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The NetSuite Partner Conference was a great success from many perspectives. The NetSuite community is a strong and talented group of companies looking to make difference with "One System, No Limits". This starts with the great staff at NetSuite, from Zack Nelson (CEO) and Evan Goldberg (CTO) to the product team, sales team, marketing/PR staff and professional services. The staff has displayed their dedication to improving their product by being innovative and focusing on the end user. The same goes for the partners selling the product and the customers they serve. NetSuite is One Integrated System to Manage Your Entire Business. The web based includes Accounting / ERP, CRM and Ecommerce to run your business more effectively, fully integrating your web store and back-office. Start A Free Trial.

The theme was clear in every presentation...
The #1 goal is customer satisfaction.

Here are some announcements that I would like to share with you... Please note that these upgrades have no set date for release but they are on the radar screen. Next year there will be two upgrade releases next, they are named 2008.1 and 2008.2 - one in the middle of the year and the other towards the end of year.

Starting with a heavier focus on improving the product using customer input. NetSuite Support Center will receive a face lift, making it easier to submit enhancement requests. This includes a voting system and a way for customers to see the most requested upgrade enhancements. This creates a great customer to customer (c2c) community outside of the user group. I see being very powerful and the screen shots of the Support Center were pretty slick. Also, there has been better documentation released and will continue to be updated more frequently.

Highlights from the 2008.1 upgrade:

Checkout for ecommerce
The checkout for ecommerce will have more options focused on reducing checkout abandonment rates. This may include a one page checkout process. That would be huge, as the current checkout process is 4-5 steps. The solution will improve ecommerce user experience, then increased conversion rates equaling more web store sales.

Improved web site speed and performance
This was said to be the #1 number goal for the web store. Akamai will be used to accomplished this through image and file caching. The websites that are not in the USA will benefit the most since the image caching servers will be closer to the users computer.

Multiple ship-to addresses capability
This will only be on the back office and not included with ecommerce but it is a great first step.

Multi-site web store enhancements
The new features include the ability to use different pricing on each of your web stores and also use different payment processors. For example, you can now create a discount web site using the same inventory but with reduced prices.

Improved web analytics
Page view and keyword campaign reports will be improved.

Marketing campaigns and marketing templates will get a face lift
Currently you have to go through several steps to set up your marketing campaigns and marketing templates. This user experience will be consolidated to reduce the steps to set up your campaigns.

Highlights from the 2008.2 upgrade:

2008.2 release is mainly focus on a new back office system for "Service Companies"
Similar to using Microsoft Project, you will be able to track a project from start to finish. This includes tracking the revenue, accountability and time for each services. The ability to forecast revenue on each project allows you make your business more profitable and tracked directly into accounting. The feature is very detailed, even down to the "task" and "email" level. Nice work, this is a perfect fit for any professional services project.

Dynamic merchandising for ecommerce
The ability to organize your items by best margins, inventory and ect.

Domain Changes At Checkout
No date for this, but they are considering a better domain structure for the secure checkout process in the shopping cart of the web store. The recommended structure that was sugggested was "yourdomainname.netsuite.com"

Google Checkout
Yes, Google checkout is coming to NetSuite eCommerce. This enhancement was said to be very popular with the customer base so they have figured out a way to integrate it. Since the demand was so popular, this will rollout sometime in 2008.

This is just a brief list of features that are coming out in 2008, but it really is exciting. It is great to see the NetSuite staff, partners and customers coming together to push the product in the right direction. I am proud to be apart of this great and growing community! Want to learn more? Visit NetSuite for more details.

Labels: conversion-rates, CRM, netsuite, shopping cart, user-experience

I was deleting the old files off my desktop (as I do a few times a month) and found a few design experiments we did for this Netsuite Blog. The concepts below were massaged into the final design you are reading today. Some of the things we considered when designing this blog:

1) large left column screen shots and design examples.
2) An easy to read main area, that stood out
3) A strong and clear call to action to "Post Comments".

Overall, just a simple user experience and easy to find different related articles. That is the trouble that I find with many blogs, its hard to find more articles past the homepage. People don't want to look through archives. And I am not sure this current design still solves that problem, but let us know what you think, post a comment.









Now we are at the design you see here today.

Go ahead, speak up!

Now we are looking for feedback from you to see what changes will be making next. Do you think this blog can be organized better and do you like that we accept design submissions for review. Tell us what else you would like to see on the site. Post a comment. For example, do you like screencasts, product demos or tips to increase your ecommerce revenue. Please let us know.

Labels: user-experience

Take a look at a screencast that is filled with great ways to improve your product detail pages from Bryan Eisenberg. Some of the ecommerce sites that are reviewed are Fingerhut, Best Buy and Tiger Direct.

He will discuss the importance of:

• Formatting - Are the copy and links readable and easy-to-follow?
• Image Views - Do I get multiple, detailed views of the product?
• Calls to Action - Are these sites doing enough to push customers' buttons?

Do you have a product detail page to show off? Submit your product page design.

Labels: conversion-rates, user-experience

I am in the store helping my girl buy toys for her students. Then we see the sign for "mix and match" - buy 2 and get 1 free. Her eyes lit up and the total value of the purchase just increase by 50%. The original intent was already but now the special offer got the best of her. And my pockets got lighter.

So that had me thinking of the different strategies and promos we use to increase ecommerce conversion rates, plus improve total cart averages. This is a perfect promotion to use on old inventory or even the hot items of the season.

This can easily be done with related items on your product detail pages and discount code scenarios in email blasts. Also, it can be used in combination with free shipping - ex. Orders over $59 qualify. All of these promos are built into most ecommerce platforms including NetSuite.



Sent from my iPhone

Labels: conversion-rates, user-experience

Working out the bugs, let me know what you think of the design or functions.

Labels: css, user-experience