Should Your Checkout Process Be Last?

There is a great post over on Fast Company's blog that looks at the negative experience often associated by customers with the check-out process...namely, how it comes last. They wonder: 

"Our memories of an event are overwhelmingly shaped by its last moments. So why do so many services conclude with the worst part of an experience: Paying for it?"

They site some examples of several businesses that are reinventing the idea of the "check-out," including Apple. 

You can read more over on Fast Co. Design here.

When It Comes To E-Commerce, Maybe You Shouldn't Trust Your Gut After All?

While many of us subscribe to the notion that we should always trust our gut, Get Elastic has 5 reasons we might want to abandon that tact.

They point out that testing can help us each prove whether or not our gut was right, but that even tests are typically set up based on our biased gut feelings:

"While it’s true that our guts often get it wrong and testing can help that, they also influence testing. Most tests are set up based on a gut feeling that changing XYZ will cause a lift. We may have an “informed opinion” based on research, best practices or case study references, but some of our beliefs are shaped by the following 5 factors:"

Read more about what they have to say on the Get Elastic blog.

Shopify's 2011 Year In Review

Over on the Shopify blog, they put together a pretty cool infographic that outlines some highlights of 2011 across all of their e-commerce stores. 

Here are a few: 

* $275m in overall sales

* 3,900,000 orders

* 150,000 hours of phone support

There's lots more over on the Shopify blog. 

Magento Becomes SumAll's Latest Partner

We are excited to add yet another partner to the SumAll family: Magento.

Before we released our beta version of SumAll, I traveled to London with Catherine (another SumAll team member) to attend the Meet Magento conference last October. The feedback we received from existing Magento customers was invaluable as we put the finishing touches on our tool. We met an inspiring group of entrepreneurs, and are excited about the prospect of helping and learning from other Magento store owners just like them. 

As of today, SumAll syncs up with any Magento online store. Magento shop owners can sign-up for their SumAll accounts right here, and immediately begin tracking their real-time analytics and revenue data. 

Welcome Magento!

SumAll Releases: All The Fish In The Sea

What an exciting few months!

Since our beta release, we've been busy at work collecting feedback from users, making improvements, adding features to our platform, and planning for the future.

We quickly realized that we needed a mechanism in place to track these periodic updates, and we've decided as a group that that mechanism will be fish!

Click to read more ...

Buying Under The Influence

Most of us have heard of drunk dialing before, but apparently there's a new player in town: drunk buying! Or BUI (buying under the influence). 

Many retailers have noticed that their peak activity tends to take place in the evening or late night. And consumers are beginning to fess up to the practice of going shopping after they've had one too many drinks. 

"For example Chris Tansey, an accountant from Australia, recalled his $10,000 drunken online shopping purchase: a motorcycle trip around New Zealand. Although the trip was fun, Tansey said in an email to the Times, “The hang-ups of spending your hard-earned cash are so far removed from your life when you’ve had a bottle of wine.”

Those with mobile shopping apps, are noticing similar trends, as shoppers are making purchases directly from some of their late night party spots. 

Read more over on the Zippy Cart blog.