The Savvy CIO

As half of the country was digging out from under a record snowfall a few weeks ago, the inaugural Imagine eCommerce conference was unfolding in beautiful, sunny, snowless Los Angeles.  I had the good fortune of being one of the 650 attendees at this sold-out momentous conference. Highlights included a new release of the “Magento Community Edition” platform, the entirely new cloud-based “Magento Go” platform, and a food truck in the parking lot with three of my favorite words on it: “In-N-Out.”

Hot Topics at Imagine:

Application Program Interface (API)

• An API is a set of interfaces providing an increasingly rich set of services offered by web applications.
• They allow developers to communicate between independent platforms.
• They are used to enter a customer’s order from your eCommerce platform into your CRM platform.
• API’s allow an ERP system to look up data on customers in your B2B store
• Developers are able to create meaningful data to merchants and better experiences for buyers.
• They provide a simple and secure layer to perform high-level operations.

Magento “Go”

• Since its release, Magento’s range of APIs has grown steadily over the years, and with this latest release, it takes a giant leap forward.
• SaaS platforms like “Go” are some of the biggest beneficiaries of APIs as its core code is not readily accessible.

Magento’s Appeal to Merchants

• Its combination of scalability and ease with which customizations can be applied
• Small-scale merchants can tap into the extension marketplace for a colorful assortment of pre-written customizations.
• Multinational companies, like Samsung, utilize it for complex backend customizations.
• If a merchant launches a store on the “Go” platform and in six months has so much business he needs to scale up to “Enterprise,” they can rest easy knowing that their custom store will function exactly the same.

Magento’s Appeal to Developers

• It’s an easily scalable system.
• Developers don’t have to rewrite the customizations every time the client needs more bandwidth.
• Developers don’t have to explain to the client why it’s going to take as long to upgrade as it did to design the original site.

Lastly, I was surprised by the number of business owners present at Imagine in relation to developers.  The fact that so many business minds help create, define, and lead Magento’s vision is an integral part to why it is the most successful eCommerce platform in the market.  We as developers are indubitably creative and brilliant, but we’re also less business-minded than our business counterparts are. The fact that this platform engages both cross-spectrum users is what makes the Magento work exciting.

By Highland Developer, Brad Zasada

The primary ways of accessing the Internet are changing. Now that large, wide-screen, flat panel, high resolution monitors are affordable and easily available, they’re being abandoned for tiny screens on mobile phones. Exactly why so many of us would choose to access a website on a screen the size of a playing card (while attempting to walk down a sidewalk at the same time, no less) can be bewildering, but there is no denying the “mobile revolution” has gained critical mass.

The stronger your online presence, the more people there are looking at your website or newsletter or blog on a mobile device. Do you have any idea how it looks?

If not, go ahead and try it out. It’s usually not very pretty.

The bad news is that all of the attention, effort and resources you’ve poured into your website, newsletter, blog, e-commerce site, etc. amounts to almost nothing on a mobile device. Load times are so long and screen sizes are so strange that only the most determined mobile browser will be able to find the information they’re looking for.

The solution? Start providing mobile alternatives. read more »

Deez provides high performing auto racing parts and specialized racing fuels. Recently, the company was looking to take their online marketing and e-commerce presence to a higher performing level.

Highland delivered an e-commerce site to help Deez stand out in a competitive automotive market. The site layout allows customers to browse multiple channels whether by brand, category, or through digital copies of Deez’s catalogs. Catalogs are still big in the auto parts world, so Deez included them as a digital link between catalog browsers and online purchases.

The home page highlights current specials and featured brands along with new and best-selling products. Our extensive experience with auto parts e-commerce sites coupled with marketing research done by Winsby, Inc. informed the layout, matching customer expectations and targeting buying trends.

read more »

We recently programmed a client’s business-to-business e-commerce site to display competitor pricing alongside their own pricing.

Sound crazy?

We don’t think showing your competitor’s pricing is smart for everyone. But the idea behind it is embracing the truth that you can’t hide information from shoppers. Most visitors already know the lowest prices for the items they’re buying, or can double-check in under 10 seconds. There’s no hiding anymore.

Last week I found myself at an enormous, local mall hunting for a pair of shoes. Like most shoppers, I had a set of assumptions in my mind about what was important to me in my purchasing decision. In my case my criteria were, in order:

read more »