Facebook-Commerce. The recent announcement of half a billion active members should be enough to have any e-commerce or marketing professional chomping at the bit to seize the opportunity, get engaged and start selling.

Surprisingly though, there seems to be a lack of exploration into the existing possibilities…

I’m not suggesting that setting up shop on Facebook is suitable for everyone,  but I am suggesting that there is potentially an enormous and currently untapped opportunity for retailers that they need to explore.

There *are* examples of companies experimenting with Facebook as a platform to sell products and services, but they seem to be few and far between.

Disney recently begun selling cinema tickets for Toy Story 3 across Facebook and Procter & Gamble has reportedly dipped its toe into f-commerce, including setting up an impromptu store to make the most of the Old Spice buzz.

Smaller organisations are also trying to get in on the action. For example, the cosmetics company, Mark, now has online shop on their Facebook page and Fashion company NineWest is toying with an f-commerce store. Kudos for these guys taking the first steps into relatively unchartered territory.

I’d go so far as to suggest that there’s no real excuse to not be at least considering experimenting in this area. It’s relatively cost-effective, quick and easy to set up an f-commerce platform within a Facebook account, especially when third-party solutions are brought into the equation. I’ve scouted around a picked out a few that exist.

Many of these examples redirect users from Facebook to their own online stores, but given that best practice e-commerce is about making a transaction as easy and seamless as possible, then, depending on the circumstances, keeping a potential customer within a Facebook page generally seems like a sensible option to explore.

However, I’m expecting this current practice of redirecting to change in the coming months, especially as the bigger players in the e-commerce technology market, begin to look more seriously towards leveraging Facebook in this way.

3Dcart

BigCommerce

Payvment

Volusion

Voiyk

Shoptab

Furthermore, although there appears to be a degree of shyness from companies to actively experiment in this arena, it’s understandable. Every day, we’re reminded about developing a “social media strategy” and throwing e-commerce into the engagement mix can easily break the most hardened professional into a cold sweat… so it’s not a particularly large surprise that we’re not seeing larger amounts of activity.

But it is disappointing.

Although it’s easy to see that f-commerce is very much in its infancy stages, I’d go so far as to suggest that it’s where mobile-commerce was a few years ago. Smaller purchases are currently being made, but developments and general uptake will result in larger transactions and increased user confidence. Those who begin to place resources into this area now will likely reap rewards later.

As far back as 2003, Amazon was playing with m-commerce… and recently they announced $1bn in sales through mobile channels, which is no small number.

Given that more than 100m active users are currently accessing Facebook through mobile technology, it doesn’t take a genius to suggest that there seems a reasonable amount of opportunity which may present itself even further.

E-learning is hot. And for good reason. If done right, it can produce great results by decreasing costs and improving performance. Also, unlike a one time classroom session, the elearning course is available for others.  This includes the static elearning course as well as any ongoing conversations in networked communities.

Recently, I had a conversation with someone new to elearning and it struck me that she didn’t fully understand the value of elearning.  I think this is common as more people are joining the world of elearning.  Understanding elearning’s value helps you make the best decisions about when and why to use it.

E-learning Supports the Organization’s Goals

• Improved training costs. Producing learning content is time consuming whether it’s online or not.  With elearning, each time the course is accessed your return on investment improves because you are dividing the fixed production costs by number of uses.  You also have savings through decreased travel, reduced material, and hopefully improved (and more efficient) performance.
• Decreased material costs. Let’s say you have to train how to arrange equipment in a sterile environment like an operating room.  If you had to use the real environment, it would be costly.  Even setting up a fake environment has material costs and labor.  By creating the environment online and letting the learner practice, you never have to worry about the costs associated with set up, use, and clean up.
• Increased productivity.  Because elearning is not bound by geography or time, you can control training’s impact on production by training people during down times.  In addition, with the current economy, you’re asking people to do more with less.  So elearning is a great way to give them the tools and skills needed to enhance their performance.
• Standardization.  You may have a great facilitator, but that’s no guarantee that the courses are presented the same across sessions.  Elearning allows you to create a standardized process and consistency in the delivery of content.  It also compresses delivery time.  I’ve combined elearning courses with facilitated sessions.  Elearning delivered consistent content.  Live sessions were interactive case studies that applied the information.

E-learning Supports the Learner’s Development

• Real-time access. Live learning events require that those who participate align their schedules to the training calendar.  Elearning eliminates this because the course can be accessed anytime, anywhere.  This can also happen without Internet access.  I saw a Red Cross demo where the learners accessed the content on a PC out in the field and uploaded their results when they were back online.
• Freedom to fail.  Let’s face it, real learning requires some failure.  But no one likes to fail in a classroom full of other people.  Elearning lets you fail without fear.  This encourages exploration and testing of ideas.  With the right feedback you create a great learning environment.  Worst case, you can always start over.  Something you can’t always do in class.
• Improved retention.  The combination of multimedia and instructional design can produce a very rich learning experience that is repeatable.  Throw in some good practice activities with feedback and you have a learning environment that’s going to help your learners retain the course content which will produce results.
• Personalized learning.  Look out the window at your parking lot.  My guess is that you’ll see a dozen or more different cars.  They all do the same thing, yet we have personal opinions about what we want to drive.  The same for learning.  Learners want control.  Elearning allows you to offer control to the learners in a way that classroom learning doesn’t.

E-learning Nurtures a Learning Organization & Community

• Ongoing access to resources.  If you take a class in the real world and need a refresher, you better hope that you took good notes.  Otherwise, you’re out of luck.  That’s not the case with elearning.  Ideally, you continue to have access to the online content and resources to brush up on what you learned.
• Knowledge management.  Many people see elearning as only the authored courses.  But elearning includes all sort of online technologies.  If you incorporate some of the tools that allow collaboration and conversation, you can capture organizational knowledge that is available for future learners.
• Encourage sharing.  The foundation of a learning community is built on sharing what you know with others.  This is where incorporating a forum or wiki really adds value to your elearning.  Depending on how the course is structured, you can encourage sharing of resources and insight gained from the course.
• Employer of choice.  People want opportunities to grow.  A cafeteria with high fat foods is one way.  Another is a catalog with all sorts of elearning courses.  This allows them to explore other opportunities in the organization.  During downtime, it would be great to spend fifteen minutes learning to better manage meetings or improve working with peers.  Offering these opportunities to learn makes you a place people want to stay.

• Elearning is good for the environment.  Britain’s Open University’s “study found that producing and providing distance learning courses consumes an average of 90% less energy and produces 85% fewer CO2 emissions per student than conventional face-to-face courses.”

Contact T2-Design for their custom E-learning systems or for a free trial with a demo system.

Cross-browser compatibility is something that can’t be overlooked in this day and age. The fact that your website could be viewed one way in Firefox and a completely different way in another browser like Safari can be a stressful thing to cope with. Being able to create and build websites that not only look but function the way their supposed to in multiple browsers isn’t a walk in the park.

This is why we’re going to provide you with these useful tools that’ll help you test for cross-browser compatibility. The process for achieving compatibility across a variety of browsers is building, testing and fixing.

Browser Shots

Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different operating systems and browsers. It is a free open-source online web application providing developers a convenient way to test their website’s browser compatibility in one place. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue.

A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the browsershot central dedicated servers for your review.

Cross Browser Testing

This tool allows you to pick an operating system and browser and that’s that! You will receive nicely structured screenshots on multiple browsers of your site.

Adobe Browser Lab

Accurately pinpoint compatibility issues and compare web pages at a glance to easily identify differences and potential problems. Preview full screenshots with multiple view options and customizable test settings.

SuperPreview

SuperPreview is to be used in conjuction with Microsoft Expression Web 3 in order to test and preview your web pages in multiple browsers at the same time. You can choose a variety of browsers and specify any page you’d like the application to render for compatability testing.

Spoon Browser Sandbox

The Spoon Browser Sandbox places several browsers with the click of a few buttons at your disposal with very little effort. You’re able to test several pages quickly without any issues.

IETester

IETester is a free WebBrowser that allows you to have the rendering and javascript engines of IE9 preview, IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process.

NetRenderer

IE NetRenderer allows you to check how a website is rendered by Internet Explorer 7, 6 or 5.5, as seen from a high speed datacenter located in Germany. Just type in a URL and try it out; it’s free.

BrowsrCamp

Browsrcamp lets you take control over a Mac OS X system preconfigured with all the Mac browsers. This is the easiest way to test every aspect of your website on Mac, including Javascript, DHTML, Ajax, Flash and more!

Source: DesignRiver

The internet is an amazingly diverse marketplace, full of websites intended to draw any niche of consumers imaginable, but nearly all websites gauge success in the same way: TRAFFIC!  Hits, clicks, looks, peeps… in internet business, these words all just mean money, money, money.  So, how can a website generate traffic?  Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is undoubtedly the most effective (and cost-effective) tool for generating traffic.  SEO integrates web-design with marketing in order to increase the volume of traffic to a website by using search engine results.  According to Forrester Research, 93% of global consumers use search engines to find websites, and 93% of all internet traffic is generated by search engines. Of course, not all websites are viewed equally by the search engines, because they use very complex algorithms to determine which sites are most appropriate for the search.  The “best” websites are placed at the top of the list, and the “worst” at the bottom… in theory.  According to Avtec Media, 99% of internet searchers do not look past the top 30 results, and 97% of them don’t even look past the top 3 results.  SEO uses various techniques to get a website as close to the top of the list as possible.  How important is Search Engine Optimization?  Let’s just say this… without it, you would do better selling oranges on a freeway off-ramp.

There is a very simple first step to increasing profitability: Invest in a well-designed website! In a study of small business owners by AC Neilsen, 51% of respondents indicated that the internet has improved their profitability, and 58% indicated that the internet helped their businesses to expand.

There are a number of expensive ways to advertise a product or market a business, but the simplest, least expensive, and most important method of growing your business on the internet and increasing market share is by investing in a well-designed website.

71% of online shoppers browse multiple stores before making a purchase; consequently, consumers are not only comparing prices but assessing the credibility of businesses based on the quality of their respective websites.  Imagine that you are considering purchasing a new wristwatch, and you are able to find two retailers with the model you want.  One retailer has a shop in an upscale shopping mall, and the other is selling watches from the trunk of a ’79 Volvo.

Even if the products are identical, where would you feel more comfortable making a purchase?

In the e-commerce market, a well-designed website is the best way show professionalism and inspire consumer confidence… without that, you are just selling products from the trunk of your car.

JP Morgan estimates that retail e-commerce spending (excluding travel) topped $438 billion (USD) in 2008, and this is a rapidly growing market.  As of 2009, there were about 1.74 billion internet users worldwide, and this number is expected to increase by 46% to 2.6 billion by 2015.  Asia alone is projected to have 1.2 billion internet users by 2014 (up from 193 million in 2000, more than a 600% increase!). Not only are there a staggering number of internet users, but 51% of all consumers use the internet before making purchases in shops. Is this a market that any business can afford to ignore?  Of course not… you don’t need anyone to tell you that. The question facing many businesses is this: “How can we get more of the market share?  Where’s my piece of the pie?”

Our new website is finally online!

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