And whilst it could just be another flash-in-the-pan, I'm inclined to lean towards it being more of an indication as to the direction in which ecommerce (particularly social commerce) is moving.

With Facebook's introduction of Timeline (which I'm not a big fan of yet) and the growing popularity of Instagram, continuing growth of YouTube etc, social is clearly becoming more visual. Is it because a picture says a thousand words? Maybe it is. Maybe it's because we can take on board more information more quickly by scanning images rather than text. After all, we're becoming increasingly inundated with high volumes of data and it's a struggle to even get to it, let alone take the time to digest it!

So where does Pinterest come into play in ecommerce? If you take a look at MyDeco, I think there's a hint there. Create a moodboard using products that are available to purchase on the site. Useful. But what about using stuff that isn't available to purchase on the site? Pinterest takes us a step further and allows you to create pinboards using anything from anywhere on the internet and then show all of your friends, or anyone else interested in the same kinds of things as you. And it's already impacting online retailers.

An article published by Mashable in late January gives us some great stats and facts on the Pinomenon (sorry, couldn't resist!) - some of the most pertinent facts for me:

• Pinterest now drives more traffic to online stores than Google+, YouTube, Reddit, LinkedIn and MySpace
• It falls in the top five social websites driving the most referral traffic to retailers
• Traffic to the site increased four-fold between September and December 2011 - boasting 7.51m uniques in December
• Whilst Pinterest is impressive, unsurprisingly search still tops the list of referral sources for retailers

Why is Pinterest so different?

It appears to play on all of the elements of succesful social networking sites, rolled into one really simple to use network. It brings together friends, but also people with a common interest - making it both people and topic-centric - sounds a bit like Google+... But mix it up with its highly visual nature and the ease with which you can add and share 'pins', it seems to be the prom queen of the social world. Also worth adding is that it's founding base is predominantly young female with an interest in fashion, recipes and of course shopping - placing it's roots about as far as you can get from the techie roots of the likes of Quora and del.icio.us.

Whether or not Pinterest results in actual sales for retailers remains to be seen, but with some specialist retailers already adding the 'Pin It' button to their websites, it is starting to look quite promising.

Retailers - keep a close eye on Pinterest.

Jocelyn kirby
Head of Marketing
@JocelynKirby
@Metakinetic

The evening kicked off at 7pm with just shy of 60 attendees arriving before our speaker took the floor.

We were lucky enough to have the amazing Stephen O'Brien, Director of Digital EMEA for BlackBerry-RIM to speak and share his knowledge and opinions on the world of mobile and how we are going to see it change over the next few years. Some really interesting points came out of his presentation, which featured some great interactive discussions with the audience too, as well as a few tricky questions that flew Stephen's way!

He ended his presentation with some details on a great integrated campaign that BlackBerry has been running since late 2011 - amazing what you can achieve with a big budget, or even no media spend at all. One of their viral videos had hit 110k views without a penny spent on anything but the production of the video.

As this is just a brief summary of last night's event, I'll just highlight some  of the key thoughts that stood out for me:

• Data + mobile + digital is currently the eye of the storm - the most incredible place to be right now - exciting times for digital developments and moving so fast you can't afford to take your eye off the ball - we can expect a lot of change here over the next couple of years
• Despite BlackBerry's well documented issues in the last year, they still grew their customer base from 70 to 75 million customers - it's how you handle issues that really matters - don't forget to say sorry!
• BlackBerry has seen strong social growth in emerging markets - with continual improvements in connectivity in these markets it will be interesting to see how this shifts the world balance of the digital consumer
• Do not underestimate the importance of local search - according to BlackBerry, 80% of people who search on mobile then take action, highlighting the importance for business to be visible locally, on mobile and at the point of making the decision - don't miss out on impulse or urgent consumer actions
• Despite the importance of mobile, the user experience is still fragmented, both on devices and on mobile compatibility of websites (only 17% optimised for mobile) - improved user experience will have a big impact on the market in the near future
• One of the biggest marketing challenges are the complex synergies with mobile, tv and web - ROI calculations can be complex, but the integration of all three delivers significantly better results
• A big challenge for corporates as social media continues to increase in importance: how to balance the need for a rapid response with sending the right corporate message - the wrong message can be as bad if not worse than saying nothing at all!

To find out more about future events, follow the @DigitalBerks Twitter account or join the LinkedIn Group.

Jocelyn Kirby
Head of Marketing at Metakinetic & Co-Founder of Digital Berkshire
@JocelynKirby
@Metakinetic

What is Digital Berkshire?

Digital Berkshire was founded by Metakinetic and Rawnet and is a spin off of the popular Digital Surrey group and events, started in 2009 by The Blue Door. Digital Berkshire will maintain the original values and goals of Digital Surrey, forming a community for like-minded people wanting to stay up-to-date with the ever changing digital landscape in Berkshire. Digital Berkshire is proud to have the amazing South Hill Park Arts Centre in Bracknell as its official home.

Increased social media sharing integration

A big contender joined us last year in to the social sharing arena, Google+, so expect more things to come from them in terms of integration into your webpages. With the three super-powers, Google+, Facebook and Twitter, and integration tools at our finger tips, we now have more tools than ever to promote our products and services through social media. This year I would really like to see better integration of these tools rather than the standard 'like', 'tweet' or '+1' button. I think there's some legs in an application to better house these tools on our pages whether this be a third party solution or just purely achieved with the design of our pages. I want discussion and feedback, a buzz around the thing I am viewing, not just a number count. Think of the added value of content on your pages to help SEO via social networks. Let's hope this happens.

Custom Fonts

With the increasing popularity of font libraries such as Google Fonts, Font Squirrel and Typekit, I'd expect to see more designers pushing to use custom fonts within their designs in 2012, rather than sticking to the web-safe fonts. In 2011 we saw these libraries being used quite a bit, however as these libraries continue to grow, they are giving us an increasing number of opportunities to pick a font that suits our designs without compromising this text being picked up by search engines. CSS3 and HTML5 will also aid in the positioning of this text, so expect to see far more use of custom fonts breaking the box layout.

A long shot but… Touch screen displays and facial/body recognition

So we've all got used to waving our arms about with the Kinect and making funny finger movements on mobile devices, but when is this going to come to the standard web interface? Will our monitors be upgraded to touch screen with in-built cams?! Will our browsing move totally to these kind of interfaces?! Will this all happen in 2012???? It may not achieve mainstream adoption in 2012, but it's not far off, and when it does our designs will see a huge change and hold a whole new browsing experience. A big change to happen in one year but it would be good to see some progress towards this. With gesture-based gaming continually growing in popularity, we can safely see a shift in our browsing experience to a more fun and interactive method on the horizon.

Other predictions include:

1.  Breaking the boundaries with CSS3 and HTML 5 Usage

2.  Full browser width page Layouts

3.  Dynamic Movable Content

4.  Vector Illustration and Infographics

Well there you have it, you heard it here first! I'm sure many other trends will emerge from the woodwork this year as well as trends from 2011 continuing. Feel free to give me your own opinion and share your views by contacting me via twitter: @danielruffle

The Bed Post is an independent retailer of quality beds, mattresses and furniture, established 27 years ago. The retailer has a showroom in Surbiton and delivers its wide range of quality goods locally as well as nationwide for its website customers.

The website, which uses Metakinetic's 'vanilla' ecommerce solution, created to provide an affordable and quick implementation, gives The Bed Post a fully featured ecommerce solution to help drive the online growth of the business. The solution also gives Bed Post access to Metakinetic's in-house team of ecommerce specialists and the benefit of future software and ecommerce feature developments, which are offered to all Metakinetic's ecommerce clients as part of the development of the company's core ecommerce solution, MetaCommerce.

The Bed Post owner, Lance Mead, selected Metakinetic for its expertise, high standard of customer care and security that the company offered his business.

Metakinetic Founder, Darren Bull, commented; "I'm very pleased with the speed with which we have rolled out this new ecommerce solution for The Bed Post. It demonstrates our ability to not only provide complex tailored ecommerce websites, but to also implement fully functioning ecommerce solutions in a matter of a week or two, thanks to the strength and flexibility of our core solution MetaCommerce and the skill of our development team. We are looking forward to working with The Bed Post in the coming years to drive the growth of their online business."

For more information on Metakinetic's ecommerce solutions, please call the team on 0118 324 9000 or get in touch online.

The community is  a spin off of the popular Digital Surrey group and events, started in 2009 by The Blue Door. Digital Berkshire will maintain the original values and goals of Digital Surrey, forming a community for like-minded people wanting to stay up-to-date with the ever changing digital landscape in Berkshire.

The community is designed to be as inclusive as possible to involve everyone in the business community who has an interest in digital: web design, ecommerce, PR, mobile, advertising, SEO, PPC, journalism, marketing, design, web architecture etc.

Each month, Metakinetic, Rawnet and the Digital Berkshire committee pull together an event hosted at some of the counties most prestigious venues and corporate buildings. The events, which are typically held on the third Thursday of each month, feature speakers from the forefront of our industry working for leading brands or leading the way in terms of the initiatives they are working on.

The events are always free and are free from sales pitches. It's all about making friends, learning and enjoying socialising with other like-minded people, passionate about the digital world.

The first event to kick off the Digital Berkshire series will be held on 19th January 2012 at BlackBerry RIM HQ in Slough, with BlackBerry's Director of Digital - EMEA - Stepehn O'Brien giving his talk entitled "Walking the Walk - Digital Marketing at BlackBerry".

Tickets were released on Tuesday this week, with all 50 being snapped up within 72 hours! It is likely there will be a second release of tickets for those on the waiting list in the New Year.

To apply for a free ticket, please go to http://digitalberkshirejanuary2012.eventbrite.co.uk/

To find out more about Metakinetic, please visit our About Us page.

Lengow, a relatively new name in the UK market, provides a powerful software solution that gives retailers the ability to easily index their product catalogues on a wide variety of distribution channels, including comparison sites, affiliate platforms, marketplaces and social networks. The solution also extends Metakinetic's ecommerce solutions to provide a mobile version of the store.

Metakinetic appointed Lengow as its review partner after being impressed by the performance of the software, the commitment to on-going product development and the high quality of service provided.

Darren Bull, Founder at Metakinetic commented "We were looking for a partner that would work very closely with us, would value our clients and, in line with our approach to client care, would provide them with a high quality, attentive service that supports the growth of their ecommerce businesses.

"In Lengow we found a company that shared our values and was committed to the continual development and growth of their solution, allowing us to keep our clients at the forefront of channel marketing technology."

"We are delighted about our collaboration with Metakinetic, which will allow us to increase our presence in the UK market," added Jérémie Peiro, co-founder of Lengow. "Metakinetic offers its clients a powerful ecommerce platform, and is just as committed as Lengow to customer service and technological development."

Metakinetic works with retailers that include 118 Golf, Anderton's Music, Soho's and Trophies and Medals and is due to launch a further nine ecommerce sites prior to Christmas.

Lengow works with retailers that include La Redoute, Office Depot and Quiksilver.

Feefo works with some of the biggest names in online retailing to provide an honest and transparent feedback system, achieving record response rates from customers and driving up sales. Having secured a licensed content agreement with Google, Feefo's reviews now play a key role for retailers' success in Google search, influencing Google's merchant star rating for users of the system.

Metakinetic appointed Feefo as its review partner after being impressed by the performance of the system and the service provided by Feefo.

Darren Bull, Founder at Metakinetic commented "We were looking for a partner that was recognised by Google, whilst also sharing our desire to provide our customers with a high quality, attentive service that supports the growth of their ecommerce business.

"In Feefo we found a company that shared our values and was committed to the continual development of their system."

Andy Mabbutt, managing director of Feefo, explained: "We are delighted to be working with Metakinetic - they are a forward-thinking company made up of specialists with a real knowledge of the workings of ecommerce - they get Feefo and how to make it work for retailers."

"We've already starting working on our first joint client and we're very excited about the future with Metakinetic."

He added: ""In a world where honesty and transparency is king, Metakinetic is leading the way with its commitment to customer feedback."

Feefo currently works with retailers that include Charles Tyrwhitt, The White Company and Jack Wills.

So what makes a promotion successful? Firstly the main purpose is usually to generate/increase sales OR acquire a volume of customers. We all love a good deal and probably even more so online due to the higher levels of competition. If the value is there, customers will want to click on that 'buy' button.

Creating urgency (think Groupon and flash sales) is what good promotions achieve with 'limited time only' or 'one-off' deals not to be missed. Ideally, you would like your customers to feel that they are missing out if they don't get involved straight away.

Plan your promotion with an intended audience. This does not just apply to what you're promoting, but where you advertise also.  Whether you simply want to shift surplus stock or you're trying out a new product, plan your promotions with a clear objective and identifiable target audience.

How will you measure the success of your promotion? Don't forget that you won't know how successful it has been unless you measure it. Set up goal conversion tracking in Google Analytics, record revenue generated and number of customers acquired - the list of things to measure is pretty lengthy. As long as you know what success looks like (aka KPIs), you can ensure that you measure the right things in order to determine whether you achieved that success.

Make it hot and then shout about it. A good promotion is no longer achieved by simply offering the same products at a mildly discounted price. MetaCommerce has an entire module devoted entirely to promotions. The best promotions are well thought out and planned weeks, possibly months in advance. Think about breaking your promotion down into three stages:

1. Prelaunch - what good is a good deal if no one knows about it? Use all the means at your disposal to build anticipation about this amazing promotion you're planning to offer. Facebook, Twitter and mailshots are just a few methods of achieving this. Why not put a huge 'Coming Soon' banner across your homepage. Do your research! Browse your competitors and make sure your website is offering something different.
2. Launch - make sure all of your banners and adverts are obvious. MetaCommerce allows you to display banners and averts for your promotion on, potentially, every page of your website, giving your customers no excuse not to at least have a cheeky peek. You can use multiple products in a MetaCommerce promotion which gives you more scope on who you can offer this increased value to.
3. Post launch - after your promotion has finished, take some time to investigate the success of your promotion. What worked? What didn't? Why didn't it work? Use analytics to find out your most profitable sources of web traffic and how your customers navigate around your site and eventually click 'buy'. All of this information can be used when planning your next promotion.

So whether you run a promotion once a month or once a year, plan and advertise carefully, and most importantly, measure how you're going to make the next one even better!

Greg Ruffle
Training & Support Specialist
Twitter @Metakinetic

Suffering from an economic downturn and in danger of closing, Broadway Books' future was looking ominous. That was until a single tweet by the owner's son made a bigger change than he could ever have imagined. One small tweet made a big difference. You can see more about the story on the Twitter Stories website.

Many retailers are now experimenting with Twitter, with mixed results, but they are giving it a go. There are also a good number of both on and offline retailers that just aren't sure what Twitter is all about and so have not got much further than registering an account.

As the Broadway Books story demonstrates it's not whether Twitter is right for you, it's whether how you use it is right for you. He may not have realised it at the time of tweeting, but Aaron Durand the owner's son tweeted the right thing to the right audience at the right time. Clearly you need to have an audience on Twitter and ideally it would be made up of your target customers. But equally, don't forget that although you target audience may not even use Twitter, someone that influences them may do.

So how do you work out the right way to use Twitter for you? Often a bit of experimentation will help you find your way. But ultimately, it's all about you and your business, and each retail business is different in its own right. Work out what you want to achieve, your goals. Is it to drive sales on your ecommerce website? Or drive footfall to your high street store? Or is it to improve loyalty and brand advocacy amongst existing customers?

Once you understand your objectives, it will make your approach much clearer and hopefully more purposeful too. You can then ensure that  most of your Tweets, engagements, competitions etc. have your end goal in mind - hugely increasing your chance of success.

Next you need to work out exactly what success looks like. If you already understand your objectives this should be quite easy, but just be sure to understand realistically how Twitter can influence this. If you really want to have total visibility of the impact, you'll need to put some good measurement tactics in place - for example drive people in store with a coupon they've printed, or a discount code they've been given that is unique to your Twitter account. Likewise for your ecommerce site.

If it doesn't work it doesn't mean Twitter is rubbish! You wouldn't ignore people walking past your shop door just because last time you said 'Hello' they didn't come in, would you? The same goes for Twitter. It's about relevance, frequency and building relationships. Be consistent, regular and interesting with your Tweets and you'll not only build a following, you'll also gain the respect of your followers. You're not just there to pump out a marketing message, you need to subtly weave your messaging throughout your communications for long-term benefits. Of course you can do flash sales and Twitter- exclusive discounts to drive sales short term, but ultimately, Twitter is about building awareness, relationships and long term changes in consumer behaviour - hopefully in your favour!

Jocelyn Kirby
Twitter @JocelynKirby
Twitter @Metakinetic

A summary fo the improvements to consumer protection include:

• eliminating cost traps
• increasing price transparency
• 14 days (up from 7) in which to change your mind and for whatever reason
• better refund rights
• eliminating profit made from surcharges for the use of credit cards or telephone hotlines
• clearer information on who pays for returning goods
• better protection in relation to digital products
• banning of pre-ticked boxes on websites

The final point on that list is an important one for retailers to bear in mind from an implementation perspective, and whilst governments will have up to two years in which to implement the new rules at national level, it is not something that can be just swept under the carpet by retailers.

The banning of pre-ticked boxes on websites will change the way in which online retailers are able to up-sell optional extras. The ruling means that rather than the optional extras, such as travel insurance, extra product warranty etc being automatically selected, they will have to remain unchecked and the consumer given the chance to select the options if they are required or desired.

How can you get your ecommerce website ready?

It's not something to leave to the last minute! Awareness of the requirements and a plan of action is key in ensuring that your ecommerce site is ready and compliant when the new rules come into play. Failure to comply with the new ruling could bring hefty fines for retailers and so timely and preferably early compliance is a must.

Technically it shouldn't require a huge effort on the part of your ecommerce development company in order to comply, but may change how you choose to promote your additional options. Consider the use of more engaging calls to action and the promotion of your additional options to ensure the changes don't result in lost revenue. It's even a chance for you to focus more carefully on how you sell these options - better communication of the benefits and value that you add could even improve your up-selling success.

For advice and assistance in ensuring your ecommerce site is compliant with the new ruling, get in touch by calling 0118 324 9000 or send us a message using our contact form.

Stuart Hunt
Senior Developer
Twitter @Metakinetic

Google have released a new tag that publishers can include in the headings of their most outstanding work.
This new tag rel="standout" needs to be applied to the HTML header of the article. An example of the code would be: <link rel="standout" href="http://www.example.com/article.html" />.

Google has stated this new tag should only be used in "…exceptional original reporting, deep investigative work, scoops and exclusives, and various special projects that quite clearly stand out".

Be warned though, do not use this tag  more than seven times per calendar week for your own work.  If you use this more than seven times to get your own work recognised Google is likely to give you a penalty.  However, you are able to use this tag as often as you like to recognise other sources of outstanding work.  Google has indicated that recognising other people's work can increase the level of trust they have in your site in the future.

If you want to know more about getting recognised and promoting your website online, feel free to drop me an email at search@metakinetic.com!

Izam Hussain

@izamh

@metakinetic

A great shop front is all well and good but if you don't have the products on display in the right fashion with clear information and strong calls to action, then your customers will be walking straight back out of the door. Your product pages, if done correctly, will earn their weight in gold over time. This is the page that really sells each and every one of your products, whether you have 100 or 100,000, so let's get it right.

Armed with our top tips below, which are based on our experience designing and developing many ecommerce websites, we can ensure you're on the way to giving your customers the product page experience they deserve, which will result in lots of happy purchasing. (That's the really good bit for you!)

1. High Resolution Product Photos & Clear Title

In the same way Arnold Schwarzenegger asked in Kindergarten Cop, 'Who is your daddy and what does he do?' we need to ask, 'What is the product and what is it called?' Without doubt the best way to get across what you are selling in a split second is with a nice clear product image. This, coupled with a clear title that includes manufacturer, model, important specification and other VERY relevant information to help with search, and you start to make product discovery that little bit easier for your customers. After all, we want to hand it to them on a plate, not make them work for it!

2. Accurate Description & Relevant Information

Ok, I'm interested, so tell me more about the product...

Make sure you describe your product accurately and in detail. A great description will not only get across what you are selling, create desire and realistically set expectations, but will also help search engines pick up the page and your content. Describe the product in detail, even the smallest and simplest of products. Specifications, features and benefits are all key points to cover. This ensures the buyer is getting exactly what they are after and it will do exactly what it says on the tin. Be sure to use bullet points in your description or on the product page close to the product image to quickly get across the USP's or key features for those users who are skim reading.

3. Rich Media Where Appropriate

Are you one of those people that like to touch and feel what you are buying? I know I am, and so are most online shoppers, and until someone invents a scratch and sniff monitor, which isn't going to happen very soon, you need to do as much as you can to demonstrate your product to prospective customers. Rich media is a great alternative to giving the user a 360 view, trailer or tour of features and is the next best thing to actually being right there in a actual store. This additional information will allow them to make informed purchase decisions a lot quicker than if they have to scour the internet for additional images or feature information to back-up their decision to buy and more importantly, will keep them on your site.

4. Availability and Delivery Time

Is it in stock and when will I get it? The product page is the page where visitors will start to ask these questions. Ensure this information is clearly available and if you can't promise delivery, at least show a prominent in or out of stock message. The last thing you want is to let the customer down. Disabling the ability for users to purchase out of stock items or applying a transparent process to the purchase of these items is a very good idea and should be a standard feature on most ecommerce software. Give the user the option of seeing the shipping rates and policies without the need to leave the page they are on. It's great for a customer to be able to see exactly or get an idea of when they could receive the goods too. A clear 'in stock' notice accompanied by ships within 24hrs is a common assurance to customers they will receive the goods on time and is a great hook for those more impatient customers that you may otherwise lose to the highstreet. However, don't try and promise something you can't back up. Be honest with your customers on when they could expect to receive the goods and carry this through to checkout also. Nothing is more frustrating than having to call a retailer and ask them where your order is. It also means the likelihood of them returning for additional purchases once you have let them down is significantly reduced.

5. Price, Options, Savings, Returns - Differentiation

Hold on, I might be able to get this cheaper somewhere else... Why should I buy from you? What makes you different?

There are lots of reasons why customers may or may not buy from you and they're not all about price. Don't give them a reason not to buy. You need to address all of the factors that affect the purchase decision and create the best possible case for purchase, to help turn more of your browsers into buyers. Major purchase influences include price, delivery, availability, returns policy, guarantee / warranty and customer reviews. In addition to these, you can also differentiate yourself by offering something more or different to your competitors such as a wider choice of products, more flexible delivery options to make buying more convenient or better customer service by way of a customer support line, online chat or parts service - what you offer really depends on what you are selling!

6. Reviews

A great way to reinforce purchase decisions is with reviews, 'this guy Andy says it's great' or 'this girl Susan says it's not worth the shipping cost,' the user will listen to them. Not only can reviews help you ensure that the product is good, it can also open the user up to additional information, reassure them that you are a trusted seller and even make your pages more dense with keywords for SEO.

Be sure to display the average rating prominently and with the ability for users to either read or post reviews. If a product hasn't been reviewed maybe even add an incentive to do so, such as first review gets £5 off, which can also work well for continually bolstering your reviews - consider an incentive scheme for people to review such as, 'One lucky review will receive £100 discount voucher each month.' This kind of thing keeps reviews ticking over, improves your relationship with your customers and is extremely influential on purchase decisions. If you are worried about bad reviews, then maybe you need to revisit your product range and quality.

7. Related Products and Navigation

Ensuring product discovery is easy and intuitive is arguably one of the most important aspects of an ecommerce store. If they can't find it, they can't buy it! Imagine a shopper on your product page who has found almost exactly what they were looking for. However, they want just one extra feature that the current product doesn't have. What do they do now? Search again? Try another website? Building in related products allows you to hook the not-quite-satisfied shopper into another product page that may well better fit their requirements. Search and navigation that allows for filtration based upon product features also really helps and, particularly with a complex product with many different specifications and equally with a large product catalogue, this can allow your browsers to drill down to an appropriate and an easier to manage product selection.

8. Trust

When shopping online, consumers need reassurance. Ensuring your website works is a good start - make sure it's been properly tested and any features do what they are supposed to do. Invest in a nice-looking website - as a minimum it ought to look professional and if you can afford to do so, invest in some bespoke design to commmunicate your brand values and set you apart from your competition. Integrate with reputable payment providers such as SagePay, PayPal and Google Checkout (and preferably all three) and display their logos on your website. Always clearly display contact details to reassure your potetential customers they can get hold of you if they need to and in addition to the payment provider logos, consider trustmarks from some of the best known and most recognised providers.

9. Share it

You've done the hard work and got a kick ass product page that's converting well so be sure to give your customers the option to spread the word. Social bookmarking and sharing is a must have. Look at it as free advertising but from a really credible source,' hey, you made the product page and did the hard work, now get your customers to work a bit and tell their friends about how awesome you are. If you only choose a handful be sure to include 'Tweet this,' 'Facebook like' and 'Google +1.' As well as these, email to friend is a great way to ensure you cover all bases.

10. Clear Buy Button - Don't make them think.

I'm ready, take my money. The no-brainer: a prominent and clearly displayed 'Buy' button. If a page is lengthy consider adding a call to action at the bottom of the content as well as at the top with the key product info. Also or possibly even better, a call to action that moves down the page with you as you scroll. Some users can find it frustrating having to scroll right back to the top.Give your call to action some space in your design to ensure it stands out prominently from other elements on the page. Also consider making it larger than your standard call to actions as well as making it a bright colour to stand out from the standard palette of your template. Try to avoid red however, although popular, this is typically associated with danger and test results show greens or blues have better results.

Summary

1. Product Photos & Title
2. Accurate Description & Relevant Information
3. Rich Media Where Appropriate
4. Availability and Delivery Time
5. Price, Options, Savings, Returns - Differentiation
6. Reviews
7. Related Products and Navigation
8. Trust
9. Share it
10. Clear Buy Button

Overall Design Tips

Online retailers spend a lot of time and money driving traffic to their product pages through search engines and other online marketing methods. One of the biggest mistakes many retailers make is to crowd this page with lots of related products in the hope that if they don't like the product they have landed on something else might catch their attention. Don't confuse the viewer, keep it simple and relevant. Confronted with the exact product they searched for and a clear buy button with no extreme surrounding noise, you are sure to be increasing your chances of a sale.
Relevant noise surrounding the product is different and displaying other variants or options of the product type can help the browser find exactly what they are looking for. These should be clear to see, if it comes in two colours or 5 sizes ensure this is visible as again this will increase your chances of sale.

Don't be afraid to add a link to the category or brand the product sits in if the variants of product type are vast, shoppers will often like to see similar products within these sections.
The consistency and quality of your website design is also key in conversion. If you have an advert elsewhere on your site or externally, ensure when the user lands on the page that there is something instantly recognisable from the advert reassuring the user they are in the right place.

Overall the key aim is as simple as 'here is the product, this is what it does, now buy me.' There shouldn't be anything unnecessary to distract user from the purpose of being on your site, buying the product and making you money, which is why you're in business after-all.

To find out more about the ecommerce website design services we offer, please do get in touch - we'd be delighted to hear from you.

Daniel Ruffle, Senior Designer
@danielruffle
@metakinetic

As an ecommerce solution provider, we were interested to see how the system failure at BlackBerry has impacted on the nation's retailers and ecommerce sales.

With smartphone users, reported by Econsultancy, to now be spending £581M using mobile commerce each year in the UK; and with BlackBerry accounting for around 10% of the UK smartphone market, we can quickly see that this weeks outage could have lost UK retailers close to half a million pounds in direct mobile commerce sales over the three days.

If you combine this with the impact of the growing reliance on mobile devices during the shopping process and we can see that the implications spread far wider than just lost sales. Let's look at some statistics from a Google's UK smartphone report published in July 2011:

• 45% of UK smartphone and general internet users use their devices during the shopping process.
• 24% of UK smartphone users intentionally carry a smartphone when shopping to compare prices and for information
• 21% of smartphone users have changed their mind about purchasing a product or service in store as a result of information gathered on their smartphone

It is clear that smartphone users are becoming increasingly reliant on their phones when shopping offline, and because of this, the BlackBerry outage could have had a wider impact for online retailers beyond just direct sales. Without access to the internet, users wouldn't have been able to compare prices online or check out product reviews whilst on the go. This could have meant one of two things.

• Shoppers may either have bought without checking OR
• Shoppers may have postponed their purchase until they could check online

The latter would probably have worked in the online retailer's favour, with the instant nature of the product in the shop being removed by the shopper leaving the physical store to research online later from home. However, if the first had occured, which may very much have been influenced by the (possibly perceived) immediacy need, online retailers may have missed out, because regardless of how competitive their price, BlackBerry users would have been unable to research it.

Either way, the lost revenues for online retailers, whilst not huge, do highlight the growing reliance of online retailers on mobile commerce. It is no longer the remit of only the largest retailers to ensure their sites are mobile friendly. As consumer expectation as to the availability of ecommerce sites on mobiles increases, so does the need for all types of online retailer to ensure their ecommerce websites are usable on mobile browsers as well as the traditional web browsers.

Jocelyn Kirby, Head of Marketing
@JocelynKirby
@Metakinetic

In 2006, the average online conversion rate for retailers in the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index was 8.4%. In 2011 the figure is 3.8%, having fallen by 55%.

So if conversion rates for online retailers are falling, why is this?

• Increased competition from larger numbers of online retailers?
• Propensity for consumers to shop around more to find the best price?
• A longer / more cautious decision making process in general?
• Consumers spending less overall?

It is probably a combination of all of the above, and many more complex reasons too.

When speaking with potential new ecommerce clients, we tend to find that an increase in conversion rate is one of the most sought after metrics when it comes to improving ecommerce performance. This stands to reason - the majority of retailers would like to increase online sales. There are a number of ways to do this and improving conversion rates represents a very attractive point of focus - increase sales without increasing marketing spend.

So, with increased online competition and more price-savvy consumers that are likely to shop around, what can you do to make shoppers spend their ecommerce £££s with you, rather than keeping it in their pockets, or worse still, spending with your competition?

Here's a few tips from the Metakinetic team to consider when working on optimising your ecommerce website conversion rates to turn more browsers into buyers:

• Get the right people to your site in the first place

There is often the misconception that conversion rate optimisation should be carried out exclusively within the retail website. This isn't entirely correct and when tackling the task of increasing conversion rates (which should be an on-going activity), the first place to start is to ensure you are getting the right people to your site. This means starting with your marketing activities. Whatever it is you are doing, you need to ensure that you are sending out the right messages - what you offer, why they should buy from you, what makes you different - and sending the messages to the right people at the right times. If you have profiled your target audience to any level of detail, you should be able to hit them in the right place at the right time with the right message!

• Demonstrate your credibility

When shopping online, consumers need reassurance. When they walk into a shop on the high street they make a split second judgement as to the kind of shop it is, is it likely to close down, whether it looks reputable or if it's run down and shabby. Shoppers will make much the same judgement when shopping online, so regardless of how great your service, reliability and products are, if you don't communicate that via your website, how will your potential customers know how good you are? Ensuring your website works is a good start - make sure it's been properly tested and any features do what they are supposed to do. Invest in a nice-looking website - as a minimum it ought to look professional and if you can afford to do so, invest in some bespoke design to commmunicate your brand values and set you apart from your competition. Integrate with reputable payment providers such as SagePay, PayPal and Google Checkout (and preferably all three) and display their logos on your website. Always clearly display contact details to reassure your potetential customers they can get hold of you if they need to and consider including product reviews to minimise the likelihood of browsers exiting your site to search for reviews online. These are just a few starting points - your website and the ecommerce technology that powers it are absolutely critical in ensuring you quickly demonstrate credibility to potential buyers.

• Create desire

Much like in a high street store, customers want to view, try, touch and feel their prospective purchases. Clearly they can't do the three latter things online, so you need to create desire as much as you can with limited sensory stimulation. Great product photography is a good place to start - we recently wrote an article about this (Improving Ecommerce Sales with Great Product Photography) which is worth a read. Depending upon the suitability of your products, consider multiple views and if appropriate, think about adding a professional-looking video of the product in use. Genuine unedited customer reviews of your products are also a great way of demonstrating your credibilty and whether your products live up to your claims. Obviously if they're not positive you may want to put some effort into improving the quality of your product range too! Functionality such as after viewing this item, customers ultimately buy and order in the next 4 hours for delivery tomorrow are cited as being hugely important tools for consumers shopping online, with Econsultancy reporting 86.3% of UK consumers using these and similar recommendation / related-products based tools - if what they're looking at doesn't quite fit the bill, make sure you have a suitable alternative to hand.

• Be transparent when it comes to returns and delivery

When deciding who to buy from online, consumers are still looking to minimise the risks associated with an online purchase - perceived, real or otherwise. Tackle these perceived risks head on and you will give your potential customers peace of mind. Make them go hunting for the information and they may just get bored and go looking elsewhere. Returns and delivery are two areas that really make a difference for consumers. Econsultancy reports that 85% of online shoppers view a straightforward returns policy as either preferred or expected - you can't argue with that number! Clearly state your returns information on the product page - make it a fair and easily understood policy and if you are able to offer free returns, do so. Shipping is also a highly controversial area, with a previous Econsultancy report quoting 82% of consumers more likely to buy from an ecommerce website that offers free shipping (more on the free ecommerce shipping debate). Now I'm not saying you should offer free shipping necessarily, however, what you should do is make your shipping costs very clear. If you can, include shipping costs within product information and don't force browsers to hunt out shipping costs, or worse still, discover extortionate shipping costs once they are going through checkout. If you feel uncomfortable making your returns or shipping information readily available then I'd suggest reviewing your policies so that they are more conducive to good customer service - the basis for building repeat business!

So this article has really only scratched the surface of what you, as an online retailer, can do to increase your ecommerce conversion rates. However, what it has hopefully done is to inspire you to get in touch with an ecommerce specialist (hopefully Metakinetic!) to start working on increasing your site performance.

Get your site working correctly (or get a new one), get your marketing messages in shape and THEN start to increase your marketing spend. Throwing money at marketing your poorly performing online retail business probably won't solve your problems.

Jocelyn Kirby
Twitter @JocelynKirby
Twitter @Metakinetic

• your credibility and reliability - are you real, can they pick up the phone to speak with you if they have a problem?
• your returns policy - what happens if it doesn't fit, they don't like it or it is faulty?
• security - is your checkout process secure and do you use reputable & recognised payment providers?
• product information - can they get all of the information on your website that they need or do they have to go elsewhere?
• and much more...

But all of the above (and more) whilst essential for any ecommerce site, don't get your potential customer any closer to your products. These important considerations if present will satisfy their logical left brain that is searching for evidence that it is safe to buy, but what about creating desire and invoking an emotional decision?

That's where great product photography can set your ecommerce website apart from the competition.

A snapshot taken in a DIY studio with your friend as the model is not going to be good enough - your visitors might not be able to articulate what is wrong with it, but they won't get the impression that you are a professional retailer and it certainly won't show off your products favourably.

Professional photography using a specialist product photographer, a proper studio set up with good quality lighting and high resolution images will look good and will allow your site visitors to get up close to your product images, hopefully through the use of an easy-to-use product zoom tool. You can also use your ecommerce product photography to extend your website's brand experience by ensuring your product images are consistent with the style of your website, giving a really slick and professional impression.

Your product photography is almost, if not AS, important as your website design itself. See it as an investment, not as a cost. Online retail is competitive and achieving stand-out is essential.

For a free review of your ecommerce website, get in touch with the team at Metakinetic.

Many customers, when visiting an e-commerce website, may not have any particular products in mind that they wish to buy. However, they may have preference for certain brands whose product range they wish to browse. Making it really simple for your brand loyal website visitors to navigate straight through to a page full of their preferred brand's products is essential to retain their eyeballs on your site and not head back to Google to find an alternative ecommerce website that will serve it up to them on a plate. Therefore, setting up a user-friendly brand navigation is hugely important when optimising your ecommerce website to achieve higher conversion rates and increased basket values.

Metakinetic's ecommerce solution, MetaCommerce, helps retailers achieve the all-important brand navigation in a number of ways:

• Firstly, all brands created in MetaCommerce can be displayed at the bottom of every page on the website. Adding brand logos is easily done at the initial 'brand creation' stage. These logos are an important visual reference as they will instantly grab the attention of your website visitors who will be on the lookout for evidence that you stock the brand they are looking for.

• Secondly, MetaCommerce offers a brand dropdown menu which is displayed on the homepage. This list can display selected brands or all of the brands you sell on your ecommerce site. This is setup by checking the 'use brand in template' box at the 'brand creation' stage or 'edit brand' stage. You can use this to refine your brand strategy, choosing to display all of the brands you stock, only your most popular brands or even just your most profitable brands. If you don't know which of the brands you sell is the most popular, the Ecommerce Analytics section in MetaCommerce can help you find out.

• The final way in which you can use brands to help boost ecommerce performance is in the search bar. Many online shoppers choose to simply search for their preferred brand, rather than using the ecommerce navigation. MetaCommerce's built in search facility allows you to associate selected products or groups of products to a certain search term, which means that, depending on your ecommerce strategy, either a full or selected product range will appear after the customer searches for the brand.

So, regardless of whether you use MetaCommerce, or other ecommerce software, it's really important to make the most of your ecommerce solution in order to drive, engage and convert those brand-loyal or brand-conscious consumers and use MetaCommerce to cater to their needs.

Your ecommerce agency should be able to work through your website analytics to glean valuable information about the way that your website visitors browse, search and buy, in order to refine and improve your ecommerce site performance. It's all about on-going improvement, just because it works today, doesn't mean it will work tomorrow. Retain a competitive advantage by treating your ecommerce site as you would a physical store - regularly change the window display, introduce new stock and give it a revamp once in a while!

Greg Ruffle
@Metakinetic

These site links were originally displayed in a smaller font with no more than a few words per line.

This month Google has expanded the site links so they take up quite a large area of the first page. The links are now displayed using the normal full size font, beneath each link it's URL is displayed in a smaller green font, followed underneath by a line of description.

Google have also amended their algorithm so that each sitelink equates equally to the page rank of the main search link. Each main search result link can have up to 12 sitelinks.

This is great news for all those who are on position one of the search result pages, as they can now have an additional 12 links that direct traffic to their website. The changes in appearance also mean it takes up a lot of space on the user's screen.

If you do have pages appearing as sitelinks in Google, make sure each page is attractive and contains relevant content, as this is now just as important as your home page.

Using Google Webmaster Tools you can select sitelinks you would like to include within your main search result, however ultimately Google will decide what it wants to show, and what it doesn't.  Google holds the decision on how many sitelinks your site is eligible for.

For help and advice on how to optimise your website to appear on the first page of Google, and how to optimise your site to be eligible for these new bigger and better sitelinks, please contact our SEO team at search@metakinetic.com.

Izam Hussain

@izamh

@metakinetic

Please follow the links below to the relevant positions to find out more about the exciting new roles available at Metakinetic.

WEB DESIGNER

WEB DEVELOPER / .NET DEVELOPER

We are an established and innovative ecommerce solutions provider operating in a fast moving and growing market segment that offers many exciting challenges. Our customer base already includes speciality retailers and large blue chip corporations, and our ecommerce solution already processes millions of pounds per annum in sales.

Metakinetic is a fast moving company and offers the chance to work as part of a highly motivated, enthusiastic, vibrant and forward thinking team, that going forward intends to focus its growth on the development of its ecommerce solution.

To apply, please visit the specific job role pages above.

I think that Christmas is a pretty lovely kind of year and with the summer rather rudely coming to an abrubt end this week, being able to look forward to Christmas is really rather nice. If you're a real Christmas fan you could even visit Harrods or Selfridges for their Christmas displays which launched in July this year, 150 days before the big day!

So aside from the two big ones that seem to launch Christmas earlier each year, the summertime is around the time when retailers tend to start preparing for Christmas with photo shoots, product ranges and promotions - all trying to find that perfect way to win round our hard-earned and increasingly scarce Christmas £££.

As a retailer, it is becoming increasingly important to be prepared for Christmas. It won't just be ok. You have to work hard to do as well as last year and even harder to improve on last years' performance. Consumers are becoming increasingly price sensitive, whilst also laying their trust in many of the big online retailers - Amazon, eBay, Play.com etc and opting not to shop around. Unless you're one of the big ones, you need to pull out all the stops to win over the shoppers.

Here's a few things to consider when preparing your ecommerce website for this year's Christmas shopping season:

• Christmas related categories - focus on making gift shopping for Christmas easy - create some Christmas or gift-related categories to do just this.
• Look trustworthy - make sure your site is error free, it works properly and has a smooth checkout process with lots of reassurance that you are a trustworthy retailer through the use of payment provider logos.
• Get your email campaigns ready now - be prepared early, that way when you're busy dealing with Christmas orders you don't need to worry about putting together your email campaigns too - it can help to have an agency assist with this to ease your workload.
• Pay Per Click campaign preparation - it's not too easy to use SEO for your Christmas marketing - particularly if your products are especially seasonal. Look into a tailored PPC campaign designed to make the most of Christmassy search terms and to drive sales of specific products.
• Photography - work on some great seasonal photography now and you'll find that your site does more to invoke the Christmas spirit than many - it's all about the festive fun after all :)

So, bye bye summer and hello Christmas! Time to get working on your bumper ecommerce Christmas...

More Christmas ecommerce tips to follow soon. In the meantime, if you'd like to find out about what we can do to help make yours a Christmas to remember, get in touch!

Jocelyn Kirby
@JocelynKirby

Bing had previously lost this position to Yahoo! on their second birthday in June 2010, and for the first time this year regained the second spot.

Figures published by Hitwise show Bing accounted for 3.84% of all UK Internet searches during July 2011.

Hitwise also stated Bing was the only search engine to see "notable growth" in the search market during the month of July.

Hitwise research director said "The gains made by Microsoft sites this month are almost exactly equal to the losses suffered by Google, which means that some of the searches that were being conducted on Google engines last month are now being typed into Bing."

It is very important for brands and companies alike to understand where people search for products, how rankings, paid costs, and the search success rates vary across the search engine market.

Whether Bing can hold on to this achievement, and build on its strength in order to differentiate itself from Google and Yahoo! remains to be seen.

Google still holds the majority of the UK search market share, with over 91% of UK searches being made on Google.

For highly relevant traffic, to attract customers who are already looking for your products and services, it is important to appear on the first page of search engine result pages.  The higher up the first page of the search results you are, the more success you will see.

There are two main ways in which to achieve this goal, Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimisation.

PPC and SEO have their own benefits.  To see quick results and increase ROI in a short time span, it is well worth investing in PPC.

For a slower but a long term growth and investment, focus on SEO.

Some of the most successful internet marketing campaigns have utilised both PPC and SEO for a positive internet marketing campaign.

For a FREE search marketing review and for detailed information on how you can appear on the first page of search engines contact our search marketing specialist team.

Izam Hussain

@izamh

@metakinetic

But when the complexity of SEO meets the challenges and nuances of ecommerce and online retail, then you start looking at a whole other ball game. Ecommerce, whilst using the same medium (the internet) is very different from other types of businesses such as service providers, news sites or B2B companies. Ecommerce websites by their very nature should (in theory) have an abundance of keyword rich, quality content, (which search engines are quite fond of) thanks to a large product catalogue, product & category descriptions and informational pages. However, sadly, this content is not always as well-written as the search engines may like, and often is hidden behind poor code and a badly organised site architecture, making it hard work for search engines to find your valuable content (search engines don't seem too keen on working hard too hard).

Whether you're already doing SEO, currently work with an SEO agency or don't do any SEO at all, take a look at the three key considerations below:

1.    Get your 'technical SEO' in shape

Many website owners just don't realise the importance of their website technology when it comes to Search Engine Optimisation success. Things like poor product category structure, the use of iframes or the lack of a proper site map & robots.txt file will all mean you suffer heavy penalties when it comes to search engines ranking your website. SEO is not just about words, it's about making sure it's really easy for search engines to find those words. For ecommerce, where the potential for your product catalogue to reach into many 1000's means that the structure is even more important, not just for search engines, but to aid product discovery for your living, breathing site visitors.

2.    Find an ecommerce SEO specialist

There are SEO specialists, there are ecommerce specialists and there are ecommerce SEO specialists. That's the one you need. Ecommerce works differently to other websites with huge volumes of product specific data, images and rich media. Your in-house SEO person may struggle to understand how best to tackle such an apparently enormous task. If you can find someone who understands both ecommerce and SEO, they can think strategically about what you want to achieve and then form a plan to help you do that, which doesn't have to involve spending £1000's each month to target a plethora of keywords. An ecommerce SEO specialist will look at what is important for you and will build up an SEO campaign based upon your objectives thinking about your most profitable products, and will work to achieve great success with a smaller range of keywords, rather than poor or at best, mediocre, performance with a large range of untargeted keywords.

3.    Measure, measure, measure!

Whether you opt for an external SEO agency or an internal resource to work on your SEO, the most important thing you need to do is measure your campaign. Benchmark where you are now (before you start) and then insist on regular (monthly) reports on your SEO performance, including best traffic drivers, highest converting keywords, ranking positions, inbound links etc. If it can be measured, then measure it. If you can see what is and isn't working, you know where to focus future resource - on-going refinement of your SEO campaign is so important. Do, then measure. Religiously.

Whilst the above is in no way a comprehensive summary of how to be successful at ecommerce SEO, it's a great starting point to get you thinking about how to do it right from the start.

I hope it's been useful - if you'd like a free review of your ecommerce website to see if it's in good shape, or if you'd like a free review of your current SEO performance, please get in touch by emailing hello@metakinetic.com or calling 0118 324 9000.

Jocelyn Kirby
@jocelynkirby
@metakinetic

A CMS website is such an essential tool in today's fast-moving market place in order to promote your company, services and products far more dynamically than a static website. Changing to a new CMS managed website can seem both daunting and costly, however this is largely a perception only!

If you do your research, there are numerous solutions available which are feature rich and look great too, especially considering the price you can now pay. So how much do you pay? Instead of asking yourself how much will it cost me, why not ask how much return you will get from your website both in growing your business' sales and in saving agency costs to make updates. Afterall, your website is essentially your shopfront, whether you sell goods or not. First impressions really do count, so it's important to get it right first time, as you may not get another chance!

Let's take a look at the benefits of a CMS and see what key features you should be looking out for in order to achieve this:

If you currently have a static website you will probably be painfully aware that updates cost you money each time your site needs to be updated, so I'd guess that you don't do it too often. There is also often considerable time involved in getting the simplest changes implemented, which can be extremely frustrating if you want to respond to a current issue online via your website.

A CMS will solve all these issues, allowing you to frequently update all of your website content. This makes it easier to budget for ongoing costs (you will probably only need hosting and any additional design work you may require for seasonal banners or promotions), changes can be made instantly allowing you to keep your website up to date with your latest business news and customer notices. It is also normally a lot less expensive in the long run than a static website. Too good to be true right? Not at all. Complex CMS sites have become easy to deploy and can be found at relatively low cost. The problem now is how to choose which one!

The following are a my top five things to look for when choosing a CMS website provider:

Support
Good CMS systems will most likely come with a whole open community giving you access to updates, plug-ins, discussions and problem solving. A vibrant community will generally mean that the chosen CMS won't get dropped without notice. Alternatively just ensure the agency you choose can help when needed for the more complex tasks.

Ability to adapt
Heard of Facebook & Twitter?! Well these things came about quickly and both offer useful tools to add to your website. Just be sure when the next best thing comes around your CMS is open to change. Browser support is a good one to check.

Accessible templates
You might have a stroll one day and see a nice purple flower set against some brushed steel and I'm sure you may ask yourself 'Wouldn't it be nice to change the template to this palette?' Again be sure you have access to change templates as you please and having multiple templates for different pages or sections within the site. This way your site can always stay fresh with the latest design trends and layouts to display your content in the best possible light wihtout the need to rebuild your entire site from scratch.

Data organisation and feeds
So you spent hours making all your content look pretty, now your website should work for you. Your system should be making your data easy to find, read and promote. RSS is a popular way to do this and can give instant messages to people as soon as you update your content.

User friendly interface
The last thing you want is a really complicated user interface once you're in the back end. You'll end up getting frustrated over the time needed to carry out tasks and you won't want to go in there often - defeating the point a little. Beauty can't just be skin deep, it needs to be as lovely on the inside as it is on the outside.

Of course there are many more features you should look out for and these may depend on your individual project, but addressing these fundamentals early on would help you to make a good decision, ensuring your website not only meets your short term needs but your aspirations going forward.

If you would like to find out more about the CMS systems available from Metakinetic, please give us a call on 0118 324 9000 or email hello@metakinetic.com.

Daniel Ruffle
@danielruffle
@metakinetic

• Availability Status - Google wants to display items even if they are out of stock, therefore each item needs to have its own status.
• Product Category - Provide accurate product attributes with subcategories if required.
• Data Freshness - Google will refresh information for items listed on a regular basis, you need to ensure all information is up to date.
• Images - Each product must have at least one image.  Google recommends having 10 additional images for each product.
• Apparel - Each time in the apparel category must include age, gender, size and colour options.

These changes will be effective from 22nd September 2011 for the UK, USA, Germany, Japan and France markets.

Any Google Merchant Feeds not meeting the new criteria will be penalised and removed from Google Shopping Search Results until the problems are fixed.

To ensure your feed meets the new guidelines, Google Merchant Center will contain a section that evaluates your feed for you.

If you want to get professional help with your Google Merchant Feed, or would like us to make your products available on the Google Shopping Channel, then get in touch with our Search Marketing Team.

Izam Hussain

@izamh

@metakinetic

Google turned off their Realtime Search feature back in July because they could not come up with an agreement with Twitter for continued access to Twitter's firehouse of data.

Google felt their Realtime Search feature was not very useful without access to a constant stream of tweets.

However, it has been reported that Google is now working hard to bring back Realtime Search, with Google+ being its main source of data.

Google have not ruled out working with Twitter, however it may not be high priority like it once was.

I guess we will just have to wait and see to see what Google do next.

Social Media Marketing has become a key part in Google's Search Results.  If you would like a free search review and ideas on how to make social media marketing work for you, contact our search marketing team.

Izam Hussain

@izamh

@metakinetic

Izam has joined the Metakinetic team having previously worked at a specialist search agency and brings with her a wealth of ecommerce search engine optimisation and pay per click knowledge and experience.

Izam will be responsible for developing our internal search marketing team, driving relevant and meaningful traffic that converts, for our ecommerce and non-retail clients alike.

Our search marketing services will be tailored to meet each individual client's requirements, and based on a complementary mix of PPC, SEO, social media, copywriting and technical search services.

We only employ ethical SEO techniques and as the first port of call for any campaign, SEO, PPC, social media or fully integrated, we will carry out extensive research to identify your most effective keywords to enable us to create highly targeted campaigns that will deliver a return on investment.

If you would like to find out more about our search marketing services, please give us a call on 0118 324 9000 or contact us using our website enquiry form.

We're pleased to announce that normal communications have been restored. Please revert to using our normal contact details - our mainline telephone number is 0118 324 9000.

Please be assured that any emails you have sent us in the last 24 hours should have now been received. If you have any concerns, then please do not hesitate to give us a call.

We have implemented additional back-up facilities to ensure that, should another outage occur prior to the installation of our new enterprise-level internet connection, facilities will remain fully functioning.

Our new super-fast broadband connection will be installed in the next couple of weeks, after which, we should never experience a similar outage of our communications thanks to the robust back-up connectivity in place.

Once again, thank you for your understanding.

The Metakinetic Team

We're currently awaiting installation of our new super-fast internet connection, and in the meantime are utilising our back-up ADSL lines for our internet and telephone connectivity. Having main and back-up connectivity means that regardless of any issues with our main connection, there will be an almost seamless transition in our communications infrastructure, meaning that you will always be able to get hold of us.

Unfortunately, whilst we are still awaiting installation of our new connection, a temporary outage with our back-up line means that we are currently experiencing connection problems that are affecting both our telephone lines and our internet connection - we are currently unable to receive telephone calls or receive emails.

Please note that you do not need to resend any emails to us. We will receive any emails that you have sent us once our normal internet connection resumes.

In the meantime, we have enabled a temporary telephone number that customers may use to contact us.

Our temporary contact telephone number is: 0118 979 9815

Please note that you will only be able to contact us on this telephone number until our normal telephone line is reinstated.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. Please be assured that your website and any current project with Metakinetic remains unaffected.

The Metakinetic Team

There will be plenty of hard work and activity at the new office this weekend (photos to follow) and come Monday morning it will be business as usual, with plenty of extra room for our new team members!

Our new contact details are below. If you'd like to drop by for a guided tour of the shiny new office, please drop us a line or give us a call!

Our new telephone number is:

0118 324 9000

Our new fax number is:

0118 324 9100

Our new address is:

Metakinetic Ltd
Mulberry Business Park
Fishponds Road
Wokingham
Berkshire
RG41 2GY

He is PRINCE2 certified and joins Metakinetic at a perfect time to ensure the structured growth and scalabilty of our business. We're heading for exciting times, with one of Dave's most important roles to ensure we maintain our current high quality of deliverables as we grow.

Welcome Dave!

To take a look around the new website, visit http://www.vending4you.co.uk/

Towels R Us owner, Duncan Stewart Textiles Ltd selected Metakinetic to design and build a new ecommerce website to further drive the company's online growth. Towels R Us wanted to secure a solution that would provide scalability that would allow online sales to grow exponentially, whilst also requiring the technical capability that would facilitate a robust integration with Orderwise, its current stock control and order management system. 

"The impressive technical expertise of Metakinetic's in-house development team, coupled with the MetaCommerce solution's comprehensive feature set, which includes a product personalisation module and a commercially attractive proposition, led us to select Metakinetic as our ecommerce agency of choice" comments Andrew Stewart, Founder of Towels R Us.

The new ecommerce website is due to launch in the summer, with online sales performance expected to increase immediately. Metakinetic Director, Darren Bull states "we're very excited to see the launch of the new towelsrus.co.uk - on average our clients see increases in average order values of 50% and conversion rates increase by anything from 50% to 200%. For Towels R Us this represents significant value in monetary terms."

Twitter @Metakinetic

As a new position within the company, you will have the opportunity to shape your role and drive the future of search marketing for the company. It's the perfect opportunity to take control of your search marketing career. Working with a variety of clients, the search marketing work will be split between online retail clients and large corporate B2B clients. You will have a successful track record in search marketing and will be able to demonstrate repeated results for previous clients.

We're an ambitious digital agency with a passion for always giving our clients the very best. We work hard and we have fun whilst doing it! If you think this sounds like the place for you, then please get in touch!  

Salary is negotiable depending upon experience. In the first instance, please send your CV, along with examples of previous client projects including performance indicators, to jobs@metakinetic.com.

No agencies please.

In reality, there's no simple 'yes' or 'no' answer. However, in the interest of actually answering the question that we pose here, I say that YES, your ecommerce website should offer free shipping to its customers. (A small caveat to include as an after note is that you should; as long as it is commercially viable. It would be rather silly to offer free shipping for an item for which a customer pays £10, but that costs you £10 to ship, that doesn't make good business sense... at all, not unless you know that customer will go on to generate significant profits for you over their lifetime as a customer.)

Now onto a little more detail... there's a level of psychology behind the free shipping offering that triggers the 'bargain-hunter' in all of us. Let's face it, there's a big part of ecommerce that is about finding the best price for a specific product that you have decided to purchase. And in many cases, we're not too worried about the shipping cost itself, it's the overall cost that makes the difference, particularly on larger (say £70+) purchases, where the shipping fee is usually a much smaller proportion of the order value.

But if we look more closely at a typical smaller (sub £70) purchase, the psychology of the shipping fee really comes into play. There's something about the shipping fee that makes buyers feel like they are wasting their money. After all, what do they get for their £3, £4 or £5? Why should they pay retailers to have the privilege of selling to them? Now we know there are valid and justified answers to these questions, but rightly or wrongly, that doesn't change the fact that this is how a large majority of consumers feel. In offering free shipping, buyers feel like you are giving them value, showing them that you value their business. I would be very interested to see any research on the subject that studies this in more depth - for example, all else being equal, would buyers opt for the online shop that offers a cheaper product price but charges shipping, or would they choose the online shop that gives free shipping but a slightly higher product price. Both ultimately cost the buyer the same, but would the psychology of free shipping come into play here? I'd like to see.

Research published by Econsultancy in April in the Ecommerce Statistics Compendium demonstrate just how important free shipping is to online shoppers. One particular study looked at website features which make shoppers more of less likely to use an online store. 82% of shoppers were reported to be more likely to use a store that offered free shipping. 82%!! That number is pretty epic. Second to this was a price promise, resulting in 72% of buyers more likely to use the store. Clearly, regardless of why a buyer chooses to shop online in the first place (convenience, lifestyle, choice & variety etc.), it appears that the online shopper is still ultimately price sensitive. It does make sense - knowledge is power and the internet and comparison sites give the online buyer a wealth of knowledge within a couple of clicks.

So what can we take from this discussion? Give free shipping a try! I'm not saying it's the answer to all your ecommerce questions, but take a look at how you can use free shipping to increase your ecommerce sales. At what basket value can you afford to offer free shipping? Avon does a great job of getting shoppers to part with more of their hard-earned ££ per purchase by setting a threshold basket value to qualify for free shipping. If you're a high volume, low product value business, this could be a delightfully simple way of improving your average order values.

Jocelyn Kirby
Twitter @JocelynKirby
Twitter @Metakinetic 

You can view some of our clients that have already taken advantage of our great value CMS, by clicking on the URLs below. Alternatively, we'd really love to speak about how we can help your business online, so why not get in touch by calling 0118 324 9000? We can't wait to hear from you!

CMS clients

www.iriver.co.uk

www.auluxe.co.uk

www.snowology.com

www.halehealthclinic.co.uk

We have a great track record in producing and broadcasting successful email marketing campaigns for retailers, driving potential customers to their ecommerce websites and increasing online sales.

We love working in retail, and we think we're pretty good at it too. So, if you're not getting great results from your email marketing, drop us a line to chat about how we can help turn your current email marketing into great email marketing!

We've put together a couple of great value packages for retailers, offering a premium email marketing software solution along with the valuable expertise of our awesome creative and marketing teams, to kick start a new chapter in your email marketing activities.

Gold Email Marketing Package - Only £549!

• Single broadcast - no contract
• Includes email template design, build & broadcast
• Send to up to 25,000 recipients
• Subsequent broadcasts for £300

Platinum Email Marketing Package - Only £750pcm!

• 12 month package
• Includes email template design, build & broadcast
• Analytics integration
• Send 2 emails per month
• Send to up to 50,000 recipients

We can also offer bespoke pricing, so if the above offers don't meet your requirements - give us a call on 0118 324 9000!

We know what we want them to do - make a purchase. So how can we maximise our chances of success? We've highlighted five tips for increasing your ecommerce website conversion rates, and the best thing is, lots of these you will be able to do yourself, without the need to invest heavily in agency time to make it work.

1. Make it relevant

This might sound a little obvious, but if you've managed to capture a potential customer's attention with a specific campaign, offering or promotion, make sure they land on a relevant page when they arrive at your website. Don't give them rings when they came from an ad about necklaces, and don't give them a selection of bargain basement offers if they came from an ad promoting your premium range. Ensure when they land on your website from a specific campaign, they see what they expected to see. There's no harm in cross-selling; include related products, top products, special offers etc.; but make sure the first thing they see relates to how they reached your website.

This may mean that you need to create additional pages to support specific campaigns, or you may need to use a different URL for every ad you promote, but it's worth the time and effort and will increase your conversion rate almost instantly.

2. Get them excited

You've got them there, they haven't bounced, great job! Now let's get them excited! Include high quality, high resolution product imagery that nestles itself comfortably within the page - there's nothing worse than poor quality product imagery to unsell a product. If your ecommerce solution includes the feature, make use of a product zoom tool to help them get up close and see detail. Include product reviews, ratings and customer testimonials - if your ecommerce software doesn't allow this, you could add it in manually. Include as much technical and descriptive information as you can - the more information you provide, the less likely they are to need to go elsewhere to find out more. Give them all they need, and make it sexy. Use emotive words and take the decision to purchase from an objective decision, to one that is impulsive and based upon desire.

3. Don't make them think

This may sound a little counter-intuitive, but it makes sense when you think about it. As humans, we have a tendency to over-think our purchase decisions. We analyse, compare, review, investigate and then sometimes, we don't make a decision at all. After all, not making a decision is easier than making one AND committing our hard-earned money to it.
When a potential customer arrives on your website, you need to make it easy for them to do what you want them to do. Keep the page design clean and uncluttered, include clear calls to action in prominent positions and clearly signpost any other actions they need to take.

4. Tackle their objections

You know your products and you probably know your target audience very well too. Work out what their objections may be at this stage, what may stop them clicking 'add to basket'? Does it meet their technical requirements? Is the price competitive? Is it in stock? Does it come with a guarantee? Once you understand their potential objections, tackle them. Face them head on and deal with them; if you can, offer a price guarantee - they won't need to go off to price comparison sites to check out the competition; include any awards or accolades the product has received such as 'Awarded Which Magazine's best product in its category' to give the product quality more weighting; if you offer free shipping, shout about it; if you don't, make shipping costs clear. It's amazing how many potential buyers won't proceed if they don't have visibility of the shipping rates.

Tackle as many of their objections as reasonably possible; don't give them any reason not to 'add to basket'!

5. Optimise the checkout

You're nearly there. They've added products to the basket and they've hit checkout. Now let's make sure they make it through this last and crucial stage.

The most important thing is to keep the checkout process really simple. Minimise distractions. Ask for the information you need, but not more. Don't get greedy. The primary goal is for them to checkout, so make it as easy as possible. Don't show endless fields that are compulsory, make it really clear what is compulsory and what is optional. Give them the option of a quick checkout, so if they don't want to register and create account, they don't need to. You can always give them the option to create an account after they've completed checkout. Include prominent messaging relating to your security standards and use signposts to mark their progress during the checkout process - they're a lot more likely to complete if they can see what stages they have left in the process. Finally, make sure you use high quality copy throughout the checkout stage, it's as important, if not more so, than the product information itself. Clearly and concisely communicate what each field requires, what they need to do next and why an error has appeared, if they haven't completed a field correctly.

So there you have it, five tips for increasing your ecommerce website landing page conversion rates. Lots there to be getting on with, and thankfully, plenty that can be done without needing to spend a penny, just some time investment from you and your ecommerce team.

Jocelyn Kirby
Head of Marketing
Twitter @JocelynKirby
Twitter @Metakinetic

About Metakinetic
We're an ecommerce specialist, providing a full service from design and build of your ecommerce website through to the online marketing and ongoing strategy of your website. If you'd like to find out more about how we can help you grow your ecommerce business, please give us a call on 0118 324 9000.

You can get half price banner design on any commission of 20 banners. So, what would normally be £1,300, you get for £650!

It applies to all standard banner sizes and is a great way to plan and prepare your on-site banners for the year, or alternatively, to get a great selection of banners for your next online advertising campaign.

We have an awesome design team and they're dying to get their hands on some exciting projects, so whatever type or style of banners you're after, you're guaranteed some great results.

To take us up on the offer, or just to find out more information, please give us a call on 0118 324 9000 or use our contact form to get in touch.

With terms such as social commerce and f-commerce being borne out of the social media revolution, we are now seeing social commerce become a reality as well-known brands and small independents alike take to the social scene to help drive sales of their products.

This was really highlighted today with the post of an article by Econsultancy entitled 'Seven tips for embracing social commerce'. The article includes some interesting points on what order to approach social commerce and what factors you need to take into consideration when embarking on a social campaign.

But many retailers are still asking, "what does it all mean?"

Social commerce isn't necessarily all about selling on social sites. It's about using our valuable social real estate in order to increase brand and product awareness, engage in real conversations with our target audiences and of course, to drive visitors that in turn, result in more sales.

Your social media activities may extend to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and further afield too. It all depends on where your target audience can be found online. If they all use Twitter, but never go near Facebook (unlikely I know), then there's little point in investing in your Facebook presence.

The first step in embarking on your social commerce strategy is really to understand your target audience. Creating target audience profiles, often called 'Digital Footprints', will help you understand what they do, why, where and what their key online goals are (information gathering, quick purchase, finding best price, keeping in touch with friends etc). Once you understand this, you will then also understand where you are best able to reach out to them in the social media world.

The next important step (and this is really important), is to understand that it's not all about selling. It's about breathing life into your brand, engaging with your target audience and creating a community with a common interest. Create a brand presence, provide information about your brand, its offering and how to get in touch; but don't shove it straight in their faces. Give something back; useful information, special offers for 'fans', customer support, competitions etc.

Next, and much as you will already do with all of the other traffic sources to your ecommerce website (I hope!), keep track of what visitors are being sent from your social media activity. Knowledge in ecommerce is most definitely power, and you will get a huge amount of knowledge from the data behind your ecommerce website. This will allow you to keep an eye on the return on your social media investment - time, financial or other. Look at what sources convert best, which types of content drive most traffic and within your social properties, keep an eye on what generates the best levels of engagement, the most positive responses and the most fruitful outcomes.

There are so many exciting options to consider for social media and social commerce. Data acquisition (growing your email lists), direct selling and social media for customer service are a few topics that I will talk more around in future posts, but for now enjoy dipping your toe in the water of social media.

And remember:

• Profile & target your audience - digital footprints.
• Go fishing where the fish go swimming - use relevant social channels.
• Forget about the hard-sell - get involved in the conversation.
• Measure, measure, measure! It's all about the data.

Jocelyn Kirby
Head of Marketing
Twitter @JocelynKirby
Twitter @Metakinetic

A lot of hard work and commitment had gone into the launch of our latest ecommerce solution for Soho's, an alternative fashion retailer. So you can imagine our delight when this tasty hamper accompanied by a lovely 'thank you' note arrived yesterday. Needless to say, we have been tucking in enthusiastically :)

In case you can't read the note in the picture, it reads:

"Dear Metakinetic Team,
A big thank you from everyone at Soho's for your dedication, expertise, patience and hard work delivering our amazing new website!
You guys are awesome!"

Given that we pride ourselves, above all, on our excellent customer service and satisfaction levels, we couldn't be happier to receive such a lovely note. Thanks Soho's!

Soho's offers a fantastic range of alternative fashion clothing, from punk through to goth, emo and rock styles. To check out the new website and their great fashion range, go to www.sohos.co.uk.

Jocelyn Kirby
Head of Marketing

The new website has been created using MetaCommerce ecommerce software, a feature-rich solution which has been designed to improve ecommerce SEO, site conversion rates and improve the user experience. The new website will also give Soho's the ability to improve average basket values through a number of promotional features which, amongst others, include dynamic landing pages, discount promotions, cross-sell intelligence and merchandising management.

Dan Barker, Director at Soho's.co.uk commented: "We pride ourselves at Soho's for selling the best, cutting edge alternative clothing. Metakinetic has provided us with the ecommerce solution to match this, giving our customers the best online shopping experience possible. We are looking forward to reaping the benefits of this partnership and developing our business in the future. "

Darren Bull, Director at Metakinetic, added: "Soho's has a fantastic specialist offering, with a wide range of products at competitive prices. I'm very excited about this launch. We're expecting great results fast; I'm hoping we see this online business doubling in size over the next year."

About Soho's

To view the website, visit: www.sohos.co.uk.

Soho's is a multi-channel retailer with five high street outlets in the North of England and an online store, sohos.co.uk. The company specialises in alternative fashion clothing and has a large range of popular brands such as Hell Bunny, Death Kitty and Criminal Damage, catering for a variety of styles such as Emo, Gothic and Punk.

Open source e-commerce does have its benefits - it's license free - ongoing costs are minimal. But are they?

Typically, in order to build your open source ecommerce website, you will require an ecommerce agency to do the technical development work for you. This might include the customisation of the open source e-commerce features to your requirements (normally the open source components need bolting together), it will almost certainly also include integrations with 3rd parties, such as your chosen payment provider. So by the time your ecommerce agency has ticked off all of your critical requirements, you could well find your website development bill reaching many thousands of pounds, most likely tens of thousands. And what do you have for your money? It's an ecommerce website, yes. But it's built on technology that is developed by the community, meaning that there is no real ownership, no commitment to always provide the best of the best and features & functionality are often very basic. And it dates prettty quickly too. Three years down the line you have a three year old website.

Once your open source ecommerce store is live, you will then need to consider additional costs such as SSL certificate, hosting, support, agency retainer for ongoing development... it's turning into quite an investment!

When comparing open source ecommerce to licensed ecommerce software, you may actually find yourself pleasantly surprised at how much more you can get for your money! And with better results too.

Metakinetic provides MetaCommerce on a licensed ecommerce software model, and with low setup costs in comparison to a traditional bespoke build, you get a huge list of features and functionality for a relatively low charge. When you add to this the commitment of MetaCommerce to the continual development of the software for the benefit of its clients and the cost-effective ecommerce website performance-based monthly billing model, you have a great return on investement. A feature-rich, highly usable website, optimised to maximise your sales, SEO success and reduce internal admin time. And add to that the fact that regardless of how long you keep it, it will never go out of date - you'll always have the latest version of the software, it seems a pretty safe bet!

So for us here at Metakinetic, we truly believe in the power and quality of a licensed model - so much so that we created our own! You can find out more about our system, MetaCommerce, by visiting our ecommerce page.

Jocelyn Kirby
Head of Marketing
Twitter @JocelynKirby
Twitter @Metakinetic

The website provides Auluxe with a location to communicate its business values and product range, also giving customers the opportunity to purchase online through the site's basket and checkout functionality.

The new website design features stunning imagery and a clean, simple design which reflects the company's eco-friendly and luxury feel. It is easy to navigate and gives Auluxe the ability to fully manage the content, giving maximum flexibilty and control over future content.

To take a look at the site, visit www.auluxe.co.uk.

But what does "surprisingly strong" actually mean?

Total sales were reported as being 4.2% up, an increase not be sniffed at, and certainly more than the more meagre 1.2% seen in January last year. These reported figures were also mirrored by the large majority of our clients and local retail businesses, such as Craig Killick of online retailer http://www.jessica-nails.co.uk/ who also reported a great January.

However, at least some of this success can be attributed to economical and political change, of which there has been a considerable amount in recent months... The VAT increase has probably had the biggest impact on retail sales around Christmas, with many consumers choosing to make purchases early, prior to the increase, and with many other retailers swallowing the increase in January, further boosting January sales.

But, ultimately, a 4.2% increase is a great start to the year and a trend we hope to see continue in coming months. With increasing real and perceived financial pressures on consumers, it's going to be the year that specialist, niche retailers, with large product catalogues, great customer service and competitive pricing really shine through. Let's call it the year of the independents.

Jocelyn Kirby
Head of Marketing
Twitter @JocelynKirby
Twitter @Metakinetic

You can get half price banner design on any commission of 20 banners. So, what would normally be £1,300, you get for £650!

It applies to all standard banner sizes and is a great way to plan and prepare your on-site banners for the year, or alternatively, to get a great selection of banners for your next online advertising campaign.

We have an awesome design team and they're dying to get their hands on some exciting projects, so whatever type or style of banners you're after, you're guaranteed some great results.

To take us up on the offer, or just to find out more information, please give us a call on 0118 324 9000 or use our contact form to get in touch.

How has your business been affected by the increase in VAT from 17.5% to 20%? Have you seen a decrease in sales? Was it an administrative nightmare or a simple click of the mouse to implement?

Join the debate on LinkedIn and tell us about your thoughts and experiences...

I've watched as the event has grown from being frequented by a handful of digital specialists, to what must be nearing the largest regular digital event in the South outside London.

Last night's speaker was Ade Oshineye, Developer Advocate at Google. He took a look at social networking and more importantly, what comes after it. Now even Ade was reluctant to tell us what comes after social networking, unfortunately even he isn't able to tell us that. What he did do, however, was make some very interesting points on how social networking actually works and what makes it tick.

Most interestingly for me were the points he raised around the social object.

"Social objects trigger conversations that create communities" explained Ade.

This is particularly poignant as it sums up everything that is great about social media. It isn't limited to just our physical social networks, past and present. Social objects take us far beyond this and connect us to people that we otherwise may never have spoken to… the guy 20 years your senior on the train, working in a totally different industry who has the same new Samsung Galaxy Tab that you do; the stranger on Flickr that also likes taking photos of abstract objects; or the 100k plus others that also like Lush Ltd on Facebook. Whether one person or thousands, a social object creates a connection - both online and offline.

So how does this apply to the world of retail? In retail, I'd be inclined to liken the creation of a social object to be as significant as finding gold or striking oil. Like viral marketing, it's one of those things that most marketing people strive for, but very few actually achieve.

Take a look at Lush - the brand has done it very well. Lush is the social object - over 100k people like its Facebook page, it has an active forum community of people on its website that not only discuss Lush, but who trade all manner of goods amongst themselves, discuss their life's problems and so much more.

So how can retailers create a social object to encourage a community to build around their brand? If I could answer that I would probably not be here writing this article. However, I don't think there is just one answer. It's about an eclectic mix of distinction, uniqueness, interest, individuality and engagement. Capture this and gain the trust and interest of your audience and you could find your brand or your products become a social object that opens up a community of interested people to your business. How you choose to 'contain' them, or where you engage, will depend on your audience. If you sell musical instruments, is your container YouTube, where users can show themselves playing their latest purchase?; for camera equipment a model-specific Flickr group?

Can a retailer even create a social object? Or does it need to come from the brand itself?

Maybe if we totally understood social networking, it just wouldn't work as well. After all, once we fully understand how something works, doesn't it take away some of that magic?

Jocelyn Kirby
Head of Marketing
Twitter @JocelynKirby

Previously of the country's largest integrated B2B agency and one of the UK's top ten digital agencies, Vimal has been tasked with fuelling the agency's ambitious growth plans.

With the approaching launch of the agency's SaaS ecommerce software solution, Vimal will be focusing on achieving penetration within a competitive marketplace. He is however confident that he will be successful in his role: "I'm really excited to be part of Metakinetic's journey. I never fail to be impressed by the ecommerce product's capabilities and by the agency's proactive and efficient approach to client projects. I'm certain these attributes will shine through and will be what sets us apart from the many other less capable systems and agencies out there."

Tasked with driving awareness of the solution, supporting MetaCommerce's partner program and achieving significant market penetration, Jocelyn will work alongside Vimal Patel, also recently appointed, to quickly generate momentum for the company, which has ambitious growth plans for the next three years.

Jocelyn joins following her previous role as Marketing & Business Development Manager at a UK top ten digital agency and has over ten years' experience in sales and marketing roles. Enthusiastic about the new role, Jocelyn commented "I can't wait to get things moving for the company, there are truly exciting times ahead and with such a fantastic product to boast, I am going to have a number of very enjoyable years with the team here at Metakinetic."

The company's first ecommerce website launched with great success, seeing a significant number of online sales within its first week of trading. Benefiting from the MetaCommerce's product integration feed, Primetime Sports has seen an impressive number of sales thanks to Google's price comparison service Products.

The ecommerce system's multiple SEO features has also resulted in very quick indexation in Google with an increasing number of key terms achieving a ranking for the company.

The client is delighted with the website to date, particularly the smooth launch process and ease of system use.

If you'd like to take a look at the new ecommerce website, visit www.primetimesports.co.uk.

A clean and simple design to represent the style and simplicity of the products it produces, we included checkout functionality to enable Iriver to develop a direct to consumer sales channel, whilst also promoting the benefits of its products using striking imagery and clear presentation of information.

The website is fully content managed and includes news, product information and ecommerce functionality.

To view the website visit http://www.iriver.co.uk/.