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Forrester research firm a leading research firm on online trends, conducted a survey on online trends and found that companies that are growing faster than expected are more likely to embrace social media. The study also showed that even companies planning to make a cut on their online business will be less likely to cut their spending on social media usage. More and more companies are embracing social media networking as their marketing strategy to boost their e-Commerce sales.

What is it that is making companies focus from their traditional online approach and embrace the social media networking? The answer is simple. Be it Christmas sales or Thanks giving sales, bargain hunters are always on the lookout for good deals on the internet. Social networking sites provide a one stop reference guide to these people with similar interests. Consumers are also using the social media to express their product or online opinion/experience positive as well as negative on this platform. And all this happens at a much higher rate than that would have been achieved using the conventional word of mouth publicity.

Effective Social media networking usage allows your company to get in touch with your customers, share their ideas and be in tune with their latest needs to achieve a superior competitive advantage. This tool can be effectively used to increase Ecommerce store traffic as well as to create awareness about your products/company ultimately leading to a boost in your Ecommerce sales. Good ecommerce deals can rapidly reach target customers frequenting these sites. Also with budget cuts on marketing expenses in these tough economic times, this is a perfect medium for Ecommerce stores with to publicize their offerings at a very low cost.

Simple Steps to Leverage Social Media.

1.    Define the Objective

2.    Pick the Right Mix

3.    Content Management

4.    Message Delivery and Follow up

 

1.    Objective Definition

Objectives will always differ from company to company. However a general guideline can be achieved by brainstorming the following questions within your team.

 

·                     What communication do you want to propagate to your customers?

·                     Do you want to announce a new sale coming up on your Ecommerce website?

·                     Do you want to emphasize on your customer service?

·                     Do you want to publicize a new promotion scheme on the web?

·                     Do you want to emphasize on your corporate/environmental/social responsibility?

 

While outlining your goals, take care that the intended audience also benefits from the communication message.

 

2.    Picking the right mix

The right assortment of these sites is the key.  Although social networking sites usage by customers will differ for every ecommerce business model, it is always recommended that your top Social Media set should comprise of at least one of these popular social networking sites www.youtube.com , www.flickr.com, www.twitter.com.

The right mix needs to be decided depending on the customer set you are targeting and your business objective. Feature explanation of these sites given below.

·         www.youtube.com

You can upload your product information or demonstration videos on “YouTube” and embed the video on Ecommerce website. This feature helps your potential customers on Ecommerce as well as networking sites access your well compiled images/videos on YouTube and get benefitted. Some simple steps given below:

                      i.  Post your videos on YouTube.

                     ii.  Add a YouTube building block to the website. Point that building block at the client YouTube account.

                    iii.  Add new videos to YouTube and simply change the setting in your YouTube building block to see that video on you site.

 

Check out this page of a client example using Ignify Ecommerce to show how easily you can embed YouTube videos on your eStore and increase stickiness. http://www.umarexusa.com/pages/100_shot_maintenanceMov.aspx

 

·         www.flickr.com

Flickr is an online photo management and sharing application. You can upload your product photos to Flicker. Add this website block on your website and provide existing Ecommerce users with a unique visual appeal. And you get all this without worrying about your Ecommerce web server space. The steps are really simple to implement:

                    i.    Post your images and videos on Flickr and YouTube.

                   ii.    Add Flickr building block to the website. Point that building block at the client Flickr account.

                  iii.    Add new images to Flickr and see them appear instantly on the website.

 

·         www.twitter.com

Twitter allows you to micro-blog and list all the activities in short texts. This tool can be effectively used to announce the commencement of a new product or company news. Providing a link to the product details page helps in increasing site traffic and boosting sale for that product.

 

3.    Content Management

We recommend using new products or products with promotions applied to generate maximum customer interest. You can also include discount codes on Twitter and link them to your website. Last but not the least; link your existing Ecommerce users to your social media by providing a link on the home page of your site itself.

4.    Message Delivery and Follow up

Although above benefits look simple, social networking usage requires a lot of personal attention from the management of Ecommerce stores. Take for example your customer shows interest in your promotional campaign on a networking site and there is nobody to respond to it or the page link does not open on the Ecommerce website. Incidents like these can create negative impact on your potential clients and customers can quickly lose interest. To avoid this pitfall, you may have to organize a resource who can dedicate some time to answer and guide your customer. You can make customers delighted by showing your genuine concern towards their tweets. This can require a dedicated knowledgeable person who can reply to tweets as well as ensure that customer responses are taken up internally within the team.

That’s all there is to it! While not every ecommerce store uses social media interface, those that do it well will reap the rewards in the longer run with higher customer loyalty, lower marketing costs and the benefits of the word of mouth.

This post is written by  Himaunshu Rajadhyaksha. Himaunshu is an Account Manager in the eCommerce Practice at Ignify. Ignify eCommerce is the only PCI compliant solution that integrates with mid-market ERPs. Ignify eCommerce offers out of the box integration with Microsoft Dynamics ERP (including Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics SL) and Sage ERP (including Sage MAS 90, Sage MAS 200 and Sage MAS 500) Ignify is a Global Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle Partner specializing in ecommerce for Retail, Distribution, and Manufacturing businesses. Ignify has been included as the fastest growing business in North America for 3 years in a row by Deloitte, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine. 

Ignify implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM Sales & Service module for one of our non-profit clients in the education segment in Southern California. CRM Contracts entity coupled with workflows and an xRM application is utilized for their contract management business. Before the contracts are dispatched they go through multiple levels where they are verified and required changes are added or modified for the final version. A Contract gets reassigned from one level/team to another. It was important to track notes entered at each level. However, The out-of-box configuration CRM configuration resets the ModifedDate and ModifiedBy on all contract notes whenever the contract is re-assigned.

The following blog is written to share my experience on how to avoid update of the modified date and modified by for the notes/annotation  records when the parent entity is reassigned.

Cause of this issue: Contract entity has a 1:N relationship with the Notes (Annotations) entity . Since the relationship type is “Parental” with the “Cascade All” setting for all operations, whenever a Contract was assigned (or re-assigned), all contract notes were updated to the new values. The resolution for this issue was to set the relationship behaviour to “Configurable” and Assign Operation behaviour to “Cascade None” to preserve the old assignments.

Steps to resolve this issue:

• 1. Open Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• 2. Goto Settings -> Customization
• 3. Click on Customize Entities
• 4. Open the Contract entity
• 5. Click on 1:N Relationships
• 6. Double click the Contract_Annotation relationship
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• 7. Change the “Type of Behavior” from Parental to “Configurable Casading”
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• 8. Change the “Assign” from Cascade All to “Cascade None”
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• 
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• 9. Save and close the changes
• 10. Publish the changes

This post is written by Neerav Shah. Neerav is a Senior Technical Analyst in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Practice at Ignify . Ignify is a Global Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle Partner specializing in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Retail, Distribution, Contact Centers verticals. For help on Microsoft Dynamics CRM email us at dynamics@ignify.com

The first thing that jumps out to me about BestBuy.com is that it hasn't kept up with the changing monitor resolution landscape. About 45 percent of my monitor real estate is whitespace when I view BestBuy.com and the website only occupies the left hand side of my monitor. Ignify's research shows that the average online shopper now has a monitor resolution that is 1280 x 800 or higher. Best Buy has tailored its website to be at 1024 x 768 — which (to give credit) used to be the standard monitor configuration. However, most shoppers moved past that many months ago with 75 percent now having a monitor resolution that is higher than 1024×768. Best Buy opting for lower resolution is an annoyance and poor use of technology.

Given the volume of transactions that the site processes, I would have expected BestBuy.com to use the Amazon.com model of resizing the site to the user's monitor resolution so that the white space is eliminated.

I often shop at Best Buy for two reasons — great prices on laptops and desktops and a very well-integrated in-store pick up process. The in-store pick up is important because I can get items the same day as opposed to having to wait until the next day or two days with other online-only retailers. That is certainly a competitive advantage that Best Buy brings to the table over most online retailers. Also, the process is very well integrated and my order is usually ready for pick up in about two hours from the time of placing the order.

I've also used the pickup service when I needed to buy items for a tradeshow in another city. This service allows me to ensure that the product is guaranteed available wherever I am picking up in addition to saving me costs on shipping. However, my experience has been that the in-store pick up experience itself has been underwhelming. The store agents often are chattering amongst themselves at the pickup counter and are often confused about what to do about an order placed outside the physical store. While the technology for pick up is well integrated, the people handling the final stage of the online order destroy the slickness of the overall experience. Better training and more focus on the customer would help streamline the process and make this a great differentiator for Best Buy.

When it comes to certain categories like laptops, desktops and a few other electronic items, Best Buy does have incredible pricing. I have accounts at nearly all major online electronic retailers including Buy.com and Amazon.com, and find that in these limited categories Best Buy does an incredible job of keeping the pricing very competitive.

Some of the gripes that I do have are that the cross-sell recommendations are not relevant enough and that the customer reviews are very limited. While BestBuy.com has reviews, there are just not as many as you see at Amazon. Perhaps this is because they provided the ability to give reviews much later. Very often I find myself looking up the same product on Amazon that I'm planning to buy on Best Buy to validate the reviews. That behavior (and I know from talking to other people that I'm not an exception) is dangerous to Best Buy because I am leaving their site to go to another site and there is a chance that I may complete the purchase elsewhere.

Best Buy could strengthen its review process by following up purchases with a "Review the product" email a few weeks after the purchase is completed. That step usually drives up reviews.

The cross-sells (which Best Buy calls accessories) are an important part of trying to understand how the product works best. For example, a memory upgrade or a netbook sleeve with a netbook are great cross-sell items and make the purchase experience easier as well as more profitable for Best Buy. However, most of the cross-sell items are not well researched and don't seem to be based on customer behavior. Instead they seem to be based on what Best Buy would like to sell with the product. The best sites analyze the customer purchase history and recommend the related products or cross-sells based on shopping history. Best Buy needs to bring some of that analysis to the forefront.

Best Buy brings a great value proposition to the customer with its in-store pick sup backed by a large chain of brick and mortar stores combined with attractive pricing. Improvements in the analytics, product comparison and reviews are in order and Best Buy could take a page from online-only retailers such as Amazon as its benchmark.

What's Good

• Well-integrated store pick-up service with its entire chain of retail stores
• Incredible pricing in select categories

What's Not So Good

• Customer experience at pick-up service in the store is underwhelming
• Web site size is not in tune with users monitor resolution, leaving considerable white space
• Cross-sell recommendations are not based on purchase history and are less relevant than they should be

Sandeep Walia is the President & CEO of Ignify. Ignify is a technology provider of ERP, CRM, and eCommerce software solutions to businesses and public sector organizations. Ignify is a Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle Partner  and ranked in the top 18 Microsoft Dynamics partners. Ignify has been included as the fastest growing business in North America for 3 years in a row by Deloitte, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine.

An informative article publised in the Wall Street Journal on Friendly Fraud. 35% of fraud is 'friendly fraud' – and most merchants realize there is nothing friendly about friendly fraud. It is extremely hard to track. We continue to enhance our fraud management capabilities with an Anti-fraud parameterized filter that helps screen such fraud. http://bit.ly/7uZREQ

Sandeep Walia is the President & CEO of Ignify. Ignify is a technology provider of ERP, CRM, and eCommerce software solutions to businesses and public sector organizations. Ignify is a Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle Partner  and ranked in the top 18 Microsoft Dynamics partners. Ignify has been included as the fastest growing business in North America for 3 years in a row by Deloitte, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine.

We recently started Dyanmics AX community discussion meetings to internally talk about projects – what worked,  what didn't to share our learnings and strengthen our practice. On Nov 21, 2009, we held our first DAX community meeting in Los Angeles. The idea of this meeting is to contribute new learning, knowledge sharing, sharing solution designs towards DAX community.  We took one project which went live last month and discussed the implementation cycle.

 

We discussed major features of this project like Warehouse Management, Auction Upload, Bidding, Inventory Reservation, Order Creation, Picking, Shipping, Invoicing, Returns, Order Cancellation, Refunds, Coupon Management. This involves integration of Dynamics AX with front end. Front end is implemented in Java and integration is done using .net business connector.

 

We also discussed what gotchas we faced during this project implementation and what pain points business was having. Initially, we faced integration problem. For example, one of the challenges was around doing integration between Java applications and Dynamics AX?   we created a .net dll that uses the .net business connector to connect to AX and Java in turn is calling this dll.

 

Before this implementation, the customer was using a legacy system which was implemented in .net and SQL. The in-house system did not provide ERP features and Warehouse Management functionality. For example – the system did not have proper order cancellation and customer refund processes. A significant advantage that the customer got from new implementation is the robust ERP system with a full-fledged warehouse management system, order cancellation and customer refund process. It is so easy now for the users to calculate accurate refund using Dynamics AX standard RMA creation process. We enhanced the standard RMA process a little bit but the basic process is very much standard AX. Claim process is also utilizing RMA functionality. The only difference between RMA and Claim process is that item doesn’t get received back in Claim process. We also customized it to give user facility to adjust sales/refunds.

 

We also implemented a rule engine which monitors the order while creation and puts the order into Not Reviewed, Suspect, Stopped, Released state based on fraud rules setup.

 

There is a new requirement to have the customer cash credit feature within AX. The requirement is that customer can refer other customer and customer who referred should get cash credit based on first purchase done by customer whom customer referred. Basically, to have referral reward feature within AX. We discussed design solution to implement this requirement and we come up with 2 design solution. One to use standard free text invoice and second to use standard payment journal feature of AX. Most probably, we will go with payment journal feature.

 

More to come!

 

This post is written by Khushhal Garg. Attendees at the Dynamics AX community meeting were Khushhal Garg, Craig Griffith, Ravinder Singh, Gopi Balakrishnan and Satish Panwar. Khushhal Garg is a Dynamics AX technical manager in the Microsoft Dynamics AX Practice at Ignify . Ignify is a Global Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle Partner specializing in Dynamics AX for Retail, Distribution, Manufacturing and Chemicals verticals. For help on Microsoft Dynamics ERP email us at dynamics@ignify.com.