Next Generation Shopping

I won’t be joining the crazy people out there on Black Friday this time around. I prefer to stay in the warmth, at a safe distance away from retail stores.  I intend to do my shopping strictly online. This is why… the best I can remember it anyway:

Last year I went to Circuit City mainly for the experience, but also to pick up a Samsung 22 Inch LCD monitor since they had for a really good price (after rebate). I thought maybe I’d pickup a couple other things while I was there too. That idea got shot down about the second I entered the store, but more on that later. So the story begins, I got up early (4:30 AM?) and went to the closest Circuit City. I arrived and found some parking suprisingly. I laughed as I walked by people in tents at the front of the line. I kept walking back to the edge of the store and then I noticed that the line curled around the side of the building a few times. I wasn’t laughing anymore. I found a spot in line, at the end of the last curl. To my surprise it actually went pretty quick once the doors opened. I got inside within an hour of the store opening.  The monitors were towards the back with the computers, so I started to make my way over there

I soon noticed that there were human-created bottlenecks all over the store.  It took some forcing to get through. Once I got to the back of the store, there was a long line for the computer related items. Circuit City had set it up so that anyone looking for a computer item had to ask a store rep and then the rep had to key it into the computer. Someone else then had to go into the back and look for it. Meanwhile, everyone else had to wait for the one person. It was the worst setup I have ever seen, seriously, ever. I waited for a while and people started to get unruly. I’ll leave out the boring in-between details. After about an hour and half of not moving at all I got out of my spot, and pulled a rep over. As it turns out, they were having computer difficulties in that section to boot. I left the store a little while later with nothing but frustration.

I ended up getting the monitor (sitting on my desk now) online later that day (shortly before taking a nap). I ended getting it cheaper online because I had a gotten a gift certificate or coupon code off eBay! All that trouble for nothing!

Here is what I learned and some tips:

• It is an experience, and the idea of it is really fun. Once you get into the store the fun ends. A crowd of hungry consumers pack into the store, making any size store look miniature. Pushing and shoving begins, and fights over short-supply items. Remember to maintain composure and your end goal.
• Many of the same deals are posted online later in the day or on the following Monday (Cyber Monday). A word of warning though, many of the extremely hot or hard to get items are likely to sell out.
• Know what you want to get before you get into the store. Have a priority list and know when to cut your losses. Remember, you can probably get some of the items online later.

This is a follow up to my previous post “Open Source E-Commerce Storefront Solutions Comparison for ASP.NET and PHP” in which I had compared two open source E-Commerce solutions (one for ASP.NET and one for PHP) as well as a full-source paid solution (Znode Storefront).

First off, a couple updates with regards to Znode…

1. Znode Storefronts has recently changed their pricing structure. They have dropped their Standard edition since my original blog post. Now they have Professional, Advanced, and Server editions. The reason I mention this is because the Professional price is labeled at $995, a $500 jump from the now extinct Standard version. This puts the software in the same category as other popular ASP.NET E-Commerce solutions, and so more must be expected.
2. Znode has launched a Developer portal and Knowledgebase at kb.znode.com. They seem to be off to a good start with that, and hopefully it will continue to grow. A strong developer community and responsive customer support is really what makes a product shine!

As I previously mentioned, Znode has hiked its price up. Two other solutions that are currently set in the same price range of a thousand bucks are ASPDotNet Storefront (ML Edition / DotNetNuke) and AbleCommerce 7.0. In this post we’ve got some great guest commentary from one of our readers, Jim Swanson. He recently had to make a decision in which he looked at Znode, AbleCommerce and ASPDotNetStorefront. In his research he found AbleCommerce to be the most promising for ventures. Read more »

I’m doing a side project that involves setting up a merchant e-commerce site. What I have come to quickly realize is that there are a ton of e-commerce shopping cart solutions out there! With a small budget for the project, I was looking for something that was open source. I’ve written this article about two that grabbed my attention, and why I ended up going with a paid solution. This is in no way a complete analysis so if you are looking for more e-commerce solutions, PayPal has a great list (all PayPal enabled of course), and 411ASP.NET has a list specific to .NET.

I should mention that the majority of this write-up contains personal notes, but hopefully they are helpful to those interested (as I did do a fair amount of research). Again, the first two solutions I looked at are currently FREE and open source. The third costs $500 (Standard version), which comes with the full source code upon purchase, but isn’t open source.

Getting Started

Here are the solutions I looked at:

dashCommerce is the successor to Commerce Starter Kit, and is freely available on CodePlex. This is great for those ASP.NET developers used to working with it that wish to contribute. However, it seems to be a one man show right now as far as development. We’ll see if it can indeed keep pace with the market.

Magento Commerce is an open source PHP e-commerce solution led by Los Angelos based E-Commerce firm Varien. The solution stakes claim to unprecedented flexibility and control. You can jump into learning right away as they have a bunch of tutorial screencasts on their site.

Znode Storefront is an ASP.NET 2.0 solution that “specializes in secure, scalable e-commerce solutions driven by customer needs.”

Below are my notes on some parts I was most interested in. I have provided additional information in a tabular grid below as well.

Development Status

• Magento was recently launched in Beta and it is not recommended to use in a production environment. A functional version is in the works and Varien is shooting for Q1 2008.
• dashCommerce has just released version 2.2 and has sites in a product environment. Major changes are in order for the next version (3.0) which is slated tentatively for December 2007 / Q1 2008.
• Znode Storefront has sites and can be used in the production environment.

Community Following

• Magento seems to have the largest community following of the three. They have a Wiki section and allow the community to contribute. Continued development is by Varien.
• dashCommerce has a decent community following, but it currently seems somewhat disorganized. Community can contribute via CodePlex. Continued development is by Chris Cevyas.
• Znode, not being open source like the others, does not appear to have much of an active community. However, they seem to be dedicated to continued improvement of their product (see roadmap).

User Interface / CSS

• Magento. I’m a sucker for good lucks and that’s exactly what Magento is: Good Looking! Utilizing Scriptlicious, AJAX, and tagging it has Web 2.0 written all over it. It comes with a wide array of features “out of the box.”
• Znode has a structured CSS and Master Page system setup that seems ideal for customization. The admin area allows editing of CSS via a form Textbox similar to working in the popular Wordpress blogging software. It boasts further AJAX UI in future versions.
• dashCommerce seems to be the most messy to tailor via CSS. This should be changing in their next release, version 3.0. Read more »

Finally a Half.com API?  I just got word that the Half.com product inventory will now be available through the eBay Shopping Web Services.  It seems that it is actually just an additional API call (FindHalfProducts) rather than a full API itself.  I (and other developers) have been wondering for some time now why eBay hasn’t made this feature available to its web publisher and developer network. 

This API feature had been slated for release during July ‘07 according to the eBay Road Map.

More news coming next week.  Right from the e-mail:

• How does this help me?

  • Half.com product and pricing information will now be available via a Shopping API returning data in near real time. This will allow you to provide your shoppers with accurate and up-to-date information.
• Where can I get more information?
  • Information will be available at developer.ebay.com. The API name is “FindHalfProducts” and it is available as a Shopping Services API.
• How do I sign up and begin ramping up using the API?
  • Signing up is simple and free: You must have a developer account at developer.ebay.com. Documentation for the new FindHalfProducts API will be available at:
    developer.ebay.com/DevZone/shopping/docs/CallRef/index.html
• When will this be available?
  • We are shooting for the API to be available next week! Watch for a follow-up notice to announce availability!

Web Publishers: Half.com has a separate affiliate program running on CJ.

By the time I had checked my feed reader this morning, Brian Smith had already covered Shopping.com’s latest press release.  If you are a reader of Brian’s blog then you know he has been very critical of Shopping.com the past couple years.  So I was sure I was dreaming when I read his post title “Shopping.com Gets With The Program.”  Alas, I was not dreaming… They are planning to release the following quality innovations for merchants:

• Product Performance Reporting
• SKU Level Bidding
• Shopping.com Cart
• Distributed Commerce Program

These will be accesible through a merchant portion of the Shopping.com API, slated for beta release in 2008.  You can read the details about the items mentioned above in the press release or on Ed’s etaildtail blog entry.

Now, what does this mean to a Partner in the Shopping.com Developer Network?  Simply put conversion will effect your CPC rate.  Directly from Shopping.com:

“the revenue per click to publishers will also be adjusted based on the merchant CPC. We evaluate the quality of traffic from our distribution partners by measuring the conversion to sale and adjust the merchants’ cost per click accordingly.”

More…

• All existing agreements to remain the same
• To continue to receive a share of the merchant revenue
• To be evaluated based on a new metric: Quality Score. This metric will determine the value a partner receives on each click and will be available in the Partner Account Center upon launch of VBP.

I’m hoping that Shopping.com will ensure publisher partners have the information neccessary to increase their conversion and provide a higher quality of clicks.

This will change the landscape dramatically, especially for those pumping low quality clicks through SDC.  But at the end of the day, its all for the better.  From Shopping.com:

“Value-Based Pricing will encourage merchants to increase their investment with Shopping.com, driving a mutually beneficial relationship between partners and merchants and reinforcing our ecosystem.”

I often post from the point of view of eithier a developer or an industry analyst. This post is not one of them.

Lately, I’ve run into trouble as an online consumer. Specifically getting shipments. Here is a real-life post from being an everyday consumer:

I ordered a Nintendo Wii from CircuitCity.com on August 30th. I got it right before they sold out. Everyone here was really excited about it. Well, it still hasn’t been delivered yet. Here is my FedEx SmartPost tracking log:

Today is only one day after the estimated delivery date, but it hasn’t moved from the Edison NJ warehouse in 4 business days. I’m starting to think something is wrong so I decided I’d try to find out.

I started out by calling FedEx.

FedEx Rep 1:
Rep 1: Thanks for calling FedEx…
Me: Hi, I’m trying to track a SmartPost package…
Rep 1: We don’t track FedEx SmartPost, you have to call your local post office.

Ok, calling the post office

Local Post Office Rep (Pat):
…
Pat: Do you have a tracking ID?
Me: I believe so. (Read the number).
Pat: That looks to be a FedEx number. We probably haven’t received any information from FedEx yet.

Back to square 1. I call FedEx again.

FedEx Rep 2:
Rep 1: Thanks for calling FedEx…
Me: Hi, I’m trying to track a SmartPost package…
Rep 2: Let me transfer you to SmartPost department.
Me: (Thinking why the hell couldn’t you do that the first time?)

Wait to be transferred…

SmartPost Rep (Mary):
Mary: Hi, how can I help you?
Me: (Explains the whole situation)
Mary: We are a 3rd party organization that hands off packages from FedEx to the Post office for finally delivery. We usually have a 1-3 business day turn around once it enters the Sortation (that can’t be a real word) facility. Since it hasn’t moved since September 7th, I would say there is something wrong with your package. Perhaps the package, packaging or label was damaged. I would call Circuit City and tell them you talked to us, and we feel that the package has been damaged or lost.

Great, now to call Circuit City…

Circuit City Rep (Michelle):
Michelle: You can only report lost after 15 business days from shipment.
Me: So I can’t do anything until September 20th?
Michelle: I’m sorry sir, but we can’t report it lost until 15 business days from the shipment.

End of Story

I’m still hopeful that I might get my package, but this whole thing has turned into a nightmare. I thought I’d save a couple bucks for free shipping. I should know better. Now some kid who works at the Edison FedEx sortation facility is probably playing my stolen Nintendo Wii right now; or maybe its on the back off an unmarked truck to be sold on the black market… who knows, but at least I’m optimistic.

Lessons learned

• Never use free shipping from Circuit City again.
• Never receive or ship using FedEx SmartPost (I’m not the only one that has problems).
• Stop shopping online its not worth it =)

I was just reading over on the E-Commerce Optimization blog about Pronto’s latest social shopping site launch. This not truly new news as it had been written up last month on Mashable, but this was the first time the official word came from Pronto. Let me first say I think they did a good job in integrating some of the community features. Unfortunately, I found something very bothersome before I even reached their site. E-Commerce Optimization had the screen capture shown below:

$45,000 to anyone who can identify what is wrong with the listing above… See it yet? I found myself wondering if the person who took this screen capture was paying attention to the listing. A Rushmore DVD for $45,000? Um, I’m not really sure that price is accurate! I figured it was just a fluke in Pronto’s pricing system. Flukes are still very common in price comparison engines. I’ve seen plenty on the others (Shopping.com, PriceGrabber, etc.). However I’ve never seen one so extreme.

When I clicked “compare prices” I was taken to the product page. There I noticed a “most liked” section to the right of the main product information. I thought “Hey, this is a cool little tidbit.” Then I got to thinking that the information “Marie C. from Boulder, Colorado was the first person to like it” wasn’t all that useful to me. But hey it’s a good start as far as social shopping goes…

Now, I’m not a big Pronto user, but I found it disturbing that again the pricing information seemed skewed. Office Space DVD from $3 to $529? I did some further digging. The low price ($3) was from GreatArrow.com. Never heard of them, but I checked it out anyway. They sell Greeting Cards, no DVDs found on their site. I checked the high price ($529). Turned out to be Office Space by Creatas (Software) from FotoSearch.com. Ugh, that was enough for me.

Ok, enough criticism about the price and product matching. Pronto did some quality community integration work. I saw some similarities to our own My Shopping Facebook application, specifically the short review box, and the “I own it” and “I want it” parts, found in the modal popup that appears when clicking the “Like” button. This makes it easy to share additional information.

I found their Local Liked Products section to be a very innovative idea, and something they could build on in the long-term. As described by Pronto:

“Users can track the hottest trends in their city by searching the most “Liked” products by region.”

Another very important “social shopping” piece that they have included are the Brand and Store Likes:

“Users can express their interest in particular brands and stores in addition to their favorite products, providing other shoppers greater insight into their tastes and style.”

They seem to be off to a great start in the social shopping space. For more information, Scott Wingo has a pair of writeups (Part I / Part II) including Q&A and some tips… worth the read. You can read the official press release here.

ScanAlert’s HackerSafe has been making some big headlines recently with the announcements of partnerships with both Yahoo! Shopping and PriceGrabber. These engines have integrated the HackerSafe trustmark feed into their comparison shopping portals. For specifics on the trustmark feed, check out the intro on the HackerSafe site here.

Why would comparison shopping engines be interested in HackerSafe? For starters, the service boasts that: “Tests confirm 15% average conversion increase when your HackerSafe image is displayed directly in comparison shopping search result pages.”

Joe Lazarus, director of marketing at Yahoo Shopping, states: “Combining enhanced security information with price, user ratings and merchant reviews helps online shoppers make more informed and trusted buying decisions.”

Despite such claims, many in the industry are still unsure what the true benefits of these partnerships will be. There are some interesting user comments on a recent GrokDotCom blog entry about whether or not the trust seal brings real value to consumers. Only time (and good solid analysis) will tell.

As a seasoned online shopper with over a decade of experience, I can say that I personally don’t take the time to check for “HackerSafe” or other trustmarks on a merchant product page. However, taking out the price and the brandname factors, I’d be likely to pick a “HackerSafe” trustmarked merchant site over unmarked sites, especially if they were placed right in front of my face on a comparison shopping product page.

Two large-scale integrations is a great start for HackerSafe, and I anticipate more partnerships and continued innovation in this field. I’m not sure how their “feed” currently operates, but I’d love to see a standardized web service (like BuySafe has) be on their roadmap. This would allow developers widespread access to their product, and increase the value of their product for their merchant customers. For now, interested parties can find out more information about HackerSafe and its trustmark feed here.

Resources and More on this topic:

• ScanAlert HackerSafe is Good and .. Yahoo! and PriceGrabber agree
• E-Commerce Optimization - Yahoo Shopping & ScanAlert Announce Partnership
• InternetRetailer - Yahoo Shopping adds trust marks as another comparison element
• PriceGrabber Press Release

PayPal is ready to give away $25,000 to seven Facebook developers who create innovative applications that utilize the Facebook platform and the PayPal API.  The following is a break down of the awards:

• Grand Prize (1) - $10,000
• Second Prizes (2) - $5,000
• Third Prizes (4) - $2,500

Check out the comments on this Mashable post as their has been some controversy over the rules of the contest, which have just recently been updated (better for the developers).  More about the new terms on AuctionBytes.

Our official press release for our new Facebook application went out just last Friday. Since then the application has been gaining attention from bloggers around the globe (including France and Japan). Coverage ranged from popular social media news blogs like Mashable to the shopping industry’s own InternetRetailer magazine.

Shannon from Varien provided a nice review. I figured I’d respond to her question directly here. In her review she refers to the shopping news feed (found on our application’s entrance page) and asks,

“How do I filter out all of these other users?”

Great question! As time goes on and we see more “networks of friends” versus individual users, we’ll add filtering features.

She also states

“In the end, I came away wishing more Facebook application developers had given their offerings this much thought and care.”

That means a great deal to me personally.

Next up… I’ve talked about viral expansion a lot recently. Here is what I am talking about. A continued uptrend of % of change in users. A picture is worth a thousand words right? The graphic below looks at the growth rates of our application and that of the eBay Shopping app as well (since last Friday, July 20th). While the eBay Shopping app has been around longer and has more users, our app is growing at a rapid pace.