Branko Ajzele is a good friend in the Magento community and talented developer. He launched a tool last week for sharing Magento code snippets.  Check it out at snippi.net.  Thanks for your contribution to the community, Branko!

Ben from Mailchimp.com posted an interesting idea yesterday:

Magento’s native RSS capability + Mailchimp’s RSS-to-email feature = automated inventory alerts via email.

Genius!

Magento continues to be a rising star in the world of ecommerce.  The chart below highlights search volume for ecommerce (red line) and Magento (blue line) over the last 12 months.  Interesting to note that Magento surpassed ecommerce web traffic at times during the past 30 days.

Thinking about upgrading, implementing, or enhancing your ecommerce platform?  A survey at last year’s internet retailer conference revealed the following top frustrations:

1.    Not sure what we really need
2.    Too many vendor options and not clear on how to evaluate them
3.    Not sure how much it should cost or what is affordable for me.

Translation: the market is confusing.

Let me try to add clarity to expectations.  If you picked up the Internet Retailer Guide to Ecommerce Technology, then you would having the following cost considerations for your ecommerce platform (based on FitforCommerce survey):
•    On average, a new ecommerce platform costs $50,00-$100,000 minimum.
•    Mid-sized e-retailers need to spend $150,000-300,000 to re-platform, especially if the project calls for a lot of integrations.
•    The top 200 retailers ($50 million+) might spend over $500,000 if they want a total custom solution with maximum flexibility.

Given these expectations and more than 30 pages of ecommerce platform vendors, I can understand the frustration.  However, I want to propose that market confusion is due to more than just a quantity of selection.   You have to factor in the rapid speed of innovation at all levels of the cost spectrum…and open source.

Open source ecommerce software like Magento is game-changing.  Just reread the cost ranges above and contemplate what it would have cost even 2 years ago to compete with your own sophisticated online store: $50k buy-in, minimum.  Now the cost is 70-80% less using Magento and customizing it to your business.

Drop us a note today here at Elias if you are interested in learning more.

Braveheart was on this afternoon.  One of my favorite scenes is when Wallace and his men first meet the crazy Irishman.  Two guys show up in the woods to join a movement.  One is normal, well-spoken, and blends in initially.  He even presents a present to Wallace…how thoughtful.  The other guy is crazy.  He puts a knife to someone’s throat (immediately pointing out a lapse in security).  The next scene plays out with an unanticipated twist: the crazy guy saves Wallace’s life from the normal guy’s assassination attempt.

At Elias we could use a few developers to help us grow.  We are looking for the crazy loyal type, not the nice stab-you-in-the-back type.  Do you have an island?

This weekend we switched to a new CRM system here at Elias.  I evaluated several different options including Salesforce.com and Highrise before ultimately selecing ZohoCRM.  It seemed like every system I looked at either was too simple or too expensive.  Geez. I sound like stinkin’ Goldie Locks.

Since we are small, every penny counts and every minute saved is valuable to us.  Our objective was to create a form on our website where new potential clients can submit a request for more information.  We have been slammed lately with currect clients (a good thing), but feel like we are not able to be as responsive as we would like to be with people who are trying to make a decision on who to use for their Magento ecommerce installation and Magento customization (a bad thing).  A CRM tool was desperately needed in order to collect the new contacts, file them in on-demand software, trigger an immediate email to let them know we will follow up soon, and send a notification email to me with the info that they filled out on the form.  Turns out this was harder to find than I expected.  Enter Zoho.

Other companies out there do this sort of thing, Zoho just does it for $25/month/user.  So far I have customized the lead fields, mapped them to a form, and pasted the HTML to our “Request a Quote” landing page.  Also, the software is set to automatically send me an email with the completed fields and create a follow up task due the next day (screenshot of admin below).  Next week I plan to set up the triggered email response to the interested client.

Hopefully this is helpful to you if you are looking for a CRM application.  It would be interesting to know what everyone else is using to manage their client relationships and why they selected it.  Anyone have a better find than Zoho?

Practical eCommerce author Armando Roggio posted a review of Magento’s eCommerce platform last month.  The video critique is below.  Here are a few summary points:

A few very cool Magento features:

• Add-to-compare
• Faceted navigation discovery
• Zoom feature
• Multiple product image support (again with zoom capability)

Magento is not for everyone.  It requires a working knowledge of the following to use effectively:

• Apache web server
• SOAP
• PHP
• XML
• SQL
• XHTML
• CSS

The bottom line is that although Magento is open source, it acts and looks like the best of commercial systems…

Check out Armando’s review and drop us a note at Elias.  We can help you with technical aspects of  a Magento install, Magento modifiy, Magento module, and Magento customization.

As consumers tighten their budgets and reevaluate spending during the Christmas season, it is important to sharpen your online marketing efforts.  Here are a few suggestions courtesy of John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing:

Direct Offers – Create offers that involve low-cost trials, free samples and valuable education-based information. Make an immediate response to these offers the sole reason your advertising exists.

Repackaging - Re-introduce your products with added features or services of value or do the same with your service offerings by packaging them in new and innovative ways. Increase the value of your products and services and spell the value out in terms that mean something to the prospect.

Referrals – Get out to your customers and start [talking] with them about ways to partner for referrals. Your customers know times are tough, too. [Communicate] with them and honestly explore ways to help them help you.

Strategic Partners – Now is the time to build your network of strategic referral partners. Start by referring business to trusted partners and make it a point to sit down with at least one current or potential strategic partner each week with the sole purpose of directly discussing ways to help each other grow.

Creative Thinking - Give your customers and vendors “reason why” thinking to encourage larger orders, better terms, guaranteed purchases, and loyalty clubs.

Magento offers native functionality that allows you to execute on many of John’s strategies:

• Flexible Coupons: create offers to get customers back in your store
• Email Newsletter Management: deliver the coupon via email
• Multi-tier pricing for quantity discounts: increase order size by encouraging larger quantity purchases
• Bundled Products: repackage how you offer your products by bundling
• New Items Promotional Tool: highlight new products
• Up-sells in Shopping Cart: increase order size at time of purchase
• Cross-sells on Product Page: increase order size during shopping experience
• Send to a Friend: make it easy for a visitor to forward their wishlist to mom in time for Christmas

Eric sent an email to our Elias team earlier today with a few observations that are worth sharing about Magento:

1. Magento hit its 500,000th download about 3 weeks ago
2. A couple months ago there were usually about 300 people on average at any given point signed in to Magento’s website. Recently that number has more than doubled to 1200.
3. Release 1.1.7 just came out.

Here is a clever follow up to my previous post on focus.   SOA NOW created a funny microsite to communicate to technology professionals that they “get it.” The campaign stars “Greg the Architect.” Here is the description of the episode entitled “Focus Pocus”:

Greg is concerned that the SOA team can’t stay on target. He needs a vacation, but his cruise will have to wait as Jerry recruits him to crash an SOA conference. Will Greg find the magic he needs to put his team back on course?