The next few weeks will see the launch of our new ecommerce platform, bluCommerce. Our team has worked hard these past few months to develop what we believe to be a major player in the ecommerce-software arena.

Each month will see new and constantly refined functionality developed, but the initial release includes such features as:

• Streamlined 1-page checkout: customers are able to complete their transaction quickly and easily with no page reloads, edit their shopping basket contents at any time without having to re-enter their details, integrated credit card processing, choose to include new features such as gift-wrapping, and much more.
• Customer support system: Registered users can open support tickets about past orders, request to return products and ask general questions right from their my-account area. The admin interface includes powerful ticket-management and reporting to make managing customer service a breeze.
• AJAX enhancements: fewer page reloads with AJAX driven product listings and product searching and sorting, product quick-views, instant currency conversions, quick add-to-cart, and lots more.
• Product images: improved interface for customers to view multiple product images, and easier administration tools.
• Improved discount and product promotion system
• Improved sales reporting: including the ability to keep track of all your recent order history with the new admin-dashboard, and analyse sales and customer statistics easily

To request a demo and test-drive the system yourself, please get in touch today!

Bloomsbury store extends it’s arsenal of websites with the launch of a new mini site, My School Badges. The site, as you would guess by it’s name, sells nostalgic school badges but also a range of old-favourite sweets and lollies. Run by two young budding entrepreneurs, Felix and James, we wish them the best of luck with their little project and we’ll be on hand to give them any tips and advice!

So, checking out our traffic stats the other day, we noticed we were getting a lot of traffic from China. Too much traffic, in fact. After a little further digging, we discovered that the nice people at the Beijing International Exhibition Center are trying to spruce up their look a little in time for the olympics, by doing what china does best - appropriation and imitation!

We’re not particularly peeved that they’ve appropriated our work - to be honest, it’s almost flattering that we meet the (not so) exacting standards of the communist government - I’ve awarded comrade Chris a medal of valiant labour, for his efforts in the great leap forwards.

The only mildly frustrating thing is that they seem to get a prodigious amount of traffic, and have hotlinked our images to blazes - but such is life.

You can view their site at http://www.biec.com.cn, and if you’re having difficulty reaching it, go via http://websurfing.cn/.

This week sees a major new release for Work It, Mom! - the Marketplace. The idea is to allow the site’s growing community to list products or services for others to view that ultimately lead to deals being made on either very small or very large scales! From selling books to offering graphic design services, the marketplace is set to be a major enhancement to Work It, Mom!

The marketplace features a full listing area as you would expect but also a carefully constructed AJAX-driven 1-page listing process that takes the user through the whole process in a matter of clicks.

To view more details, please click here

We don’t often blog about non-work specific projects on blubolt.com but after trialing Google SketchUp this weekend, I feel the urge to. The software is as you’d expect from Google - simple to use interface and extremely quick to get the hang of.

One of my ‘extra-curricular’ projects at the moment is refurbishing my house (that incendently hasn’t been lived in for 30 years!) and this software is absolutely perfect for what I need. As with web and graphic design, having the ability to plan, visualise, and experiment with layouts gives you the ability to trial-and-error what will work and what won’t. I can now picture colours, what units I’ll require, where to position items that will require plumbing/electricity, and it’s incrediby useful to be able to walk through the virtual 3D mock-up.

SketchUp also lets you import materials and components really easily (even cats) and has a neat feature to export to Google Earth if you wish to make your design public.

Our new blubolt brochure launches today and one section features our top 10 tips to make your ecommerce site a success.

See how many your ecommerce site follows!

• Keep it simple
  Make browsing your website fool-proof and intuitive and try not to clutter it with too much text or slow loading graphics. Make sure visitors can easily navigate their way around and search your product range.
• Sell, sell, sell!
  Merchandising on the web means making clever use of your virtual shelf space. Feature your products on your homepage, offer Top-10 lists, product recommendations, limited-time offers, special discounts, loyalty point schemes – anything to stimulate sales, increase order values or encourage impulse buys.
• Focus on your products
  A picture is worth a 1000 words. Include clear product images that allow the customer to see exactly what they’re getting. Maintain compelling product descriptions alongside your product offerings.
• Add the little touches
  Allow customers to have their order gift-wrapped, tell a friend about your website, create a wish-list to save for later or even add a little personalisation when they create an account such as showing customised product recommendations.
• Know your products and your market
  Do your research carefully and ask yourself the question, why would someone want to buy this product from my website and not my competitors? Try to be different and think of ways to gain customer loyalty and new business.
• Inspire confidence in your customers
  Display clear pricing and delivery information so the customer knows exactly what they’re paying. Show detailed return policies and links to customer service information and try to include a phone number to further increase confidence.
• Make paying through your website easy
  Ensure your website offers a seamless way to allow customer’s to enter their billing, delivery and credit or debit card details. Choose a reliable online merchant that will process payment in real-time. It’ll make your life easier!
• Market your website once it’s live
  It’s not enough to just build a website. You need to market and promote to new and existing customers. Collect email addresses for email-marketing, exchange links with related websites and begin pay-per-click marketing campaigns.
• Sing to the search engines
  Ensure your website has search-engine friendly URLs, page titles, meta tags and contains relevant keywords and good descriptions within the content. Build an easily indexable sitemap for your website and submit it to all major search engines.
• Update your website regularly
  Changing content not only attracts your customers back but also search engine spiders, which can push your website up the search engine rankings.