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  • Oracle 'In Touch' PartnerCast – Neues von der Oracle OpenWorld

    - by Alliances & Channels Redaktion
    Kurz nach den vielen interessanten Ankündigungen auf der Oracle OpenWorld sind alle Oracle EMEA Partner herzlich eingeladen, an dem „In Touch“-Partnerwebcast mit David Callaghan, Senior Vice President EMEA Alliances and Channels, und seinen Studiogästen teilzunehmen. Am Dienstag, 29. Oktober, um 11:30 Uhr MEZ informiert Sie David Callaghan über die neuesten Entwicklungen rund um die Oracle Cloud und Oracle Hardware. Er wird die Key Partner Wins aus dem ersten Quartal vorstellen sowie Ihre Fragen an seine Studiogäste weiterleiten. Live im Studio dabei ist Will O'Brien, Vice President Alliances & Channels, UK & Irland, der über die Highlights der Oracle OpenWorld berichtet und die Relevanz von Storage für das Software Business erläutert. David Callaghan wird Will O’Brien zu seiner neuen Rolle interviewen und ihn nach seinen obersten Prioritäten für FY14 befragen. Markus Reischl, Senior Director und Sales Leader EMEA Strategic Alliances, stellt die Updates in Business Intelligence vor und berichtet darüber, wie diese das gesamte Oracle Portfolio beeinflussen und welche Chancen dies für die Partner bringt. Registrieren Sie sich hier für den Webcast. Über Fragen an die Studiogäste freut sich David Callaghan. Kontaktieren Sie ihn über Twitter mit dem Hashtag #DCpickme oder per E-Mail [email protected]. Mehr Informationen über diesen sowie frühere Webcasts on-demand finden Sie hier auf der neuen Website.

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  • I finished my #TechEd 2010, may I have another??

    - by T
    It has been another fantastic year for TechEd North America.  I always love my time here.  First, I have to give a huge thank you to Ineta for giving me the opportunity to work the Ineta booth and BOF’s (birds of a feather).   I can not even begin to list how many fantastic leaders in the .Net space and Developers from all over I have met through Ineta at this event.  It has been truly amazing and great fun!! New Orlean’s has been awesome.  The night life is hoppin’.  In addition to enjoying a few (too many??) of the local hurricanes in New Orleans, I have hung out with some of the coolest people  Deepesh Mohnani, David Poll, Viresh, Alan Stephens, Shawn Wildermuth, Greg Leonardo, Doug Seven, Chris Willams, David Carley and some of our southcentral hero’s Jeffery Palermo, Todd Anglin, Shawn Weisfeld, Randy Walker, The midnight DBA’s, Zeeshan Hirani, Dennis Bottjer just to name a few. A big thanks to Microsoft and everyone that has helped to put TechEd together.  I have loved hanging out with people from the Silverlight and Expression Teams and have learned a ton.  I am ramped up and ready to take all that knowledge back to my co-workers and my community. I can not wait to see you all again next year in Atlanta!!! Here are video links to some of my fav sessions: Using MVVM Design Pattern with VS 2010 XAML Designer – Rockford Lhotka Effective RIA: Tips and Tricks for Building Effective Rich Internet Applications – Deepesh Mohani Taking Microsoft Silverlight 4 Applications Beyond the Browser – David Poll Jump into Silvelright! and become immediately effective – Tim Huckaby Prototyping Rich Microsoft Silverlight 4 Applications with MS Expression Blend + SketchFlow – David Carley Tales from the Trenches: Building a Real-World Microsoft Silvelright Line-of-Business Application – Dan Wahlin

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  • Microsoft TechDays Canada 2010

    - by David Nudelman
    John Oxley announced that TechDays is returning to Canada in more cities then ever in 2010. Vancouver – September 14/15 at the Vancouver Convention Centre Edmonton – October 5/6 at the Shaw Conference Centre Toronto – October 27/28 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre Halifax – November 2/3 at the World Trade & Convention Centre Ottawa – November 9/10 at the Hampton Inn & Conference Centre Montreal – November 23/24 at the Palais de Congres Winnipeg – December 7/8 at the Winnipeg Convention Centre Calgary – December 14/15 at the Calgary Stampede Get all the info here Regards, David Nudelman

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  • Coordinates from 3DS Max to XNA 3.5

    - by David Conde
    Hello My problem is this. I have a simple box made in 3DS Max 2009, the Box is 10x10x10. I've tried to load it on XNA and traslate the camera for 15 units, but I can seem to find the values needed to see the box properly. Can anyone point me to a good resource where I can find some good introduction to XNA coordinate system and how is a simple box made in 3DS Max imported properly Best regards, David

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  • Google Drive stripped Outlook 2010 of all emails, contacts, etc

    - by David
    I have a business that requires I use the business email: [email protected] I loaded Google Drive as a free cloud to share project details with co-worker. Side effect is that Outlook 2010 does not work now. All incoming emails are now transferred to my personal Google account. Now I can not send business emails inclusive of business headers and footers since Outlook is erroring on send/receive. And all my history of email organization on Outlook is gone. I was previously successfully syncing outlook through Google calendar to keep my blackberry sync'd Your help is appreciated - thank you. David

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  • How to Create image grid view gallery and on click show description by particular image?

    - by Priya jain
    I am Getting stuck on j-query issue i am new to it please help me! I have a image gallery like: Now i want a div to be open when i click on open link and view full description of respective image. My html code is: <ul class="thumb-pic"> <li class="box_small"> <div class="director-detail"> <div align="right"><a href="#" class="open_div">Open</a><a href="#" class="close_div">Close</a></div> <div class="director-name">David MacLeod Dip OHS</div> <div class="director-position"> Director</div> </div> <img src="images/pic1.jpg" alt="pic"> </li> <li class="large_box"> <div align="right"><a href="#" class="open_div">Open</a><a href="#" class="close_div">Close</a></div> <img src="images/pic1.jpg" alt="pic" class="small_img"> <div class="desc"> <div class="director-name">David MacLeod Dip OHS</div> <div class="director-position"> Director</div> <p>All Macil staff are true specialists in their chosen fields and bring a unique set of skills and expertise and a desire to work in the investigation industry. Macil aims to provide a work environment that is empowering, inspiring and motivational</p> </div> </li> <li class="box_small"> <div class="director-detail"> <div align="right"><a href="#" class="open_div">Open</a><a href="#" class="close_div">Close</a></div> <div class="director-name">David MacLeod Dip OHS</div> <div class="director-position"> Director</div> </div> <img src="images/pic2.jpg" alt="pic"> </li> <li class="large_box"> <div align="right"><a href="#" class="open_div">Open</a><a href="#" class="close_div">Close</a></div> <img src="images/pic2.jpg" alt="pic" class="small_img"> <div class="desc"> <div class="director-name">David MacLeod Dip OHS</div> <div class="director-position"> Director</div> <p>All Macil staff are true specialists in their chosen fields and bring a unique set of skills and expertise and a desire to work in the investigation industry. Macil aims to provide a work environment that is empowering, inspiring and motivational</p> </div> </li> <li class="box_small"> <div class="director-detail"> <div align="right"><a href="#" class="open_div">Open</a><a href="#" class="close_div">Close</a></div> <div class="director-name">David MacLeod Dip OHS</div> <div class="director-position"> Director</div> </div> <img src="images/pic3.jpg" alt="pic"> </li> <li class="large_box"> <div align="right"><a href="#" class="open_div">Open</a><a href="#" class="close_div">Close</a></div> <img src="images/pic3.jpg" alt="pic" class="small_img"> <div class="desc"> <div class="director-name">David MacLeod Dip OHS</div> <div class="director-position"> Director</div> <p>All Macil staff are true specialists in their chosen fields and bring a unique set of skills and expertise and a desire to work in the investigation industry. Macil aims to provide a work environment that is empowering, inspiring and motivational</p> </div> </li> </ul> And Jquery code that i am using: <script type="text/javascript"> $(function() { $('#st-accordion').accordion({ oneOpenedItem : true }); }); $(document).ready(function(){ $('.open_div').click(function(){ $('.large_box').show(); $(this).prev('li .box_small').hide(); }); $('.close_div').click(function(){ $('.large_box').hide(); $('.box_small').show(); }); }); </script> I am new to jquery Please help me or give me some direction to achieve the solution.

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  • Google Rules for Retail

    - by David Dorf
    In the book What Would Google Do?, Jeff Jarvis outlines ten "Google Rules" that define how Google acts.  These rules help define how Web 2.0 businesses operate today and into the future.  While there's a chapter in the book on applying these rules to the retail industry, it wasn't very in-depth.  So I've decided to more directly apply the rules to retail, along with some notable examples of success.  The table below shows Jeff's Google Rule, some Industry Examples, and New Retailer Rules that I created. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} table.MsoTableGrid {mso-style-name:"Table Grid"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-priority:59; mso-style-unhide:no; border:solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-themecolor:text1; mso-border-alt:solid black .5pt; mso-border-themecolor:text1; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-border-insideh:.5pt solid black; mso-border-insideh-themecolor:text1; mso-border-insidev:.5pt solid black; mso-border-insidev-themecolor:text1; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Google Rule Industry Examples New Retailer Rule New Relationship Your worst customer is your friend; you best customer is your partner Newegg.com lets manufacturers respond to customer comments that are critical of the product, and their EggXpert site lets customers help other customers. Listen to what your customers are saying about you.  Convert the critics to fans and the fans to influencers. New Architecture Join a network; be a platform Tesco and BestBuy released APIs for their product catalogs so third-parties could create new applications. Become a destination for information. New Publicness Life is public, so is business Zappos and WholeFoods founders are prolific tweeters/bloggers, sharing their opinions and connecting to customers.  It's not always pretty, but it's genuine. Be transparent.  Share both your successes and failures with your customers. New Society Elegant organization Wet Seal helps their customers assemble outfits and show them off to each other.  Barnes & Noble has a community site that includes a bookclub. Communities of your customers already exist, so help them organize better. New Economy Mass market is dead; long live the mass of niches lululemon found a niche for yoga inspired athletic wear.  Threadless uses crowd-sourcing to design short-runs of T-shirts. Serve small markets with niche products. New Business Reality Decide what business you're in When Lowes realized catering to women brought the men along, their sales increased. Customers want experiences to go with the products they buy. New Attitude Trust the people and listen In 2008 Starbucks launched MyStartbucksIdea to solicit ideas from their customers. Use social networks as additional data points for making better merchandising decisions. New Ethic Be honest and transparent; don't be evil Target is giving away reusable shopping bags for Earth Day.  Kohl's has outfitted 67 stores with solar arrays. Being green earns customers' respect and lowers costs too. New Speed Life is live H&M and Zara keep up with fashion trends. Be prepared to pounce on you customers' fickle interests. New Imperatives Encourage, enable and protect innovation 1-800-Flowers was the first do sales in Facebook and an early adopter of mobile commerce.  The Sears Personal Shopper mobile app finds products based on a photo. Give your staff permission to fail so innovation won't be stifled. Jeff will be a keynote speaker at Crosstalk, our upcoming annual user conference, so I'm looking forward to hearing more of his perspective on retail and the new economy.

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  • Social Shopping

    - by David Dorf
    I've written about various breeds of social shopping in the past, so I decided to give some thought into a categorization with examples. Below I've listed the different types of social shopping I've observed and some companies that support them. Comments and Ratings -- Commenting on products has been around almost as long as e-commerce. Two popular players in this space are BazaarVoice and PowerReviews. Most shoppers prefer relying on peer reviews rather than retailer descriptions, so the influence over sales is very strong. f-commerce -- A new term that was sure to rear its ugly head when retailers started allowing shopping on Facebook, And its all Elastic Path and Alvenda's fault! Co-shopping -- Retailers like Wet Seal are enabling multiple people to shop together online. This is particularly applicable to fashion, where the real-time exchange of opinions is important. I actually tried this with a co-worker and its pretty cool. Bragging -- Blippy is Twitter for shoppers, allowing purchases to be "tweeted" so you can keep up with your friends. I get alerted when friends download music or apps from iTunes because chances are I'll be interested as well. This covert influence is one-up'ed by Snatter, a service that gives people discounts for tweeting or posting promotions from retailers. This is the petri dish of viral marketing. Advice -- Combine the bragging of Blippy and the opinions from BazaarVoice and you'd get ShopSocially, a social network dedicated to spreading product knowledge amongst informed shoppers. I'm sure if I gave it more thought, a few more types would come to mind, but I've got to get back to work. Now is not the time to be blogging at Oracle!

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  • Webby Nominations for Retail

    - by David Dorf
    The Webby Awards were created back in 1996 when the internet was just a baby. This is their 14th year of highlighting excellence on the Web, and there are lots of great nominations. Its quite amazing to see the rich content and interactivity of today's websites. Some interesting nominees for this year are: Sephora did a campaign at Christmas, and what remains of the Sephora Clause website is a bunch of wishes. The Starbucks "All you need is Love" campaign has lots of cool videos. The Sound Check from Walmart highlights raising music artists. Refinery29 has their fashion info hub. The five nominees in the retail category are: Bugaboo.com's website for selling high-end baby strollers. If you're looking for a high-end bag, check out Crumpler's flash-based e-commerce site. It's highly interactive, but a little on the slow side. I Make My Case sells custom designed iPod/iPhone and Blackberry cases. At MOO.com, they love to print. Tons of art for printing customized business cards, post cards, etc. If you want light shoes, check out Puma L.I.F.T. and see just how light shoes can weigh. Check them out, cast a few votes, and see if you're inspired to create something even better.

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  • Social Network Stalking

    - by David Dorf
    Think about this: By reading this blog, you and I are connected. We have this blog and its topics in common, so there's a chance we have other things in common as well. In any relationship there is a degree of trust and influence. If you trust me, at least in terms of particular subjects, then I have some influence over you. If I buy an iPad, then there's an opportunity for me to influence your possible purchase of an over-hyped tablet that you don't really need. So what could a retailer do with this? Retailers that have fans and followers should assume that the friends of those fans and followers are more susceptible to their marketing efforts. If I'm a fan of Apple, then Apple will be more successful marketing to my friends than marketing to random people. Intuitively that makes sense, at least to me. Companies like 33Across and Pursway are already putting this theory into practice, and achieving some interesting results. Jeff Jarvis, who by-the-way is speaking at CrossTalk this year, has been discussing the power of influencers in social networks. In his blog he rails against marketers and says "messages and influence aren't the future of marketing; conversations and relationships are." Valuable messages will be passed on because they are valuable, not because someone has the power to exert influence. True enough, but that won't stop the efforts underway to leverage social networks for more targeted advertising. From a business perspective, this sounds like a goldmine to me; on a personal level, it's a bit creepy.

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  • I'm Not Bi-Polar, I'm Bi-Winning

    - by David Dorf
    On March 1st, Charlie Sheen joined Twitter and was able to amass 1M followers in 25 hours and 17 minutes, setting an official world record.  So why does it take your brand so long to collect followers?  Easy: you're brand isn't a train wreck.Wouldn't it be great if your customers we chatting about your products as much as they're talking about Charlie #winning?  There are a couple things retailers can do.  First, you can offer check-ins to your customers, which can occasionally get a "ooh, what are you buying there?" in the social network. Another methods is to allow customer to "like" particular products on your Web site.  Companies like Wet Seal excel at that.We've been experimenting with automatic posting from the POS, assuming a customer has opted-in.  When you buy something in a store, the POS can automatically post "Dave just bought something at Wet Seal" to Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare simultaneously.  We stopped short of mentioning the specific product so we don't pull a Beacon.  The idea is the same: get the conversation started.  Give customers a virtual water-cooler where they can discuss products and influence buying decisions.The guys over at ShopSocially have done something very similar.  On the Facebook page for Cafe Press, customers can claim purchases, effectively bragging on their walls.  Each posting goes through the Facebook newsfeed and gets friends interested.  They are seeing over 1,000 purchases being shared daily, and that's generating over 300,000 brand impressions.Sounds like a winning idea.

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  • New Rules of Retail

    - by David Dorf
    I've been on vacation and preparing for Crosstalk, so its been a while since I've posted. I've seen the agenda, and I can assure you Crosstalk will be lots of fun. In addition to hearing from lots of retailers, we'll also be doing a little bowling and racing on the track. I'll be around for the sessions, the ORUG meetings, and our Customer Advisory Board so please be sure to say hello. I also just completed a white paper based on a previous blog posting which in turn was based on learnings from reading What Would Google Do? For each of Jarvis' ten rules, I discuss the concept in the context of retail and provide real-world examples. No mention of products or sales pitches at all. You can download the paper here. It will put you in the right frame of mind for hearing Jeff Jarvis speak at Crosstalk. For those that can't make it, I'll post some highlights afterwards.

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  • Post-Purchase Social Media

    - by David Dorf
    When you make a particularly good purchase, the natural tendency is to share the experience with friends. You show them your cool new toy or garment, then explain how you discovered such a great deal, all the while implying you are the world's most savvy shopper. My wife does it with clothes, housewares, and books, and I do it with wiz-bang techie stuff. Post-purchase euphoria or Buyer's remorse are associated with most purchases beyond day-to-day needs. So now let's add social media to the mix. Haul videos are a YouTube phenomenon where a shopper describes their latest haul on video. Blair Fowler, aka juicystar07, is an excellent example. She and her older sister's haul videos have been viewed 75,000,000 times, at times causing particular items to sell out after being showcased. If you're not already on this bandwagon, checkout Blair's haul video from her trip to Forever21. There are a couple good articles on this trend from ABC's GMA, Slate, and NPR. Some retailers are already sending free products to these fashionistas in the hopes they'll be reviewed on camera. For those less willing to exert themselves, there's Blippy, a service that automatically tweets your purchases. Similar to Twitter, your purchases are tweeted so your friends can see what you've purchased and your network can make comments. In the example to the right, co-founder Philip Kaplan purchased a gift for his wife from the store Does Your Mother Know, proving the point that the need for privacy is overblown. Blippy has partnerships with selected merchants like Apple, Amazon, and Netflix and can also get purchases from the credit cards you've registered. When you register, you can configure whether to automatically tweet each purchase, or approve them first. No sense in broadcasting my need for Rogaine, right? This is a good thing for retailers, as it helps spread the word about purchases and gives other people ideas. Rick just bought an ooma from Amazon. What the heck is ooma? Oh, its like Vonage but no monthly bills. I'm there.

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  • Fast Fashion Freshness

    - by David Dorf
    Fashion retailers such as H&M, Zara, and Wet Seal have perfected the fast fashion retailing model. The concept requires no replenishment in order to maintain assortment freshness and to create a sense of urgency for the consumer to purchase now. However, maintaining assortment freshness results in high product turnover, making markdown optimization a necessity. Wet Seal, for instance, needed to move from ad-hoc markdowns and dealing with surplus inventory to handling markdowns methodically across 8,000 SKUs with only 12-15 week lifecycle (from DC receipt to exit). By optimizing and automating markdowns, Wet Seal is reaching their goal of assortment freshness, which in turn increases sales. If you're interested in learning more, register for a free webinar occurring on May 13th featuring Join Daniel Ryu, Vice President of Planning and Allocation at Wet Seal. He'll be discussing how the fast fashion retailer maintains their goal of assortment freshness.

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  • Measuring Social Media Efforts

    - by David Dorf
    So you're on the bandwagon and you've created a Facebook page, you're tweeting everyday, and maybe you've even got a YouTube channel. Now what? After you put any program in place, you need to measure, set new goals, then execute and this is no different. But how does one measure social media efforts? First, I guess we need some goals. Typical ones might be to acquire customers, engage them, then convert them. So that translates to: Increase Facebook fans and Twitter followers Increase comments/posting and retweets Increase redemption of offers via Facebook and Twitter Counting fans and followers is easy, and tracking the redemption of coupons isn't that hard either, but measuring engagement is a tough one. How do you know whether your fans are reading your posts, and whether your posts have any meaning to them? For Facebook, the fan page administrator has access to analytics called Facebook Insights. There you can check weekly metrics such as total fans, new fans, lost fans, demographics of fans, number of postings, numbers clicks, etc. Not nearly as comprehensive as Google Analytics, but well on its way. For Twitter, getting information is a little tougher. Again, its easy to track followers and you can use tools like TweetMeme to encourage and track retweets. An interesting website called WeFollow tries to measure influence for certain topics. For example, the top three influencers for the topic "retail" are retailweek, retailwire, and retailerdaily. Other notables are #10 BestBuy, #11 GapOfficial, #12 JeffPR, and #17 OracleRetail. I assume influence is calculated based on number of followers, number of retweets, frequency of tweets, and perhaps depth of dialogs. If you want to get serious about monitoring and measuring social marketing efforts, you'd be wise to invest in a strong tool. Several are listed on this wiki, including big ones like Radian6, Nielsen, Omniture, and Buzzient. Buzzient might be particularly interesting because its integrated with Oracle CRM OnDemand -- see the demo. As always, I'm interested in hearing how others approach goal setting and monitoring of social media efforts, so feel free to post comments.

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  • The Disloyalty Card

    - by David Dorf
    Let's take a break from technology for a second; please indulge me. (That's for you Erick.) A few months back, James Hoffmann reported that Gwilym Davies, the 2009 World Barista Champion, had implemented a rather unique idea for his cafe: the disloyalty card. His card lists eight nearby cafes in London that the cardholder must visit and try a coffee. After sampling all eight and collecting the required stamps, Gwilym provides a free coffee from his shop. His idea sends customers to his competitors. What does this say about Gwilym? First, it tells me he's confident in his abilities to make a mean cup of java. Second, it tells me he's truly passionate about his his trade. But was this a sound business endeavor? Obviously the risk is that one of his loyal customers might just find a better product at a competitor and not return. But the goal isn't really to strengthen his customer base -- its to strengthen the market, which will in turn provide more customers over the long run. This idea seems great for frequently purchased products like restaurants, bars, bakeries, music, and of course, cafes. Its probably not a good idea for high priced merchandise or infrequently purchased items like shoes, electronics, and housewares. Nevertheless, its a great example of thinking in reverse. Try this: Instead of telling your staff how you want customers treated, list out the ways you don't want customers treated. Why should you limit people's imagination and freedom to engage customers? Instead, give them guidelines to avoid the bad behavior, and leave them open to be creative with the positive behavior. Instead of asking the question, "how can we get more people in our stores?" try asking the inverse: "why aren't people visiting our stores?" Innovation doesn't only come from asking "why?" Often it comes from asking "why not?"

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  • Bump the Bill

    - by David Dorf
    I'm writing this from 3,400 feet in the air somewhere between Chicago and Austin. GoGo In-flight strikes again. Is there anywhere I can't get a WiFi connection? While listening to Deacon Blues by Steely Dan and skimming the news, I just came across an interesting article on mobile payments. Remember when I wrote about the iPhone Bump application and its possible use in retail? Well it looks like PayPal updated their mobile payments application to include the bump technology. Now its possible to transfer money between individuals by bumping iPhones. According to the WSJ, Paypal did 24 million transactions in 2008 and 140 million in 2009 on mobile phones. As the technology gets easier to use, that number is bound to increase. Alternatives to Paypal include Google Checkout, Amazon Payments, wireless carriers ("put it on my phone bill"), smart cards (using your phone's SIM card), and iTunes. That last one comes courtesy of a story Joe Skorupa wrote on mobile payments. It looks like Apple allows iPhone apps to take micro-payments via iTunes accounts, so there may come a time when its possible to use your iPhone to make a purchase in a retail store and have your credit card charged via your iTunes account. There are still some improvements in usability to be made before using a phone will be easier than swiping a credit card, but its already better than fussing with cash.

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  • More Mobile Payments

    - by David Dorf
    In the previous post I discussed the Bump Payments from PayPayl, but that's not the only innovative way to make purchases using your phone. Verizon recently announced a partnership with Danal that allows shoppers to charge online purchases to their Verizon bill. For e-commerce sites that accept this type of payment, it's a two step process. At checkout, the shopper enters their mobile number and billing zip code. Then a SMS message is sent to the mobile phone that contains a one-time code that must be entered on the e-commerce site. This two-factor authentication seems pretty secure, and no pre-registration or credit card is necessary. There's a $25 a month maximum, but I bet the limit gets raised as Verizon gets more comfortable with security. Merchants are charged a fee similar to credit card fees. Another example of mobile payments is offered by BlingNation. Customers attach a small NFC sticker to their phones that allows them to "tap" the POS device to make a payment. The NFC chip is connected to their checking account, so the transaction is treated as a debit payment. Text messages are sent to the mobile that confirm the payments so shoppers can easily verify their purchases. BlingNation is working with banks like Adirondack Trust Company and The State Bank of La Junta in Colorado. Heck, you can even send money to inmates in the Arkansas prison system using your mobile phone now that the state of Arkansas supports payments via their mobile website. Everyone is getting into the act now.

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  • Step Aside Google

    - by David Dorf
    Step aside Google. While search will always be a huge part of the web, I can see a day in the not-too-distance future where search takes a backseat to the social graph. Links between pages will give way to relationships between people, including context like location. What does this mean for retail? It means your e-commerce strategy will slowly transition to an f-commerce strategy. Remember when a large portion of the online population was held captive inside the walls of AOL? All the commercials listed an AOL keyword, not a web address because that's where the majority of people surfed. Now, people are spending a huge amount of time in Facebook (despite Betty White's proclamation that its a big waste of time). According to Facebook, users spend 500 billion minutes per month on the site. Selling products where consumers are spending their time makes sense. The power of Like and Share are the most effective approach to marketing. More and more stores are popping up on Facebook, and soon they will be the front-end to e-commerce systems. As sites adopt the Facebook Open Graph API, users will have a harder time distinguishing the open web from their Facebook experience, including shopping. Of course e-commerce sites won't go away, but a large portion of their traffic will emanate from Facebook and in some cases Facebook will act as the front-end for the web store. Ignore Facebook Open Graph at your peril. In a Mashable article, Mitchell Harper made several predictions about how e-commerce will change based on Facebook. His five points are not far-fetched at all, so we need to watch this space carefully.

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  • Four Emerging Payment Stories

    - by David Dorf
    The world of alternate payments has been moving fast of late.  Innovation in this area will help both consumers and retailers, but probably hurt the banks (at least that's the plan).  Here are four recent news items in this area: Dwolla, a start-up in Iowa, is trying to make credit cards obsolete.  Twelve guys in Des Moines are using $1.3M they raised to allow businesses to skip the credit card networks and avoid the fees.  Today they move about $1M a day across their network with an average transaction size of $500. Instead of charging merchants 2.9% plus $.30 per transaction, Dwolla charges a quarter -- yep, that coin featuring George Washington. Dwolla (Web + Dollar = Dwolla) avoids the credit networks and connects directly to bank accounts using the bank's ACH network.  They are signing up banks and merchants targeting both B2B and C2B as well as P2P payments.  They leverage social networks to notify people they have a money transfer, and also have a mobile app that uses GPS location. However, all is not rosy.  There have been complaints about unexpected chargebacks and with debit fees being reduced by the big banks, the need is not as pronounced.  The big banks are working on their own network called clearXchange that could provide stiff competition. VeriFone just bought European payment processor Point for around $1B.  By itself this would not have caught my attention except for the fact that VeriFone also announced the acquisition of GlobalBay earlier this month.  In addition to their core business of selling stand-beside payment terminals, with GlobalBay they get employee-operated mobile selling tools and with Point they get a very big payment processing platform. MasterCard and Intel announced a partnership around payments, starting with PayPass, MasterCard's new payment technology.  Intel will lend its expertise to add additional levels of security, which seems to be the biggest barrier for consumer adoption.  Everyone is scrambling to get their piece of cash transactions, which still represents 85% of all transactions. Apple was awarded another mobile payment patent further cementing the rumors that the iPhone 5 will support NFC payments.  As usual, Apple is upsetting the apple cart (sorry) by moving control of key data from the carriers to Apple.  With Apple's vast number of iTunes accounts, they have a ready-made customer base to use the payment infrastructure, which I bet will slowly transition people away from credit cards and toward cheaper ACH.  Gary Schwartz explains the three step process Apple is taking to become a payment processor. Below is a picture I drew representing payments in the retail industry. There's certainly a lot of innovation happening.

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  • Selling Solutions, Not Products

    - by David Dorf
    When I think about next-generation retailers, the names that come to mind are Apple, Whole Foods, Lulu Lemon, and IKEA.  They may not be the biggest retailers, but they are certainly growing fast. Success is never defined by just one dimension, and these retailers execute well across many dimensions, but the one that stands out for me is customer experience.  These stores feel...approachable...part of the community...local.  Customers are not intimidated to ask questions, and staff seem to go out of their way to help. What's makes these retailers stand out in the industry?  These retailers aren't selling products -- they're selling solutions.  Think about that.  You think you're going to the Apple store to buy a phone, but you're actually buying a communications solution that handles much, much more.  If you carry an iPhone, your life has changed.  The way you do things is different.  The impacts go much beyond a simple phone. Solutions start with a problem, which is why these retailers greet customers with "what brought you in today," or "can I answer any questions for you?"  Good retailers establish a relationship, even if it lasts only a few minutes. You don't walk into Whole Foods looking for cans of soup.  You are looking for meals: healthy snacks, interesting lunches, exotic dinners.  Its a learning experience where you might discover solutions to problems you didn't know you had.  Mention what foods you like, and you'll get a list of similar items you had not considered.  I didn't know I needed a closet organizer until I visited an IKEA and learned about all the options.  They were able to customize the solution to meet my needs, and now I'm much more organized. One of the differences between selling products and selling solutions is training.  Visit any of these retailers' sites and you'll see a long list of in-store events for the benefit of customers.  You can buy exercise clothing from Lulu Lemon, and also learn new yoga techniques, meet like-minded people, and branch off to other fitness regimes via their ambassadors.  You can visit the Geek Bar at Apple, eat lunch at IKEA, and learn to cook at Whole Foods. These retailers are making an investment in a relationship with their customers.  They are showing loyalty to their customers before asking for it back.  In the long-run, this strategic approach will outlive any scan-and-bag mentality.

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  • You Can't Win on Price

    - by David Dorf
    This year I did the majority of my Christmas shopping from the comfort of my home office. There aren't many things in stores you can't find online these days. I find it easier to search, research, and compare products online rather than walking the mall anyway. But there's a segment of the population that likes to be in the store, touching the products. For those people, smartphones avail them some of the e-commerce features I mentioned right there in the aisles. First it was RedLaser, then TheFind, ShopSavvy and many others. But the one that should be scaring retailers is Amazon's PriceCheck application. It lets you scan the product barcode, take a picture of the product, or speak the product's name. Once the product is identified, it shows the online prices, with Amazon at the top of the list. Within 10 seconds you can order the item and Amazon Prime members get free 2-day shipping too. I don't think fashion and grocery retailers need to worry much, but I have to believe smartphones are helping Amazon win a little more of the brand-name hardgoods market. So what's a retailer to do? Best Buy has begun to put QR Codes on their shelf labels that are easily scanned by smartphones and take the consumer to a Best Buy Web page where they can get extended information about the product. The consumer is getting the additional information they want, and Best Buy avoids the price comparisons. Of course if a consumer chooses to use the Amazon PriceCheck app, then all bets are off. That's when Best Buy has to hope the in-store experience and customer service will save the sale. My point is that the internet makes information available to everyone, and smartphones make it available anywhere. Unless you want your store to be Amazon's local showroom, you need to be price-competitive but differentiate on other aspects of the shopping experience. With the cost of running a physical store, you can't win on price.

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  • iPhone Peripherals for Retailers

    - by David Dorf
    I saw RedLaser on the latest "Shopper" iPhone commercial on TV. Works great for consumers, but retailers will be more interested in a true barcode reader from someone like Infinite Peripherals, which also comes with a magstripe reader I previously mentioned the offerings from Square Verifone, and Mophie that allow swiping credit cards with an iPhone as well. So what's next? There's a decent list at WireLust that includes an IR dongle that turns your iPhone into a TV remote, armband monitors for use when exercising, and most recently a NFC/RFID reader. iCarte from Canadian firm Wireless Dynamics looks interesting. This device can be used for NFC payments and for reading RFID tags. The Canon printer I just bought for home has an iPhone app that lets me send iPhone pictures directly to the printer for printing. In that same vein, Seems like retailers could use bluetooth to print receipts on strategically place printers on the floor. I can't wait to see what they come up with for the iPad.

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  • A Look Back at 2010 Predictions

    - by David Dorf
    Now is the time of year people make their predictions for next year, but before I start thinking about 2011 it's worth a look back to see how my predictions for 2010 fared. 1. Borders and Blockbuster bite the dust. I would have never predicted a strong brand such as Circuit City could die, but now I know it can happen to anyone. Borders has lost the battle with Barnes & Noble and Blockbuster has lost to Netflix. And just to be sure, Amazon put an extra nail in each coffin. Borders received additional investment from Bennett LeBow to keep it afloat, but the stock is down around $1.25 with no profits in sight. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy back in September. 2. Every retailer finally has a page on Facebook... but very few figure out how to keep fans engaged. Retailer postings become noise, and fans start to unsubscribe. Twitter goes in the same direction. A few standout retailers will figure out how to use social media, and the rest will remain dumbfounded. Most retailers are on the Facebook bandwagon, and their fan bases seem to be increasing thanks to promotions like The Gap's logo redesign, Lowes' black Friday sneak peak, and Walmart's Crowd Savers. There are several examples of f-commerce advancements, including some interesting integrations from Amazon.3. Smartphones consolidate and grow. More and more people will step-up to smartphones, most of which will choose iPhone, Blackberry, and Android phones. Other smartphones will vanish, and networks will start to strain. But retailers will finally embrace mobile as the next big channel. Retail marketing departments will build mobile apps without the help of their IT department, and eventually they will get into a bind. Android has been on a tear lately stealing market share from Blackberry. Palm and Microsoft are trending down, and Apple is holding steady. Smartphone sales are up 15% and expected to continue. Retailers understand the importance of mobile, and some innovative applications have been produced this year. 4. Google helps the little guys. Google will push its Favorite Places project to help give exposure to small retailers and restaurants. They will enable small retailers to act like big ones by providing storefronts, detailed product information, and coupons for consumers. Google will find a way to bring augmented reality to the masses. I can't say I've seen much new from Google regarding Favorite Places, but they've continued to push local product search. From the PC or smartphone, consumers can search for products and see which nearby stores have it stock. Oracle Retail even productized an integration to Google to support this effort. I suppose if Google ever buys Groupon then it will bring them even closer to local shopping. Google talked about augmented humanity, but that has nothing to do with augmented reality. 5. Steve Jobs Is Bugs Bunny and Steve Ballmer is Elmer Fudd. (OK, I stole that headline from an InformationWeek article. I couldn't resist.) Both Apple and Microsoft will continue to open new stores, but only Apple will show real growth. POSReady 2009 (formerly WEPOS) will continue to share the POS market with Linux. The iPhone and iPod will continue to capture market share, but there won't be an Apple tablet. There won't be an Apple tablet? What was I thinking? While Apple has well over 300 stores, there are less than 10 Microsoft stores. Initial impressions show that even though Microsoft is locating its store near Apple Stores, they are not converting customers, with shoppers citing a lack of assortment and high prices. 6. Consolidation of e-commerce software providers. Software vendors in the areas of search, reviews, online call-centers, payments, and e-commerce will consolidate, partly driven by the success of m-commerce and SaaS. Amazon will find someone else to buy, and eBay will continue to lose momentum. Consolidation of e-commerce providers continued with IBM acquiring Sterling Commerce and CoreMetrics, and Oracle recently announcing the acquisition of ATG. Amazon grabbed Zappos, Woot, and Diapers.com to continue its dominance of online selling. While eBay's Marketplace growth may have slowed, its PayPal division is doing quite well, fueled in part by demand for mobile payments. 7. Book publishers mirror music labels. Just as the iPod brought digital downloads to the masses, the Kindle and Nook will power the e-book revolution. Books will continue to use DRM for a few more years before following the path of music. Publishers will try to preserve the margins of hardbacks by associating e-book releases with paperbacks. Amazon has done a good job providing e-reader clients for smartphones, PCs, and tablets. Competition from Barnes & Noble has forced Amazon to support book loaning, and both companies are making it easier for people to publish ebooks (with or without DRM). Progress is slow but steady. 8. NFC makes inroads, RFID treads water. Near Field Communications start to appear in mobile phones, and retailers beta test its use for payments and loyalty programs. RFID tag costs come down a bit, but not enough to spur accelerated adoption.Nokia announced plans to offer NFC-enabled phones in 2011, and rumors are swirling about NFC in the upcoming iPhone.  I think NFC is heading in the right direction, and I've heard more interest from retailers about specialized uses for RFID.9. Digital Signage goes the way of augmented reality. People use their camera phones to leave geo-tagged notes all over cities, rating stores and restaurants, and "painting" graffiti. But people get tired of holding their phones in front of their faces, so AR glasses are offered in much the same way bluetooth headsets emerged. Retailers experiement with in-store advertising using AR. Several retailers like Pizza Hut, Benetton, and Target have experimented with AR but its still somewhat of a gimmick used by marketing.  I think this prediction is a year or two too early. 10. JDA flip-flops again. After announcing their embracing of the .Net architecture, then switching to J2EE after the Manugistics acquisition, JDA will finally decide to standardize on Apple's Objective C. Everything will be ported to the iPhone and be available on the AppStore. After all, there's not much left to try. This was, of course, a joke but the sentiment is still valid.  JDA seems more supply-chain focused than retail focused, which is a an outcrop if their i2 acquisition.  Of the 10 predictions, I'm going to say I got 6 somewhat correct.  (Don't you just love grading your own paper?)  Soon I'll post my predictions for 2011 so be on the lookout.  Until then here's one more prediction:  Va Tech beats Stanford in the Orange Bowl -- count on it!

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  • Paying by Cash

    - by David Dorf
    I'll grant you paying by cash in the context of stores isn't particularly interesting, but in my quest to try new payment methods I decided to pay by cash at an online store. Using a credit card means I have to hoist myself off the couch, find the card, and enter all those digits. Google Checkout certainly makes that task easier by storing my credit card information, but what happens to all those people that don't have a credit card? What about the ones that are afraid to use credit cards over the internet. There are three main options for cash payment, not all of which are accepted by every merchant. The most popular is PayPal. The issue I have with them is that returns and disputes have to be handled with PayPal, not the merchant. I once used PayPal at a shady online store and lost my money. Yeah, my bad but they wouldn't help me at all. PayPal was purchased by eBay in 2002. BillMeLater is best for larger purchases, because at checkout they actually run a credit check to make sure you're credit worthy. Assuming you are, they pay the merchant on your behalf and mail you a bill, which you better pay quickly or interest will start to accrue. That's nice for the merchant because they get paid right away, and I presume there's no charge-backs. BillMeLater was purchased by eBay in 2008. Last night I tried eBillMe for the first time. After checkout, they send you a bill via email and expect you to pay either via online banking (they provide the instructions to set everything up) or walk-in locations across the US (typically banks). The process was quick and easy. The merchant doesn't ship the product until the bill is paid, so there's a day or two delay. For the merchant there are no charge-backs, and the fees are less than credit cards. For the shopper, they provide buyer protection similar to that offered by credit cards, and 1% cashback on purchases. Once the online bill-pay is setup, its easy to reuse in the future. Seems like a win-win for merchants and shoppers.

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