movie series, died last night in a fiery car crash outside Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania town of West Goshen. It was originally unknown who was driving when the crash happened, but Dunn and one other passenger (name unreleased) both died. Eventually cops released that Dunn was behind the wheel. One thing that we do know for sure is that the eBay ecommerce solution will be flooded with Ryan Dunn-related merchandise once this news makes its way further around the internet.

eBay already features a few signed posters of Dunn and longtime co-star/teammate/all-around-best-bud Bam Margera. Some of the merchandise references or endorses a favorite band of theirs, CKY. To add terrible irony to Dunn’s tragic (avoidable?) death, Dunn’s last tweet is a photo of him and two friends drinking. After all the dangerous stuff that Dunn, Bam Margera, and his Jackass buddies did on camera, for him to meet his end in a car crash is also sad and ironic.

eBay’s auction-based ecommerce solution is often loaded with merchandise after a celebrity dies. MTV has already posted a photo retrospective on their website. Many celebrity and entertainment news outlets are also running extensive coverage, as well as the other staple of a celebrity death: the massive outpouring of Twitter sadness.

The massive cloud of media and selling stuff on ecommerce solutions sometimes tends to cheapen a star’s death. True fans and admirers of their work, however, will also keep an image of that special person in their minds (and maybe in their hearts, at the risk of sounding too weepy). Fans of Dunn will always remember him for his iconic beard and wild antics. Maybe pop in an old Jackass DVD and have a few laughs. That’s why he did all that stuff, after all.