Dydacomp Releases SiteLINK 7, Assures PCI Compliance

Dydacomp, a leading provider of business technology platforms for small and mid-sized eCommerce and multichannel merchants, has announced SiteLINK 7, a comprehensive eCommerce shopping cart solution that increases conversions and ensures PCI compliance.

SiteLINK 7 delivers many new features to create an enriched cross-platform shopping experience for online and mobile shoppers. Dydacomp’s eCommerce hosting environment has also undergone an independent third-party audit to ensure SiteLINK 7 is a PCI DSS certified solution and hosting platform, enabling merchants to meet strict data security standards and regulations.

PCI Compliance
“One of the business-critical areas that we addressed in SiteLINK 7 is PCI compliance," ' say Fred Lizza, CEO of Dydacomp. "The ramifications of a data breach to a small or medium-sized business can be devastating. By combining SiteLINK 7 with our Multichannel Order Manager, we provide the only integrated end-to-end PCI compliant software solution for small and mid-size merchants and their customers. Our latest solution also addresses the rapid adoption of new mobile technology. SiteLINK 7 now includes mobile-optimized layouts to allow our merchants’ customers to browse and order from smartphones and wireless devices.”

Best Practices
Enhancements were made based on best practices for increasing purchases and to help smaller companies compete with large eCommerce sites. SiteLINK7makes it easier for customers to leave product reviews which improve conversions, incorporates a persistent cart to allow visitors to add items to the shopping cart and complete the order at a later time, and presents a recently viewed items listing. All of these new features enrich the overall shopping experience for online consumers while the integration with Multichannel Order Manager provides SMBs with the ability to manage all commerce processes needed to run and scale a successful online or cross-channel business through a single solution.

The new features of SiteLINK 7 enrich the overall online shopping experience while the integration with Multichannel Order Manager provides SMBs with a single commerce management solution that manages all processes needed to run and scale a successful online or cross-channel business. SiteLINK 7 also incorporates numerous enhancements to create effective and visually powerful eCommerce sites, such as the ability to sell e-gift cards that can also be redeemed through point-of-purchase, new HTML templates to increase conversions, and integration with buySAFE to provide shoppers with a purchase guarantee.

“The new release reflects Dydacomp’s continued commitment to providing the complete end-to-end solution for small and mid-sized merchants," says CEO  Lizza. "The features and functionality we’ve incorporated into our solutions are designed to meet the expanding needs of today’s eCommerce marketplace. In addition, merchants can process credit cards and collect payment-related data with the reassurance that SiteLINK 7 has received the PCI DSS compliance certifications that will simplify meeting the requirements for annual merchant qualifications.”

Browns Shoes Selects Demandware

Demandware, Inc., a leader in on-demand eCommerce, has announced that Browns Shoes, the leading retailer of fashion footwear in Canada, has selected the Demandware Commerce platform to power its new multi-brand, multi-channel digital commerce strategy.

The company will use Demandware to launch new Web and mobile commerce sites for its key banners: Browns, B2 and Browns OUTLET, and to extend a unified brand experience from its brick-and-mortar stores across all digital commerce touch points.

Browns Shoes is replacing its legacy platform with Demandware because it enables a greater level of innovation and a better user empowerment, along with a reliable, secure and scalable operating environment for running its digital commerce operations. Browns Shoes selected Demandware for its a highly scalable platform for a multi-brand, multi-channel strategy, including:

• A central commerce platform for developing and managing multiple branded sites across channels and geographies, including Web, mobile and social, enabling a seamless brand experience regardless of channel

• Powerful commerce applications that empower a range of users, including merchandisers, marketers, developers, designers, operations, customer service and fulfillment teams

• New capabilities made available through automatic global releases

• A proven, world-class operating environment with industry-leading performance and up-time

• Built-in scalability to support intense processing loads, easily handling sudden spikes in traffic without compromising performance

• A business model based on partnership and complete economic alignment with clients

Warehouse Robots Get Smarter With Ant Intelligence

Inside Technology from IEEE Spectrum reports that researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics are experimenting with warehouse robots that communicate with each other rather than a central server (like Kiva's bots that Amazon just bought), using algorithms based on a model of "how ants forage for food to cooperatively decide which of them should go where and do what."

"The robots don't need fixed localization points," says the article, "but instead rely on 'integrated localization and navigation technology' (including signal-based location capability, distance and acceleration sensors and laser scanners) to find the most direct routes to their destination without crashing into anything or each other. This makes them very efficient, and it also makes the system easily scalable, since you can introduce new things and the robots won't freak out."

Big Opportunities in Big Data

cmo.com has produced a useful (and nice-looking) infographic on Big Data, showing that "A fundamental role of the chief marketing officer (CMO) is to capitalize on the complexity of this Big Data. In billions of chats, blogs, e-mails, mobile phone calls, and social networks, consumers are talking about every business and organization. Somewhere in this massive conversation are shouts, whispers, clicks, and purchases that will determine each company’s success or failure.
Yet many organizations are data-rich and insight-poor. Marketers must transform available data into feasible, immediate action plans. The notion of turning data into real-time insight, and insight into instant action, is a common and growing theme."

 Click HERE to download a PDF of the infographic, and to read more see: http://www.cmo.com/trends/big-data-big-opportunity-infographic#ixzz1plNr8N2h

Mastering Multinational Search Challenges

Customer experience is at the heart of multichannel marketing. Those serving a multinational market must have an understanding of native spoken language, geography and culture and build this into every step of the program, notes Jimmy McCann, head of search engine optimisation at Search Laboratory, a provider of search engine marketing services, in an article in Direct Commerce.

"Knowledge of regional online habits should also be understood in order to develop appropriate off-page content and links with external platforms. Trends in Germany for example, highlight that Facebook commands less popularity than in other markets, indicating that retailers targeting German customers should consider alternative channels through which to engage.

"Regional and cultural perceptions of what constitutes a quality online presence also vary. Korea for instance, blogging is seen as a fundamental part of any website’s visibility. Accordingly, Naver, Korea’s largest search engine, prioritises blogs created on its own platform over traditional website content, making backlinks from bloggers of particular importance to a search strategy focusing on this market."

Amazon Buys Kiva Robotic Systems

Bloomberg has reported that "Amazon.com Inc. is making its biggest acquisition since the 2009 purchase of Zappos.com, agreeing to pay $775 million for Kiva Systems Inc., a maker of robots that move items around warehouses."

"The all-cash deal for closely-held Kiva will close in the second quarter," notes Bloomberg. Using Kiva robots should help to lower fulfillment costs, which account for "the company’s largest operating expense at 9.5 percent of sales." Bloomberg points out that "Amazon’s operating margin is predicted to narrow to 1.6 percent in 2012 after falling 2.3 percentage points last year, putting stress on the company to bolster profits. In January, Chief Financial Officer Thomas Szkutak said operating results this quarter will range from a loss of $200 million to a gain of $100 million."
 
And of course, since the Kiva robots that move inventory or shelf stacks or many other materials management tasks are already orange and very similar in color to the orange in Amazon's logo, the new owner won't have to repaint any inventory they acquire!

AZ Revives State Sales Tax Bill

AZCentral.com reports that "A House committee Wednesday revived a bill to charge sales tax on Amazon.com purchases, despite the fact that the measure has already failed twice in the Senate this session.

"...Members of the House Commerce Committee said their support of the bill should help intensify efforts at the federal level to change the laws on taxing online sales."

Under the current arrangement, Amazon enjoys tax-free sales in Arizona until 2013.