Jason Meugniot

National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

2011-12-07T11:49:00.000-08:00

Photo: REUTERS/U.S. Navy Photograph/Newscom/Handout

Sent via email to my staff today...

When I was about 20, I visited the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. The President today declared December 7th as National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. I wanted to remind you all of this as we get into the tail of our busy Wednesday.

My granddad fought in the war that began in Pearl Harbor, as many of your granddads did, too. He passed away a few years ago. But he is and will remain one of my true heroes.

I'm not sure he would be proud of what he would read in the papers, today. But it reminds me to find ways to honor him and the rest of his selfless generation, somehow.

Today, on December 7th, after 70 years, we are reminded again of the extraordinary strength of purpose and resolution of our Greatest Generation. And as we head to lunch and return to finish our workday, consider ways that we can honor our WWII veterans, perhaps by showing some greatness ourselves whether at Guidance, or in our communities, schools, churches, synagogues or elsewhere.

Good Morning M-Commerce Helpers...

2011-10-05T16:04:00.000-07:00

"It's A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood!" Mr. Rogers was right after all. In a recent look at the 300 largest M-Commerce companies - sequenced by M-Commercerevenue - Foot Locker ranks among the top.

Remember, Guidance developed M-Commerce sites earlier this year for multiple Foot Locker brands, including footlocker.com, ccs.com and eastbay.com.

Check out the competition: Wal-Mart appeared at slot 4 with $127.7 million. Staples came in at a projected $45.3 million this year, followed byBest Buy ($37.9 million), Macy's ($33.2 million), Buy.com ($32.5 million), FootLocker ($32 million), Sears ($31.7 million) and Overstock ($31.6 million).

Not a bad set of neighbors, Foot Locker. Congratulations on your mobile success this year!

Source: Evan Schuman, StoreFrontBackTalk

Putting Kids On Their Feet

2011-09-29T13:01:00.000-07:00

Guidance is proud to, once again, support the United Negro College Fund as a sponsor of Foot Locker's ON OUR FEET gala.

The UNCF is thenation’s largest and most effective minority education organization. To date, Foot Locker has awarded nearly 400 scholarships to deserving students attending a UNCF school.

They are currently in the process of gatheringhundreds of responses from qualified individuals for the ‘11/’12 school year.As a result of the overwhelming response to the scholarship program and yourincredible generosity and support, they are excited to provide even more aspiringstudents with the incredible opportunity to further their education.

The annual event is held at Gotham Hall in New York City and draws hundreds of guests donning tuxedos, cocktail dresses and... sneakers. It's the one night of the year when you can mix Armani, Prada and K-Swiss.

We will also be supporting the Boys and Girls Clubs of Santa Monica this year. More on that next month...

What CEOs Are Saying...

2011-09-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

Many of you know that I belong to Vistage, the largest CEO community in the world. Each quarter, Vistage asks its 14,000 members to complete a CEO Confidence Survey. The results are shared nationally on all the cable news networks, as it's the broadest survey of its kind.

Here are some interesting facts and concerns shared by CEOs (from 3Q11):

Free Shipping... Not For Long...

2011-09-06T13:46:00.000-07:00

A couple years ago, I predicted that "free shipping" would disappear. Not for lack of demand, increased fuel costs, or the recession. I predicted it would become so popular, everyone would demand it. And retailers would go for it.

So if retailers offer it all the time (and nearly half of all transactions from last year involved free shipping), at what point is it considered a "standard service" versus a free promotion? The cost must go somewhere? Am I paying less for the same product?

I'm also curious to know if my kids will ever pay for shipping as an added fee on an online invoice. No corded phone, no turning the TV channel using a knob, no heavy text books. They probably won't know what "free shipping" was by the time they enter the workforce.

Here are a few stats about shipping from FreeShipping.org:

61% of consumers will likely cancel their entire purchase iffree shipping isn't offered. (Comscore, May 2011)
49% of transactions in 2010 included free shipping.(Comscore, May 2011)
23% increase in traffic for retailers offering free shippingpromotions. (Comscore, May 2011)
Transactions including free shipping rose from 45.6% in 2009to 55.1% in 2010. (Comscore, May 2011)
57.5% of merchants offered free shipping without conditionsduring the 2010 holiday season. (Comscore, May 2011)

Much of what I've read indicates consumer spending this holiday season will outpace last year, despite the dreadful August we just endured. Most will look for free shipping, and many retailers will go for it. But not for long, I suspect. I think the entire concept disappears within 3 years... The upside is that if it doesn't, it will still not cost me anything. I think?

Charity Tuesday: ONEHOPE Wine Supports Boys & Girls Clubs

2011-06-28T17:51:00.000-07:00

WWW.ONEHOPEWINE.COM

My good friends at ONEHOPE Wine showcased the Santa Monica Boys and Girls Clubs in their Charity Tuesday campaign today. Shoppers at ONEHOPE Wine were able to checkout and donate 10% of their purchase price to the Club.

Each Tuesday, ONEHOPE offers the "Shop & Give" drop-down on every product offered in the ONEHOPE Wine store. 10% from every product purchased at ONEHOPEWine.com is donated to a charity of your choice from the drop-down.

Every Charity Tuesday, ONEHOPE introduces and features a new non-profit in the Shop & Give drop-down, allowing them to give hope to a greater number of important causes beyond those they support all year.

WWW.SMBGC.ORG

In addition to being a Guidance client, ONEHOPE is one of a few special companies in which I invest my time, energy and money. Jake, Mike, Tom and their army of entrepreneurs are a bunch of good people up to good things.

I'm proud of their support of the local kids in our community. And I hope you'll remember ONEHOPE Wine the next time you're shopping or dining out.

Netizens spend 9% more time using mobile apps than the Internet.

2011-06-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Years ago when the first email Blackberries emerged to offer us real time, mobile email, I found myself waiting for the "you've got mail" beep and eagerly checking it.

More often than not, I was receiving useless spam. But the Pavlovian response was clearly at work. I was addicted to my CrackBerry...

Since then, the Internet has taken off. I heard a report today that suggested that today's World Wide Web creates more data every day than all of the data created in history through 2003. The online experience is growing more ubiquitous.

And with the proliferation of inexpensive mobile devices (especially web enabled cell phones), my estimation is that half of the planet will be "connected" within 36 months. That's a staggering figure.

Also staggering is the notion that people now spend more time using mobile apps than they spend browsing the Internet. Mobile app analytics firm Flurry is releasing a new report today suggesting that users spend 9% more time using mobile apps than the Internet.

And when I think about how many times my iPhone jumps out of my pocket these days, I believe it. Games and social media apps like Facebook and Twitter are engaging users several times a day - all day...

And with PC sales down, tablet and mobile sales on the rise, I suppose this shouldn't be too surprising.

ICANN is likely to announce the unleashing of a bazillion new Internet domain name extensions today. But it makes me wonder... At what point does the Internet become completely encapsulated by apps which offer richer functionality and a mobility we seem to enjoy more than the desktop/browser experience?

Maybe the web as we know it will one day go the way of the newspaper? Who knows... Gotta run. My New York Times just arrived...

(Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/20/flurry-time-spent-on-mobile-apps-has-surpassed-web-browsing/)

2011-06-16T17:33:00.000-07:00

I think the new Blogger mobile templates look pretty good. I found it cool and yet surprising it's taken this long to create a seamless mobile experience on the Blogger platform.

Of late, I've sort of taken for granted that mobile and desktop browsers deliver consistent experiences, leveraging the innate benefits of their native OS's.

But I'm glad to see it nonetheless!

Check it out on your iPhone... Mobile Meugniot

Feeling "Gilt-ii" About Buying That New Purse?

2011-05-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

The new Gilt-ii (pronounced "guilty") plug-in for Gilt.com members is a clever idea - one worth checking out. Here is how it works and why it's worth noting:

Using the plug-in, you add items to your cart for, let's say, 10 minutes. While they are in your cart, they are not directly available to other buyers. So quantities typically run out, and some buyers are out of luck.

But during those 10 minutes while the item is in YOUR cart, you can auction it off to other buyers, right from your cart. You can even make a premium if other buyer bid it up.

I understand the plug-in works on a few other sites, other than Gilt.com.

For the rest of us in the ecommerce space, the idea of auctioning items in a cart during a flash sale with high demand and limited quantities offers a neat alternative to, "Sorry, all items are sold out!"

Is Your Traffic Up 160%?

2011-05-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

I love reading about my clients in the news. It’s especially cool when I read about their growing sales or online traffic results.

A money manager buddy of mine at Wells Fargo Securities sent me this little gem last week…

“unique visitor growth accelerated in April, to up 155% yr/yr vs. up 41.4% last month. On a 2-year trend, traffic was up 160% vs. up 53% last month.”

This is an analyst’s report on the increased online traffic results for Foot Locker in the month of April. Foot Locker is a long time Guidance client and a true success story in the online retail market today…

Old Mobile Vendor Gets the Boot in Favor of Guidance

2011-05-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

Today's article in Internet Retailer Magazine acknowledges the work that Footlocker.com and Guidance did earlier this year to re-launch Foot Locker's portfolio sites on a new and much improved mobile platform.

As shown on the iPhone 4

IR's own Kevin Woodward offers a great enumeration of the functional enhancements and new features found in several of Foot Locker's online brands, including Foot Locker, Champs Sports and CCS.

Leveraging Foot Locker's online partner of over 10 years, Guidance was tapped to re-launch the online stores between January and early March of this year. “By using them for our mobile sites we were able to share features and functionalities between our online channels,” said a familiar spokeswoman at Foot Locker. The mobile sites were previously developed and hosted by a third-party mobile shop.

All told, Guidance launched 8 new mobile Foot Locker brands earlier this year, including Eastbay, Foot Locker, Champs Sports, CCS, Foot Action, Final Score, Kids Foot Locker, and Lady Foot Locker. (When linking to those sites from this post, keep in mind it will take you to m.footlocker.com, for example, which is optimized for mobile vs. desktop browsing.)

12 Years with Microsoft

2011-05-06T19:40:00.000-07:00

For our twelfth consecutive year, Guidance has renewed its partnership with software giant Microsoft. And we are particularly thrilled about it this year for various reasons.

Unlike previous years, the renewal process required a few additional steps that made it more challenging for Guidance and other Microsoft partners to update their status. Microsoft Certified Professionals were required to renew their certifications, which in some cases involved taking brand new tests for subjects that weren’t even covered by books or any other kind of training material. But our team pulled through and successfully passed all four tests that are required to achieve the Web Developer 4 certification, which allowed guidance to earn the Web Development competency.

Since 1999, Guidance has been working with Microsoft applications such as Commerce Server, SQL Server, SharePoint, Dynamics and others to build many of our clients’ online and desktop solutions. We are proud of our long-standing relationship with Microsoft and look forward to many more years of successful partnership.

Wow... "bonus!"

2011-05-04T13:52:00.000-07:00

Did you know that in 2010, of the companies in the US who traditionally pay bonunes, less than a third paid them out? And in 2009, less than 25% of companies paid out their bonuses!

At Guidance, we've been paying annual and even semi-annual bonuses consistently since September of 2003.

This morning, I had the pleasure of handing bonus checks to the Guidance employees for the profit period of 10/10 - 03/11. These days we pay them out every 6 months to get the cash into our employees' hands quicker.

I heard some great stories about how, "...this money will really come in handy to furnish the new house I just bought," and, "oh, I can't wait to buy a new MacBook Air."

Bonus day is always a good day. And I feel fortunate that Guidance is able to provide that for its team.

See you in another 6 months!

--jason

New Facebook App

2011-04-27T11:38:00.000-07:00

Fresh off the Guidance launch pad: New Facebook app for one of the largest automakers in the world...

The auto maker wants to control the marketing & press behind the contest included in the app. So I'll have to tell you who it is later. But I can tell you that the grand prize is a new car!

Great job once again Guidance team!

Foot Locker Gets Moving With New Mobile Sites

2011-04-19T12:55:00.000-07:00

Foot Locker – one of the largest mall-based athletic footwear and apparel retailers in North America – has become one of three consecutive mobile site launches for Foot Locker, Inc., parent company of Eastbay and Champs Sports, and a Guidance client since 1997.

To view the mobile site, go to http://m.footlocker.com on your mobile phone.

Batter up! Next on deck for mobile site launches are Lady Foot Locker, Final Score, Kids Foot Locker, CCS, and Foot Action, all scheduled to launch before the end of the month.

To learn more about Foot Locker, visit www.footlocker.com, and look for them at the Internet Retailer Conference and Expo this year.

New Openings at Guidance

2010-06-01T12:45:00.000-07:00

Our BizDev team was on fire in the month of May! We have signed contracts with great new clients and are now looking into expanding our Development team -- to let the BizDev team close twice as many deals in the month of June! So, I am reaching out to you, my trusted network of clients, friends and business acquaintances, hoping you would know one or two talented individuals that could join our diverse collection of smart and enthusiastic professionals. Last month, I received emails and great referrals from some of you (thanks!), so I thought I would ask again for your help. If you know anyone who would be a good fit, let me know!

Visit our Careers page or check out our Careers @ Guidance newsletter to find out more about this month's job openings.

--jason

Chicago, here we go!

2010-06-01T12:32:00.000-07:00

Guidance is getting ready for the largest show in our industry: Internet Retailer Conference & Expo (known better as IRCE). The conference will be held in Chicago, IL and Guidance will be there from June 8th to the 10th.

If you are going to the Windy City and are planning on attending the show, stop by our booth! We’re at #171, just three booths down from our partner Magento. We are expecting a lot of traffic at this show, so feel free to drop us a note if you want us to keep an eye out for you.

Jon, Anna, Ale and Ed are coming with me. We look forward to seeing you in Chicago!

Best Buy's Social Media Push Drives Online Sales Up 20%

2010-04-09T11:41:00.000-07:00

Online sales rocked at Best Buy with the company reporting 20 percent online growth year-over-year. The electronics giant won new business online by doubling its investments in customer care initiatives, making improvements to its Web site, and driving customer engagement on Facebook and Twitter. Here's a detailed look into Best Buy's fast-growing, $2 billion digital commerce footprint.

In the company's latest earnings call held on March 25, Best Buy announced a string of efforts to grow its online sales 20 percent year-over-year to approximately $2 billion.

The retailer announced it increased its presence on popular social networking Web sites including Facebook and Twitter, which has helped fuel sales growth over the past year. "We expanded our use of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook to engage with customers in virtual spaces where they already spend a great deal of time," said Brian Dunn, CEO, Best Buy.

Dunn also noted that in-store pickup of online purchases increased to approximately 40 percent of total online sales. According to Dunn, the increase in in-store pickup at stores shows the positive net effect of becoming a true multi-channel retail company.

Additionally, the big-box retailer doubled investments in customer care initiatives which resulted in an 18 percent drop in customer complaints versus fiscal 2009. Some of these customer care initiatives included adding more click-to-check capabilities on its Web site and dedicated phone operators in many of its stores to better handle call volumes.

These customer care initiatives all led to increased customer interactions, sales and earnings, according to Dunn. "We are building on our big-box retailing foundation to become a truly multi-channel, multi-format operator," added Dunn.

Reposted from RIS

Guidance is Going Barefoot

2010-04-02T13:38:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, April 8th, 2010, Guidance is going barefoot and joining client TOMS Shoes on its One Day Without Shoes event.

Designed to help raise awareness of the impact that a simple pair of shoes can bring to a child’s life, the One Day Without Shoes event has already received pledges from over 30,000 people who have vowed to go barefoot that day. Since 2006, TOMS has provided over 400,000 shoes to children around the world through their One for One™ movement – for every pair of TOMS purchased, the company will send a pair of shoes to a child in need.

According to TOMS, in some developing nations, most children grow up barefoot, which can lead to serious infections and diseases like Podoconiosis, causing extreme swelling of the feet. Podoconiosis is preventable by wearing durable shoes and practicing simple foot hygiene.

Guidance employees will be taking off their shoes and documenting their day to share their experiences as they go barefoot in the office. Comments, photos and videos will be posted on Guidance’s Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Marina-del-Rey-CA/Guidance/11521514227.

Last month, Guidance launched TOMS’ new eCommerce site, www.TOMS.com, built on Magento Enterprise. The site was designed for the social media user, featuring live Twitter feeds, social merchandising, product ratings & reviews, and a photo gallery where users can upload pictures of themselves wearing their TOMS shoes. TOMS fans can also create and host a One Day Without Shoes event through TOMS’ social website, http://my.toms.com, which Guidance built using Drupal’s content management and social platform.

I’m going barefoot on April 8th, are you?

--jason

Together, for Haiti.

2010-01-29T18:06:00.000-08:00

The devastating loss of life and property in Haiti as a result of the recent 7.0 earthquake is truly heartbreaking. I am reaching out to you so that, together, we help the victims in Haiti.

That is why Guidance is pledging to match every dollar donated by our employees and contractors to the Hands & Feet Project (http://www.hafproject.org). The Hands & Feet Project started in 2004 as a children’s village in Jacmel, Haiti, which now cares for more than 40 orphaned children ranging between two months and nine years of age. After the earthquake, the town of Jacmel was left in very bad condition, and it keeps getting worse every day without medical help, food or supplies. Funds from Guidance will provide immediate and long-term relief to the children of Jacmel.

Recognizing the urgency of the need for aid, Guidance will be matching all donations made through February 12, 2010, which will ensure prompt delivery of the funds raised.

In times of need, Guidance employees have gathered together to help those less fortunate. I know this time will be no different, and look forward to your support.

All the best,

Jason Meugniot, CEO

Guidance
www.guidance.com

Client Web stats favor single-page checkout, product reviews

2010-01-20T14:13:00.000-08:00

One of our clients has shared with us some interesting stats that make a strong case for both, single-page checkout and product reviews.

Single-page checkout (SPCO), as described by its name, makes it easier for online buyers to complete their transactions by reducing the standard multi-paged checkout process to one page. Our client’s shopping cart conversion rate went up from 57.3% to 75.5% after replacing their checkout process with SPCO.

The same client also saw increased conversion rates for products with user reviews than for those without the reviews. The chart below shows the delta between non-reviewed and reviewed products during the month of November 2009.

Interesting facts about Magento Enterprise

2009-10-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

I was recently at the 2009 Shop.org Annual Summit in Las Vegas, where my company, Guidance, teamed up with new partner Magento, the fastest growing eCommerce platform in the world, to co-exhibit at the show. As one of Magento's first Enterprise partners in the U.S., we got to hear first from current users of the platform who stop by our booth raving about the product.

Our crew spent three days at the show, and by the time it wrapped up, they pretty much knew Magento's elevator pitch as good as they knew ours. They came back excited about the conversations they had with potential customers and other people they met at the show, and shared with me the following interesting facts about Magento software:

Magento's Community version has been downloaded over 1 million since March 2008

An open source platform, Magento counts with over 50,000 developers on forum

A number of new customers who have recently purchased Magento Enterprise Edition and which are scheduled to launch later this year include 3M, Skype, Nespresso, Nokia, Liberty Media, The North Face, and Samsung.

Developed as an Open Source solution, Magento is relatively easy to use and simple to customize, allowing developers to create add-ons and plug-ins to expand the platform’s capabilities. Magento licenses are available in Community and Enterprise packages. The Community edition is available as a free download under the open source OSL 3.0 license, while the superiorly-architected Enterprise edition includes all of the features on the Community edition, like marketing promotions tools, analytics and reporting, and search engine optimization, plus new ones like advanced administrator roles and permissions, Web site and store views, content staging and merging, strong data encryption, and support for customer store credits, controlled catalog access per customer group, and private/club sales, including events, invitations and category access permissions. In addition, Magento’s Enterprise Edition offers guarantees and full product support which are not available for the Community edition -- all at a fraction of the cost of most Enterprise eCommerce platforms.

Guidance is also an Authorized Reseller of Magento software. To learn more about our Magento deployment and customization services, call us (310.754.4000), email us, or visit our Web site at http://www.guidance.com/magento.

Health is the Next Green

2009-08-24T10:40:00.000-07:00

I found it ironic recently that our commitment to our planet (Guidance Green) has grown beyond our walls and into our homes, families and communities, yet our commitment to our health hasn't yet made it to ourselves, even as individuals. Why is that?

Why change our (green) behavior for some future payoff that isn't likely to occur in my lifetime while avoiding a commitment to my own health which I'm certain will have a huge payoff (at least for me)? I can help save the planet. I can also help save myself... and you... all at the same time.

Guidance's green program has taken root over the last 2 years. We have demonstrated to ourselves, our families and our communities that corporations can create awareness and lasting change for the benefit of our planet and our existence. Corporations can be green. And I also believe corporations can be healthy. Put them together... "Health is the Next Green."

A Day of Health

On Friday, August 21st, Guidance, Wellpoint, and the California Health and Longevity Institute hosted "A Day of Health," a program designed by Guidance and Wellpoint that creates awareness for employees, their families and their communities related to their health. A dozen guests made up of my employees and their spouses joined Jim McGee (a former Guidance alum and now a Wellpoint director) and me at the Institute for this amazing event.

The group kicked-off their afternoon agenda with an eye-opening presentation on "Stress and Its Impact on Your Health" by Dr. Steven Tan, MD, MTOM, LAc, Director of Complementary and Alternative Medicine for the California Health & Longevity Institute. Dr. Tan is one of the country’s most comprehensively-trained integrative physicians, and has the rare distinction of holding medical degrees and board certification in both Western and Eastern medicine. He is also a National Institutes of Health-supported researcher in stress-related conditions, also known as "stress biology."

Dr. Tan helped us to learn about our stress response and our relaxation response. We looked at the importance of relaxation and sleep, and how both are directly related to many of the common illnesses from which many of us suffer, such as headaches, backaches, fatigue, digestive disorders and other diseases.

We then broke off for individualized nutrition and fitness consultations, as well as spa treatments. I had a fitness consultation with exercise physiologist Michael Brazeal, M.A. Mike and I talked about my existing fitness routines, diet, etc. He reinforced some things I was doing correctly and helped me tweak areas of my workouts and running that weren't quite right.

We then meandered into the gym too learn some new core exercise routines. Mike stressed the importance of using the bosu balls and the core stability balls, even in place of benches when using dumbbells and barbells. While I thought I was pretty fit and would breeze through his routines, the bosu ball exercises (especially when it was upside down) quickly made me look like a core rookie.

Once finished, I left with a new core workout routine, complete with beginner techniques and progressions for down the road.

A quick shower and I was off to the Wellness Kitchen for dinner...

The Wellness Kitchen

UTTERLY AMAZING!!! The Wellness Kitchen "experience" was the single best event I've had related to food, nutrition and cooking ... like ever! Paulette Lambert, Director of Nutrition at the Institute, hosted the Guidance group for three hours of learning, cooking and eating.

Paulette started us off with a great appetizer menu of lightly seasoned shrimp, edamame, and some other kind of bean. She served a delicious selection of white and red wine, and we all got into the healthy "mood."

We were then each given a menu for a dish to prepare along with all the ingredients and utensils. The kitchen itself was like the set of Martha Stewart or something. It was huge! We also had 4 assistants running around behind us taking away all the messy stuff and prepping us with additional ingredients. Some of us learned how to chop veggies, stripe salmon on the grill and cook chicken in the oven. It was hands-on and mind-blowingly fun.

While the dishes were cooking, we all wandered out into the fresh onsite garden just outside the kitchen. We picked fresh onions, tomatoes, peppers and tons of other ingredients.

Paulette then called for dinner to be served and we headed to the huge dining table, set with linens and fine table settings. The dishes were served buffet style so each person could try any or all of the recipes.

During dinner, Paulette and the group discussed the advantages of a largely plant-based diet. We talked about using 3/4 of our dinner plates for fruits and vegetables and the remaining 1/4 for small pieces of chicken/fish and a healthy starch (in this case a lightly pesto'd pasta made with yogurt not cream). And we ended dinner with a healthy dessert that tasted like it had 10,000 calories in it (of course it did not).

The experience itself left all of us thinking about how we think about food, nutrition, fitness, stress and relaxation. Many of us came away with a handful of small steps that we could implement the next day. For me, I've already started: a new primarily plant-based diet; a new core exercise program; a plan to have my blood ranges tested; and, last, eating far less chicken that I had before.

For my company, I'll be looking into getting sleep assessments done for the staff. I'll be encouraging employees to take their vacation days. And I'll be bringing in a meditation expert to train employees on how to stimulate their relaxation response.

"A Day of Health" for Guidance represents my first step toward a greater vision of health. A year from now I plan to walk into Guidance and see:

healthy snacks, no sodas and no vending machines with junk

no pizzas brought in for lunch

an empty office during the lunch hour where employees are out exercising or relaxing

BBQs for employees and their families with industry expert speakers talking about health; and

neighboring businesses joining us for healthy events, and working with people who are intentional about living longer and enjoying a better quality of life.

Health is the Next Green. And it's already started at Guidance...

Other pictures...

Check out our Facebook page for more pictures - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=100019&id=11521514227.

Guidance Becomes First Ever AspDotNetStorefront Enterprise-level Partner

2009-04-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

I've been working with AspDotNetStorefront, a shopping cart platform for eCommerce development, since 2007. Some of my most successful clients are running on AspDotNetStorefront, including Z Gallerie, A.C. Moore, Bentley Prince Street, and Caltech, to name a few. And while Guidance remains and will continue to be a "technology-agnostic" shop, every now and then we come across a platform or software app that has some of my developers, even clients, raving about it. That was the case of AspDotNetStorefront.

With hundreds of features and at a very reasonable price, more and more clients call us specifically requesting AspDotNetStorefront development for their online stores. So, the next obvious step in our partnership with Ohio-based company was to strengthen the relationship by upgrading our partner status from platinum to enterprise level. That way, Guidance could primarily focus on offering AspDotNetStorefront development services to Fortune 1000 and similarly large clients with projects exceeding $25K. And that's what we did.

Beginning March 2009, Guidance became AspDotNetStorefront's first enterprise-level partner. Using the words of AspDotNetStorefront's CEO, Robert Anderson: "Meeting the complex requirements of multi-million dollar online retailers requires a highly-skilled solution provider. Over the last two years, Guidance has proven their abilities time and again, exercising the full power of the AspDotNetStorefront eCommerce shopping cart platform by providing large-scale deployments and seamless integration services for clients such as Z Gallerie and A.C. Moore."

Rob's quote was featured on a press release that Guidance issued last Monday to announce the partnership. You can learn more about our AspDotNetStorefront development services by visiting my website http://www.guidance.com/storefront.asp.

If you have a project in mind or want to find out whether AspDotNetStorefront would be the right platform for your online store, give me a call (310.754.4000) or drop me a note.

Valley Academies Foundation Gets Guidance Writing ... Code

2009-02-27T16:45:00.000-08:00

Remember the days when writing assignments actually involved handwriting? Moreover, when teachers had to manually score them? Those days are long gone. Technology has made things easier for both sides of the educational spectrum and I'm proud that my company is being part of the process.

Valley Academies Foundation (VAF), a California Non-Profit Corporation dedicated to increasing the quality of education provided by school districts – and one of my clients since 2005 – has been a pioneer in providing innovative solutions for writing analysis and scoring tools to teachers and students across Southern California.

Recently, VAF enlisted Guidance to develop the CT eWriter -- a Web solution that will allow teachers to create writing assignments for students to complete through the system, which can be graded automatically by presetting a formula or manually by allowing the teacher to override the score generated by the system. This custom .NET application will be built on Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008, using Wintertree and NetSpell software to analyze grammar and spelling errors. Further system customization will be provided to score students’ works and deliver a reporting module measuring student performance. All Web pages will be under session security.

To learn more about our .NET Development capabilities, check out my website at http://www.guidance.com/netintegration.asp.

Corporate Social Software on the Rise

2009-02-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

According to a recent study by research firm Bersin & Associates, the corporate social software market is expected to grow to $2.5 billion by 2012. A number of platforms have started to claim some market share ownership in this segment, including Atlassian, Jive Software, LiveWorld, Mzinga, Telligent and Microsoft SharePoint.

I recently upgraded our Guidance intranet to mirror some of the functionality that has made sites like Facebook and LinkedIn so popular among online users. Our new intranet, built on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS), features a blog, a wiki, a document library, and a user profile section that employees can customize with their photo, bio and a wide variety of web parts. Other more common features include an interactive Calendar, an Office Roster, and an area for Workgroups to communicate and plan events via the Discussion Board.

MOSS offers a cost-effective solution to companies seeking to reap the benefits of corporate social software. To schedule a demo of our new intranet or learn more about our SharePoint development services, send me a note or give me a call.

Nextopia Search Gives A.C. Moore Customers a Spelling Break

2009-02-17T01:14:00.000-08:00

Cricut. Crochet. Decoupage. Macramé ... the list of hard-to-pronounce and even harder-to-write words in the world of arts & crafts is endless. This was keeping A.C. Moore customers from finding the products they were looking for on their site, ACMoore.com.

That’s when Guidance introduced the arts & crafts retailer to Nextopia, a brand new search platform specially designed for eCommerce. Nextopia’s flagship product, eCommSearch, features error-forgiving logic that returns relevant results based on partial-term matching, sounds-like word matching (like finding ‘sandals’ when the user typed ‘sandels’), and singular and plural variations of terms. Retailers can maintain a synonym map for all top searched keywords, so customers looking for “notebooks” using “laptop” as the search keyword will still get relevant results.

One of the best features of Nextopia’s eCommSearch platform is its advanced search refinement, which allows shoppers to narrow their search results or sort by any relevant field such as size, color or brand. Products are dynamically ranked based on variables from multiple data sources including customer search behavior, historical sales data, number of times a product is viewed or purchased, and margins, sales rank and inventory levels. In addition, eCommSearch provides great reporting and analytics tools, including what customers are finding and not finding, most popular search terms, poorly performing searches and highest converting keywords.

Potpourri and basketry supplies, anyone? Check out these items and more at http://www.acmoore.com/.

Pollstar.com Keeps Getting Beta

2009-01-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

Last month, Pollstar.com, the redesigned and redeveloped website of the world’s premier concert information database, was beta-launched. Originally built in 1994, Pollstar.com needed a fresh image and an updated platform that could let site managers easily maintain content and add new features. The beta version of Pollstar’s new site can be found at http://live.pollstar.com/.

Guidance chose Telligent’s ASP.NET-based social networking platform, Community Server 2008, to build the site. Using several of Community Server’s main features, Pollstar.com allows visitors to create their own screen name, upload an avatar, make comments on news stories, post reviews of concerts, and rate photos and artists. For existing users, Guidance transferred all their data to their new accounts.

The new site also features a Photo Wall which shows live concert photographs taken by Pollstar staff and media journalists.

Providing music business professionals with the most reliable source of worldwide concert tour schedules for over 25 years, Pollstar has been in business longer than all other concert sites available today. Pollstar also publishes a weekly magazine and a series of monthly specialized contact directories.

One-third of Online Shoppers Encountered "Glitches" This Holiday Season, New Guidance Survey Reveals

2009-01-05T12:32:00.000-08:00

In what may have been the most closely-watched holiday shopping season in the short history of the online medium, some 36 percent of online shoppers ran into roadblocks en route to buying that gift – ranging from molasses-like website response to fruitless efforts to check out, to outright system crashes.

That’s the principal finding of a new nationwide survey my company – Guidance – conducted through December 23. In association with Chicago market researcher Synovate, Guidance asked 1,000 online consumers, “When you think of online shopping this holiday season, which of the following have you had issues with?”

The findings come amid a dramatically weakened economy, declining brick-and-mortar retail sales, a shortened holiday shopping season – due to a late Thanksgiving – and uncertainty about whether online shoppers would pick up the slack.

The Guidance/Synovate survey revealed that 64 percent of shoppers completed their purchases incident-free. At the same time, 37 percent of those online skipped Internet shopping altogether, a small percentage of whom reported doing so because of problems in the past. Of those who reported trouble this year, 13 percent said they had to abandon a very slow website while they were trying to shop, 8 percent said a website froze or crashed altogether, 7 percent could not complete a purchase on their first attempt, 6 percent tried to access a website that was down temporarily and 4 percent said a purchase they thought they had completed actually didn’t go through.

According to the survey, online shopping hassles affect the overall degree to which people will shop online. Across nearly every demographic breakdown -- other than race -- the group least likely to say their online shopping was incident-free was also the group least likely to shop online. The Guidance/Synovate survey has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.

While online shoppers may have escaped the ferocious winter weather, a significant number didn’t elude the issues that tend to afflict overburdened, under-engineered eCommerce sites. Ideally, every shopping cart that is not abandoned by the shopper should be converted – and every one that doesn’t sends a message to the consumer. Uptime, speed and reliability ought to be prerequisites of the online shopping experience. Still, I’m heartened by the success that many online shoppers enjoyed, especially since deep discounts, special offers and free shipping/returns made online shopping a better value than ever this season.

Keeping an eCommerce website up and running smoothly requires more than simply lining up enough servers. Retailers need application support for the database, the eCommerce apps and the website itself – and a partner that understands how everything works together. Finding an experienced and reliable hosting and managed services provider is vital, to make sure retailers capture every transaction and keep customers coming back for more.

Guidance has been designing, developing, hosting and managing eCommerce websites for clients since 1995.

What’s on Tap for 2009?

2008-12-18T14:22:00.000-08:00

Guidance Social Commerce and IT Specialists Identify 11 Trends in Online Retail and Technology

Will mobile commerce take over in 2009? Will consumers continue to browse online and shop offline … or will it be the other way around? What new uses for social networking sites will retailers find in the New Year? These and other burning questions are the subject of Guidance’s recently-released article on the hottest new trends for online retail and technology.

Here’s a preview of what’s covered in the article:

Mobile will NOT be the killer app for eCommerce… at least not as a shopping channel in and of itself. But it will become hugely useful as a companion to both online and offline shopping.

Commerce will become even more collaborative. Social commerce enables interaction among shoppers in a variety of forms, while collaborative commerce takes it to the next level by enabling “the group” to purchase together, or have a say in product development.

Use tweets to capitalize on buzz. Merchants will use Twitter to let consumers know about inventory levels for hot items.

Corporations will “become” social. Larger companies will bring social networking in-house.

For the full report (including more detail about the predictions mentioned above), visit http://www.guidance.com/images/docs/predictions.pdf.

New Guidance Social Commerce White Paper Released Today

2008-12-08T18:50:00.000-08:00

Online Buyers Want Social Engagement, But Most Online Retailers Aren’t There Yet; Guidance Examines Trends, Shares Insights for Moving Forward

Helping online retailers thrive in an increasingly competitive environment, my company - Guidance - today unveiled a new white paper offering retailers insight into identifying which Web 2.0 and social technologies will keep customers coming back to their websites and spending money – and telling their friends to do the same.

Titled, “Social Commerce: The Essential Guide to Combining eCommerce + Social Networking,” the paper focuses the discussion on social capabilities integrated into eCommerce sites – bringing the social to the commerce – rather than the other way around, where online retailers target consumers on social networking sites. Some of those social and Web 2.0 features include user-generated product reviews, forums through which people can talk to each other, video product demonstrations and many others.

While some retailers are blazing trails in social commerce, most are slow to act because they’re overwhelmed by an ever-evolving list of “must-have” features, creating a disconnect between the increasingly social experience consumers get almost everywhere online, versus what they encounter on most retail websites. Retailers that understand and exceed consumer expectations will find it easier to thrive in this stormy financial climate. And, they’ll be better prepared for the robust recovery when it happens.

Throughout the paper, Guidance retail and social commerce specialists discuss what’s possible and what’s actually happening in social commerce on retail websites today, what consumers expect from the online shopping experience, where those expectations come from and how retailers can and should respond.

The white paper is available for free download here.

DrumChannel.com Makes Some Noise on the Web

2008-11-20T10:37:00.000-08:00

Today, Guidance officially launched the highly-anticipated site DrumChannel.com, a new online community for drummers and music fans.

The site - currently in beta version - successfully combines online community and eCommerce, resulting in what Guidancecalls social commerce, which creates a community of enthusiastic users who will buy, come back often and value greater engagement with the site. DrumChannel.com’s visitors can subscribe to the site to enjoy member-only content, sign up for e-learning classes, watch pay-per-view content and buy merchandise from the DC Online Shop.

One of the coolest things about DrumChannel.com is its Flash player technology which allows viewers to choose from five different camera angles to watch concerts, weekly-series shows and e-lessons by some of the best drummers around the world, including Neil Peart (Rush), Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Terry Bozzio (Missing Persons, Frank Zappa).

Drum Channel™ started as an idea conceived by Don Lombardi, founder of Drum Workshop, a manufacturer of professional equipment for drummers. Originally intended as an educational site, DrumChannel.com’s social commerce strategy allows it to generate revenue to support the site’s administrative costs and unique content.

X Check out this podcast of an interview between Guidance CTO Jon Provisor and DrumChannel CEO Don Lombardi. (Duration: 16:30 minutes / Size: 15MBs)

_______________

Drum Channel™ is a registered trademark of Drum Channel LLC.

Something Good is Heating Up at Cooking.com

2008-11-10T15:41:00.000-08:00

Prepare your taste buds and whet your appetites for amazing web development – Guidance and Cooking.com are warming up their teams to spice up the leading online marketplace for cooks with never-before-seen social commerce features. The new site will launch in 2009.

Cooking.com, which recently pulled in $13 million in venture funding, hired Guidance to support the company’s plans to expand social-networking operations on their site, while allowing more Web sites to offer "Powered by Cooking.com" stores. In addition to Cooking.com, the company operates four uniquely branded websites: FoodNetworkStore.com, StarbucksStore.com, PillsburyStore.com and BettyCrockerStore.com.

Listed in this year’s Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, Cooking.com currently offers over 90,000 products for the kitchen as well as recipes, menus, articles and a growing library of user-generated cooking content and online tools.

To celebrate this announcement, Cooking.com has extended a special offer to all readers. Click here for details. Offer valid throuh 11/15/08.

Social Media Plays a Key Role among Online Shoppers

2008-11-10T14:40:00.000-08:00

With the holiday season arriving in the middle of an economic downturn, retailers are looking for alternatives to drive new traffic to their online stores. In just two years, social media has become significantly influential in online behavior – from what to do, to where to go, but more importantly, what and where to shop.

That’s the main finding of a new nationwide survey from Guidance in association with Chicago market researcher Synovate. Guidance asked 1,000 online consumers, “What is the best way to find out about bargains or discounts online?”

According to the Guidance/Synovate eNation study, conducted in October, just under 30 percent of total respondents use social shopping techniques like forwarding links to friends, reading another shopper’s comments and checking out their friends’ profiles on social sites to learn about special offers on the Web. Compare this to two years ago, when social media wasn’t even considered a source of traffic for merchants.

Despite economic fears, a recent survey by eMarketer estimates that online holiday season sales will reach $32 billion in 2008, a 10 percent growth from last year. Retailers are also hopeful -- 81% of them believe their online sales will grow this holiday season, according to Internet Retailer.

These and other interesting findings are revealed in a full survey report released today. Click here to read it.

Online Shopping Gets an A+

2008-09-11T17:03:00.000-07:00

Parents are Doing their Homework Before Shopping for Back to School

The school year has officially started. And if you are a parent, you know how stressful back-to-school shopping can be. Books, backpacks, gym uniforms, clothes, shoes … the shopping list is endless. For decades, brick-and-mortar stores have prepared themselves to welcome and cater to the higher traffic that this very profitable time of year brings. But, what about online stores?

According to an August 2008 ‘Back to School’ survey by PriceGrabber.com, more and more consumers are going online to shop for back-to-school merchandise, especially those purchasing items for college students, where 45 percent purchase online as opposed to 41 percent who buy at department stores.

Other interesting findings include:

26 percent of back-to-school shoppers buy online while 33 percent prefer to buy at department stores.

27 percent of back-to-school shoppers visit the retailer’s website to download and print out coupons and special offers before going to the store.

38 percent visit comparison shopping online sites to research the best prices in back-to-school items.

Only 18 percent of back-to-school shoppers’ budgets are spent on school supplies per se. The remaining 82 percent are spent on clothing (including shoes), electronics and computer equipment, sporting goods and other accessories.

Guidance has worked with several of its clients to develop special campaigns or landing pages in anticipation of the back-to-school season:

A.C. Moore: Guidance prepared a back-to-school-themed email campaign for ACMoore.com, a retailer specialized in arts and crafts supplies. The campaign featured special offers in back-to-school and related products. Almost 83,000 customers opened the email while 10,000 of them visited the website.

FootLocker.com: Clothing, shoes and sporting goods account for 60% of consumers’ back-to-school budgets for 2008. Taking this into account, log-time Guidance client, FootLocker.com, has added a ‘Back to School’ section to their website that can be accessed from the site’s homepage.

To read the full PriceGrabber.com ‘Back to School’ survey report, click here.

Guidance Named One of the Best Places to Work in L.A. by the Los Angeles Business Journal

2008-08-27T10:31:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't heard already, my company - Guidance - was recognized by the Los Angeles Business Journal as one of L.A.'s best places to work! Here's the full story...

MARINA DEL REY, Calif. (Aug. 26, 2008) – Guidance, which helps online retailers achieve market domination by creating captivating and engaging online shopping experiences, today announced that it has been named one of the best places to work in Los Angeles. The rankings were published in the Aug. 25 edition of the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Guidance was ranked No. 11 out of 50 finalists in the Medium-Sized Companies category, which includes businesses with 25 to 249 employees. Companies were evaluated based on workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems and demographics, and according to a survey that measured the employee experience.

The Los Angeles Business Journal’s Best Places to Work survey and awards program is a county-wide effort designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Los Angeles.

"We take this honor very seriously, because we strive to be a different kind of place to work," said Jason Meugniot, Guidance owner and CEO. "We give people the opportunity to do what excites them – to use cool and relevant technology and to see projects through to completion. Our company thrives when our team members are free to push boundaries, experience the thrill of accomplishment and receive recognition for their contributions. We place a high priority on creating balance between personal life and career, and that goes a long way toward making Guidance a great place to work."

Meugniot and Guidance CTO Jon Provisor purchased the company from its original founders earlier this year. Prior to that, Meugniot was responsible for day-to-day operations as president and CEO.

Relax The Back Gets Strong Support from Guidance

2008-08-20T18:11:00.000-07:00

For almost 10 years, Guidance has helped specialty retailer Relax The Back Corp. build a solid eCommerce strategy. With over 120 franchised stores and a strong online presence, Relax The Back is the premier destination for posture and back support products, including furniture.

Guidance provides a variety of services to RelaxTheBack.com, including web design and development, hosting, site maintenance and enhancements, email marketing, copywriting and search engine optimization, among others. Most recently, Guidance has worked with Relax The Back’s site managers to develop a new Web 2.0 strategy. Features such as YMALs (“you might also like”), live chat, product testimonials, video demonstrations and multiple product display options, have all been added to the site.

Ty Manion, Director of Internet and Catalog Operations for Relax The Back, was recently interviewed by Internet Retailer Magazine, where he discussed the company’s eCommerce strategy and its Web 2.0 update. To read the full article, go to http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=27196.

Is Your Online Store Suffering from the Economic Blues?

2008-08-18T00:56:00.000-07:00

Lowering prices is not the only remedy…

Gas prices are sky rocketing. The unemployment rate keeps going up. Does this mean you have to lower your prices to attract customers to your online store? Not necessarily…

While price and free shipping were the two most popular answers in a recent Guidance survey where we asked 1,000 consumers what matters most to them when shopping online, there are still plenty of ways to captivate your audience and get them to come back to your site.

In a recent article I wrote for CRM Magazine’s DestinationCRM.com, I present several key suggestions for making online stores enticing and absorbing to even the most price-sensitive consumers. From product display tips, to navigation must-do’s, Help Price-Conscious Consumers Find the Value on Your Site will show you how to overcome consumers’ worries about the economic slowdown with proven eCommerce strategies we’ve implemented on our clients’ websites.

To read the full article, go to http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=49946.

An Online Store of Olympic Proportions

2008-08-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

Guidance Delivers Gold Level Service for USOlympicShop.com

If only I had a penny for every time the Olympics’ opening ceremony and Michael Phelps’s swimming records have been brought up by the media over the past few days... The reality is, the ceremony was spectacular, and Phelps ... that guy is a fish! These Olympics will undoubtedly be remembered for generations to come. So why not own a piece of history?

In 2004, Guidance built USOlympicShop.com, the official online store of the U.S. Olympic Team. The site sells all kinds of collectible items and apparel, including the 2008 Beijing Olympics’ must-have item – the driving cap, which was designed by Ralph Lauren and worn by the US Olympic Team at the opening ceremony.

Fans of the U.S. Olympic Team can also make a donation via the site. Contrary to popular belief, the United States government does not provide direct support to the Olympic Committee, and as such, they rely on the generosity of Americans to support our athletes. Gifts to the U.S. Olympic Committee are used to help athletes achieve competitive excellence and meet their basic needs, such as housing, meals, lodging, coaching, sports medicine and travel.

One of the site’s most distinctive features is the multiple shipping destinations’ option on the checkout section. In addition to its original development, Guidance continuously monitors and maintains the online store to ensure a flawless, Phelps-like performance.

To learn more, visit the site at USOlympicShop.com.

Decoding Web 2.0

2008-08-11T01:11:00.000-07:00

The list of social and Web 2.0 technologies for eCommerce keeps being enriched by new applications that are designed to enhance the online shopping experience. With so many to choose from, it can be quite a daunting task to select the ones that will really make your customers enjoy shopping at your site. Having too many could reduce the effectiveness of each of the applications by themselves, and having the wrong ones would just be a waste of time and money. So which one is best for your website? Well, first you have to know what each of these technologies can do for you, and that’s the subject of my most recent article for eM+C Magazine. The article, Zoom? Reviews? Hotspotting? Figuring Out What Web 2.0 Can Do For You, was published last week on eMarketingandCommerce.com, has two parts. Check them out!

Part 1, which includes a list of suggestions on how to make it easy for people to spend money on your site (http://www.emarketingandcommerce.com/story/zoom-reviews-hotspotting-figuring-out-what-web-20-can-do-you-part-1)

Part 2, which features a list of best practices around product recommendations and reviews (http://www.emarketingandcommerce.com/story/zoom-reviews-hotspotting-figuring-out-what-web-20-can-do-you-part-2)

Social Commerce Works -- And Here’s Proof…

2008-07-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

Everybody’s got a hobby. Music, sports, photography, theater, and among many others, arts and crafts. In October 2007, Guidance helped brick-and-mortar retailer A.C. Moore conquer the online market by launching ACMoore.com, which offers a vast selection of arts, crafts and floral merchandise.

The site has been doing great. Shortly after its launch, A.C. Moore worked with Guidance to develop and gradually implement a social commerce strategy for their online store. They knew that when people are passionate about something – especially hobbies like arts & crafts – they love to share their experiences, questions and findings with other equally-enthusiastic users. And that’s when social commerce works best.

The social commerce strategy included user ratings as well as user reviews for each of their more than 50,000 products. And then last Thursday morning, Guidance helped A.C. Moore launch the A.C. Moore Forum, a community of A.C. Moore customers and arts & crafts enthusiasts where they can exchange ideas, discuss scrapbooking projects, share knit and crochet tips, and ask general crafting questions. They even get the opportunity to talk to A.C. Moore’s management -- an opportunity you rarely see these days.

To announce the launch of the A.C. Moore Forum, the Guidance eMarketing team assembled an email campaign for A.C. Moore, inviting their customers to become registered users and participate on the forum. The email was sent early Thursday morning.

So here comes the proof: by 11:00am – only a couple of hours after the forum was officially launched – the forum had over 2,000 registered users posting new topics, clicking on existing ones, but more importantly, visiting the website and shopping. We’re running comparison analyses for site traffic and revenues, but in the meantime, nothing expresses customer satisfaction better than the words of the customers themselves:

I am glad I received the email about this forum. I can already see a lot of things that I am interested in! Thanks! (ACMoore.com customer from Syracuse, NY)

Thank you for this forum, it is a great idea. (ACMoore.com customer from Bangor, ME)

Thanks so much for the invite e-mail! I have a feeling I'm going to be spending a lot of time here! (ACMoore.com customer from KY)

This is a great idea....thank you... I look forward to sharing with fellow “crafties”. (ACMoore.com customer from Saratoga Springs, NY)

My newest favorite forum! (ACMoore.com customer from Clayton, NJ)

I joined on Thursday and stayed up after midnight Friday reading posts. I'm already addicted! My third time on here today .... Thanks for a great forum. (ACMoore.com customer from SC)

Need I say more?

Guidance Offers Green Hosting for eCommerce Websites

2008-07-14T00:36:00.000-07:00

Guidance (http://www.Guidance.com) today announced that it is now providing its clients with hosting solutions that are 100 percent carbon-neutral.

The move will not require any upgrades or additional investment on the client's part. It's a new standard practice for Guidance - the latest in a series of changes undertaken over the past year to help the company achieve its goal of operating as an environmentally aware, carbon-neutral company.

To reduce overall energy use, Guidance bought and is now using energy-efficient servers and processors to host its clients' websites: HP's energy-optimized ProLiant(R) servers (DL360 G5 and DL380 G5), with the low-voltage Quad-Core Intel(R) Xeon(R) Processor L5420. Guidance also is moving to more virtualization in the company's development environment to reduce internal energy consumption.

Guidance has successfully offset all of its remaining electricity-related CO2 emissions from its servers by purchasing renewable energy credits (RECs) through BeGreen Business, the carbon offset brand of Green Mountain Energy. The credits are made from wind and biomass sources located throughout the United States, helping avoid an average of more than 52,500 pounds of CO2 emissions annually.

This has the equivalent environmental benefit of not driving a car roughly 58,500 miles, or of recycling almost 130,000 aluminum cans and more than 21,000 pounds of newspaper.

"We're giving online retailers an easy way to embrace green hosting," said Jon Provisor, Guidance co-owner and CTO. "We've been working for more than a year now to make our business operate in a more sustainable, environmentally responsible way. We're especially excited about this achievement, because it's something we can offer our clients - making sustainability a shared effort." Data centers account for 1.5 percent to 3 percent of electricity consumption in the United States, according to CIO Magazine's special report, "Green is Better." A recent report by Stanford University researcher Jonathan Koomey says worldwide energy consumption for servers, cooling equipment and related infrastructure doubled from 2000 to 2005, and could nearly double again by 2010 - unless companies make a concerted effort for change.

Guidance has significantly reduced its overall consumption of electricity as a result of a company-wide commitment to sustainable business practices, which Guidance shares in detail in the Green Toolkit offered here. For 2007, Guidance's purchase of renewable energy credits offset 100 percent of the carbon emissions associated with its business activities.

Do’s and Don’ts of Social Commerce

2008-07-14T00:27:00.000-07:00

Strategy and Audience

Do implement a social commerce strategy that’s compelling and fresh. Not every social commerce functionality is worth its development cost, which will largely depend on the type of product you sell, so talk to your web developer to create a strategy that works for you with the technologies that are right for your store.

But don’t assume social commerce is for young adults only. Yes, social media has had a bigger impact and use among younger audiences, but older groups are just as interested in it as millennials are. Young adults like the community aspects of social media and social commerce (features like community and product forums), while mature audiences enjoy shopping experiences that are enriched by comments from other buyers, helping them make a more informed decision.

Content and Feedback

Do monitor user content on your website. Product reviews and community forums are great tools not only for your customers to share their opinions, but for you to know your customers and make improvements to your store based on their feedback. However, they’re also an open door for inappropriate content, which you may want to take off your website as soon as it is detected.

But don’t remove negative reviews. According to research studies by Forrester and Bazaarvoice, less than 20 percent of user reviews are negative. But even that small 20% can make your online store more credible, and some may even help you sell ancillary products to overcome some of the products limitations (i.e. a negative review about an appliance’s short electric cord may prompt buyers to buy an extension cord, along with the appliance).

Customer Behavior and Privacy

Do analyze customer behavior on your website. Keeping track of items your customers are viewing, keywords they’re typing to find those items and links they’re clicking to get there, will help you customize their shopping experience with more intuitive navigation and features like product recommendations, YMALs (You Might Also Like), and personalized homepages.

But don’t be careless when it comes to user privacy and sharing customer behavior information with third parties. In November 2007, Facebook released Facebook Beacon, a system that allowed the popular social network to receive data from external websites, including several online stores. Shortly after releasing the application, Facebook users started complaining about having their activities monitored even when they logged off from the site. In addition, users weren’t allowed to opt-out, which triggered Coca-Cola (one of Facebook’s major partners) to withdraw from the program. Facebook has since made changes to the application and released a new version, but some think it may have arrived a little too late.

Less Popular Social Commerce Technologies (That Should Be Used More Often)

2008-07-06T15:14:00.001-07:00

Product reviews. Rate this product. You Might Also Like. Previews and search inside. Whether you are an online shopper or an online retailer, you are probably familiar with these eCommerce technologies. They have been valuable innovations for today’s online stores, allowing them to provide their customers with an engaging and comprehensive shopping experience.

There are several of these technologies out there. You’ll be able to learn all about them on an upcoming white paper that Guidance is currently working on. But in the meantime, take a look at these less popular Web 2.0 and social commerce technologies that deserve more recognition, and hopefully, more use:

Item size comparison – Not all of us have gifted spatial brains that can easily picture what 2.37”x 5.75” x 1.83” looks like in actual size. But we all know how big (or small) a deck of cards or a pack of standard-size sticky notes is. When size or portability matters, a feature like item size comparison will help online shoppers make a better decision, one that’ll take them faster to the checkout page and make them less likely to return the product after purchase.
Roll-over zoom – Most zoom-in technologies require the page to reload multiple times to let the user get a closed-in look at a specific section of the item’s picture. That can be quite frustrating for online shoppers and will delay them from putting the item on their online shopping carts. Using AJAX technology, roll-over zoom allows the user to quickly see product details by rolling over the picture with their mouse, without having to move to a new page.
Lifestyle merchandising zone - Some products (mostly home and garden items) are better shown in a real-life scenario than by themselves over a white background. Lifestyle merchandising zones are areas on key pages of a retail site where customers can click or roll-over to find out more information about an item, using Web 2.0 technologies like hotspotting and telescoping. The item is shown on an interactive image along with related products, all under a lifestyle scenario (sometimes referred as “hero shots”).
Purchase trends – If you’ve found yourself wondering which of two similarly-named products is the one you’re looking for, you’ll know why purchase trends are important. They can help you make a better decision by telling you which of the two items is the most popular or has been purchased more often. iTunes, Apple’s online music store, lets users see how often a song has been downloaded by displaying the “popularity” column. Amazon.com offers a similar feature to tell shoppers what other customers ultimately bought after viewing an item.
Return counter – Online and catalog merchants typically spend $6 to $10 processing each returned product, in addition to the lost sales revenue. Retailers that offer multiple alternatives of the same product or category would benefit from displaying a return counter for each of their products, letting customers know how often that product has been returned in relation to the number of times it has been purchased. Online retailer Shoeline.com claims to have lowered returns and raised their conversion rates since adding a “Return-o-meter™” to their website.
Recommend this product – Product reviews and ratings can sometimes be ambiguous. For some online shoppers, a 3-star rating could mean “didn’t exceed my expectations, but it’s o.k.”, while others may take it as “this is a bad product and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone”. Displaying the percentage of Yes vs. No answers to a straight-forward question like “Do you recommend this product?” will make it that much easier for online shoppers to feel comfortable adding the item to their cart or looking for an alternative within your online store.

10 Reasons Why Social Commerce Should Be Your Top Priority

2008-06-29T22:44:00.000-07:00

Humans are social by nature. And for the last couple of years, some of the leading online retailers have taken notice. From product reviews to user forums, social commerce involves integrating the best of Web 2.0 and social networking capabilities within an eCommerce website – to create a community of enthusiastic consumers who will buy more, come back often and value greater engagement with the retailer.

If you are an online retailer yourself, chances are, you have at least considered using one or more social commerce technologies on your site. But if you are concerned about giving up control of your marketing message to shoppers who can praise or destroy your brand, and are wondering whether social commerce would do more harm than good, check out these reasons for making social commerce your top priority:

You’ll get to know your customers better. Features like forums and message boards are great sources of customer information. They give you an insight into your customers’ interests and opinions – including what they think of your store and its products – helping you make well-informed modifications to your website.
People trust people like themselves. According to a study by Marketing Sherpa, 84 percent of respondents said they would trust user reviews over a review by a critic. Reviews by industry analysts and company advertisements can sometimes be seen as biased and somewhat impractical, as they typically tell you what the product can do under a controlled scenario, not under everyday circumstances.
You’ll process fewer product returns. User reviews and ratings help consumers make better-informed decisions when shopping for products online. Consumers will be less likely to experience post-purchase disappointment or buyer’s remorse, hence reducing the risk of returns. A recent survey conducted by pet supply store Petco revealed that products reviewed by customers on their site averaged a 20 percent lower return rate than for products without reviews.
Customers will welcome your cross-selling and up-selling attempts. Features like similar product recommendations (known as YMALs for “You Might Also Like”), product tags and purchase trends (buying behaviors after viewing a product’s description) let you present your customers with relevant product options they may not have considered previously. Online shoppers respond well to suggestive selling techniques and, according to Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, product recommendations and similar systems make up for 10 to 30 percent of an online retailer's revenues.
It increases customer satisfaction. Customers appreciate it when retailers are willing to expose their quality – and that of their products – through user reviews and product ratings. If you are concerned about getting negative reviews, thinking they’ll have a negative impact on your sales, fear not. Negative reviews make online stores look genuine, plus, users are more likely to leave positive than negative feedback. Forrester Research analyzed 4,000 reviews on Amazon.com and found that more than 80 percent of the reviews were positive. In addition, negative reviews were generally considered helpful by shoppers -- another sign of a positive shopping experience that results in customer satisfaction.
It also increases customer recurrence. Guidance and research firm Synovate conducted a survey earlier this year where we asked online shoppers to choose what makes them return to a given shopping site. 35 percent of all respondents said they’re most likely to return to a given shopping website if it makes recommendations on products or services for sale. Anything that makes the online shopping experience easier and more enjoyable will make your site that much more memorable to your customers, thus increasing customer loyalty and recurrence.
It helps you initiate free word of mouth. Keep the conversation going outside of your online store with web applications and widgets on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. That way, you’ll be using social commerce as both a lead generation and a conversion tool. Great examples of this are Amazon.com’s two Facebook applications called “Amazon Giver” and “Amazon Grapevine”. The applications were built to let users share their wish lists and product reviews with fellow Facebook users.
Your sales conversions will go up. The sense of relief your customers experience when they know there are about to make a well-informed purchase – enhanced by reviews, ratings, comments and other options – make customers less stressed about clicking on the “checkout” button. A recent Coremetrics study found that people who read a review are 30 percent more likely to purchase a product while those who wrote a review were 80 percent more likely to convert, compared to a group that didn't read or contribute product reviews.
Your customers are demanding it. 64 percent of consumers reported wanting to see user ratings and reviews on online stores, based on a Forrester study of 5,000 online shoppers. User reviews have become an important step in the purchase process of today’s online shoppers, letting them know beforehand whether they’ll be able to deal with any potential product limitations, prior to completing the purchase.
Competitors have their eyes on it, and so should you. According to a 2007 report by Marketing Sherpa, 43 percent of retailers have user reviews on their online stores. This number continues to grow, as well as the number of social commerce features and functions deployed by today’s online stores.

-------

Want to learn more about social commerce? Guidance designs, builds and maintains eCommerce websites, using social commerce and the best of Web 2.0 to create captivating shopping experiences, helping each client become a dominant force in the market. Call us today at (310) 754-4000 or visit our website at www.guidance.com.

Is Your Online Store Senior-friendly?

2008-06-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

Times have changed. So have our senior citizens. Today’s seniors live longer, healthier lives, and have become acquainted with technology. They now go online … and shop.

In a research my company commissioned last November with market intelligence firm Synovate, 69 percent of the 162 participants ages 65 and over claimed to have made purchases online. This may be low compared to other age groups, so why targeting them? The answer is simple: why not. Consider this:

Most of today's online merchants focus on the 18-45 market, leaving fast-growing baby boomer and senior markets inadequately served. There lies an opportunity to seize and dominate an underserved market.
Seniors tend to be loyal consumers as they switch brands a lot less often than their younger counterparts. According to George Moschis, director of the Center for Mature Consumer Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta, seniors stick to a brand, product or company because it ‘simplifies the purchasing process’.
Today’s seniors are less stressed about the economy than other age groups. They also can count on their pensions, which can’t be guaranteed for younger generations. According to a study by Dr. Maryrose Gerardi, Assistant Professor of the Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program at Emory University, seniors “either have the money or they don't and they're dealing with that,” which is why 67 percent of seniors reported very little concern about their level of everyday stress. This translates into less hesitation when it comes to spending.

So what can you do to make your site senior-friendly? Here are a few tips:

Design: Simple navigation and design is critical. Prevent seniors from getting frustrated with your site by making it easy to navigate. Whenever possible, avoid the use of pull-down menus - as they can be confusing - and use links that require only one click to navigate.
Fonts: Consider using font types like Helvetica or Arial, at sizes 10pt or larger. Also, it is easier to read dark-colored text against a light background than vice versa, so you may want to take that into account when getting your website designed.
Content: Make sure a mature audience can relate to the content of your site. The majority of Internet users 45 years and older believe that online content, as well as website design and online advertising, is skewed toward younger web users, according to a February 2008 study by Burst Media.
Security: Senior shoppers are more concerned about Internet security than younger shoppers. According to a Pew study, 82 percent of those 65 and older agree or strongly agree that they don’t like to give their credit card or personal information to websites. Let your customers know it is safe to buy from your store. One way of doing this is by displaying logos from your SSL and Hacker Safe certificate issuers, as well as from the Better Business Bureau, an organization seniors tend to trust.
Price: The Guidance-Synovate research on online purchasing habits showed that for 44 percent of online shoppers 65 and older, price was the most important factor when making a purchase, followed by free shipping, at 31 percent.
Web 2.0: Seniors are also receptive to Web 2.0 technologies, which tend to make their online experience a lot less intimidating. Videos are attractive to mature audiences as they explain products, services or concepts that would otherwise be hard to understand. Product recommendations are also preferred by seniors. According to our research, 34 percent of interviewed seniors said they would return to a given shopping site if it lists recommendations on products and services for sale.
SEO & SEM: Make it easy for seniors to find your site by improving your online search engine optimization and marketing efforts. Think of the terms they would use to search for your company’s products or services, and add them to your tags and/or SEM campaigns.

The stereotypical senior – the one who wouldn’t use a computer because ‘they were evil’ – is no longer your average senior. Today’s seniors have greater free time and higher discretionary income than past generations. And they’re ready to use that income, online.

Tangible Benefits of Relationship Marketing

2008-06-02T18:12:00.000-07:00

(This is part four of a series of blog posts on Relationship Marketing)

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been blogging about relationship marketing and customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty. If you have been reading my blog posts, you’ve probably learned a thing or two on how to make customers happy and keep them coming back often. That explains the how. What I haven’t told you yet is the why, as in why you should focus your efforts on relationship marketing. I think I saved the best for last.

My company, Guidance, has been tremendously successful in retaining clients and keeping high levels of customer satisfaction over the years. Almost 70 percent of our customers renew their contracts after the first year. That’s incredibly high, especially since most of the remaining 30 percent were only seeking a one-time solution with no long-term project needs. Making our customers happy and retaining them for as long as we have – 10-plus years in some cases – has been one of our strongest selling assets. However, I couldn’t get myself to list exactly how my business has benefited from relationship marketing techniques, besides predictable gains such as recurring business from the same, great customers, and effective PR. I guess it is because most of the benefits from relationship marketing and customer loyalty are cost saving rather than revenue generating. And I must admit -- I haven’t tracked my savings.

So, I decided to do a bit of research on relationship marketing and found an interesting article published in the European Management Journal. The article, "Value managed relationship: The key to customer retention and profitability" by Buchanan and Gilles, discusses the cost benefits of achieving customer loyalty and reveals that the success associated with customer retention efforts occurs because of several factors, including lower customer acquisition costs, free word-of-mouth promotions, and lower account maintenance costs.

Most of today’s marketing budgets are spent on lead generation and customer acquisition efforts. But if you think of it, a few recurring clients can generate just as much revenue as several one-time new customers. Here’s a thought: consider replacing some of your costs of customer acquisition – which occur only at the beginning of the relationship – with account maintenance costs, which are typically lower and better yielding. Why? Because long-term customers are generally more familiar with your products or services, require less product or service ‘education’, and are consistent in their order placement, so they tend to be less expensive to service.

In addition, long-term customers are less likely to switch brands and are less price-sensitive than newer customers. They are also more likely to purchase additional products, including high-margin supplemental products – a business strategy called ‘lock-in’. Gillette® razors make a good example of lock-in strategy products (inexpensive razor, not-so-cheap blades). But here’s where the real strategy lies: when customers stick to your brand, product or service, you’re making it that much more difficult for competitors to enter the market, gain market share, or steal yours.

That’s not all. Loyal customers make your employees’ jobs easier and more satisfying. This feeds back into better customer satisfaction, as happy employees tend to perform and treat customers better.

One more thing: long-term customers usually initiate free word-of-mouth promotions and referrals among their peers, who frequently act on what their friends and colleagues suggest. According to a Yankelovich survey, 65 percent of consumers trust friends above experts when it comes to recommendations. Talk about low customer acquisition costs!

B2C Loyalty for Internet Retailers: Build It and They Will Come … Back

2008-05-22T13:18:00.000-07:00

(This is part three of a series of blog posts on Relationship Marketing)

‘If you build it, he will come.’ On the movie Fields of Dreams (Universal Studios, 1989), this line motivated Kevin Costner’s character to build a baseball field for a team of deceased ball players. In eCommerce, if you build a reliable online store, establish yourself as a trustworthy merchant, and provide a consistently outstanding shopping experience to your buyers, they will come. And will come again, and again, and again…

As with most things, first impressions are lasting impressions. The same applies to eCommerce. To ensure customer loyalty, recurrence and retention, Internet retailers and development firms like Guidance must work to ensure shoppers have a wonderful experience every time they shop, right from the first time. If you are one of them, take into account every detail of your online retail strategy, including:

Product Descriptions – Don’t raise customer’s expectations, only to later disappoint them. Make sure items shown as “in stock” really are, prices don’t increase throughout the transaction, and product images are enticing but not misrepresenting of how the product really looks like. Describe the product exactly as it is, and allow shoppers to write a review for it. If the information and images are accurate, you probably won’t need to worry much about users leaving negative feedback.
Security – Protect your site from hackers and let your customers know it is safe to buy from your store by displaying logos from your SSL and Hacker Safe certificate issuers. According to an article in this month’s issue of Internet Retailer magazine, about 12 million Internet users do not shop online for fear of entering personal or payment information on websites.
Customer Reach – If you are struggling to claim leadership in the US market, consider expanding your market reach to include international customers, where market leadership can almost guarantee customer recurrence. The global Internet user population grew 265% from 2000 to 2007, for a total of 1.3 billion consumers, according to Internet market research firm Miniwatts Marketing Group. More than 1 billion of them live outside the US and Canada.
Shipping – By all means, ensure on-time delivery for all orders. Get products out the door as fast as possible, and provide realistic shipping date expectations. If possible, offer at least one free shipping solution and allow customers to track the delivery of their shipment online. According to a Synovate survey I commissioned this past holiday season, 18% of online shoppers considered free shipping to be the most important factor when making a purchase online. Another good tip is to include a copy of your catalog, a special offer, a coupon, and/or an unexpected free gift with your shipment.
Returns – Have a hassle-free return policy. Restrictive policies may discourage people from returning items, but it may also discourage them from buying. Highly visible policies can engender trust, helping to boost conversion rates for online retailers. Include return instructions with your shipments and pay for return postage costs. If your company has brick-and-mortar stores, allow customers to return the items to one of them.
Post-Purchase Promotions – Run permission-based email marketing campaigns to promote new products, like newsletters or special offers. According to a recent report by digital marketing firm DoubleClick, 78% of consumers said they want to receive email from their favorite online merchants. Permission-based email campaigns motivate consumers to purchase. An eMarketer survey reported that 58% of US consumers liked and opened emails from companies who – in their opinion – did a good job with permission email marketing, and 53% admits that such emails affected their personal buying decisions.

Ever since the early stages of eCommerce, Internet retailers have focused on low pricing strategies to drive sales and customer recurrence. However, low prices by themselves may not be enough to win customers. Even bargain-hunters want and value good service. If pricing is your strategy for consumer loyalty, all a competitor would have to do is lower their prices to steal your clientele away. Instead of focusing on price, build an online shopping experience that customers will want to come back to, time and time again.

On my next and final blog post of this series on Relationship Marketing, I’ll be talking about the tangible benefits of a well executed customer retention program.

B2B Loyalty: Better Service Means Loyal Clients

2008-05-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

(This is part two of a series of blog posts on Relationship Marketing)

For decades, the discussion of customer loyalty has centered on business-to-consumer (B2C) scenarios. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about business-to-business (B2B) loyalty.

In reality, there are more similarities than differences between B2B and B2C segments and what drives customer loyalty behavior in each of them. However, B2B companies that want to excel in customer loyalty must focus on value proposition and relationship-building efforts, more so than their B2C counterparts. These efforts include the consideration that most B2B deals require a long and somewhat complex sales cycle, with multiple influencers and very high stakes. The decision of whether retaining or dropping a vendor may fall in the hands of more than one individual in an organization, which adds to the challenge of achieving B2B customer loyalty.

When a group of Guerilla Consulting clients was asked to rate loyalty to their professional service providers, 50% said they were indifferent and would switch without hesitation. Loyalty and acceptance are closely tied to a client’s perception of good service, according to research by Griffin Group. Companies must strive to meet and exceed customer expectations, utilizing every opportunity to keep clients satisfied, build stronger relationships, and provide stellar service. If you are a service company – like Guidance – the following techniques may help you achieve that:

Assign a dedicated team to each client. Designate a project manager and a client management team to work with each of your clients. Train your employees on how to cultivate relationships, handle claims, and keep clients satisfied. Little things like misspelling their name or failing to follow up on a request within 24 hours may not mean a lot to you, but it sure does to your clients.

Be consistent. If your clients need to work with multiple departments and employees within your company, make sure everyone in your organization provides them with outstanding service. One employee may excel while another one may put the relationship at risk, and when that happens, the company as a whole suffers the consequences.

Educate your clients. An educated client is a satisfied client. Provide them with valuable information that’ll help them with their business, such as newsletters, presentations, videos of seminars, reports, tools, etc. Help them impress their bosses with the knowledge they’ve acquired from you.

Think and act as the client. Get to know your customers businesses inside and out. Train your team to serve as an extension of your clients’ teams and invest in the success of their businesses as if they were your own. Keep in mind that the more you do to make your clients successful, the more successful they’ll make you.

Ensure quality and accuracy in every deliverable. Apply proven methodologies to your service processes and build robust operational procedures for your employees to follow. Create checkpoints at key stages of the service process to ensure quality and accuracy before the project moves to the next phase. At Guidance, our Oversight Committee – composed of key members from each of our company’s departments – is responsible for running Quality Assurance (QA) checks at every stage of our clients’ projects.

Be proactive. Contact your clients before they contact you. Aim for the best in quality, but when things go wrong, admit mistakes, take responsibility, and fix problems as quickly as possible – every time. Your clients will appreciate the honesty and promptness of your actions.

Provide ‘round-the-clock support. Customers value companies that understand the importance and criticality of their businesses. Nothing communicates a bigger commitment to customer satisfaction than providing your clients with 24/7/365 live support. However, clients will rarely contact you after hours to discuss non-critical issues, so make sure your on-call team is as knowledgeable as your daytime team, and furnish them with the equipment and tools they need to solve client issues wherever they are.

Monitor client satisfaction. Find out what your industry’s delivery standards are and benchmark against them. Interview your clients or ask them to fill out a survey to measure client satisfaction and other key performance outcomes. The survey results will help you identify areas of improvement that your company should work on to ensure continuous client satisfaction.

Be your core values. At Guidance, we demonstrate, talk about, share, and hold to our core values in everything we do. And for the last 15 years, our core values have distinguished us from our competition and led to amazing relationships with clients, employees and business partners. These core values are:

Honesty, integrity and fairness
Respect for individual ability
Creativity and diversity
Teamwork and open communication
Passion and commitment
Enjoyment of work and life

According to a research by Harvard Business Review in collaboration with Bain & Company, US companies lose nearly 50% of their customers every five years. Just a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profits by nearly 100%. Cultivate loyal customers by building stronger client relationships. Go the extra mile and produce top-of-mind presence with your customers by providing the best service you can offer.

On my next blog post, I’ll be talking about B2C loyalty for Internet Retailers, so stay tuned for more on Relationship Marketing, Customer Satisfaction, Retention and Loyalty.

Aim to Please: Making Customer Satisfaction, Retention and Loyalty the Center of Your Business

2008-05-16T11:27:00.001-07:00

(This is part one of a series of blog posts on Relationship Marketing)

‘The customer is always right.’ For over a century, that statement has been the basis of many successful businesses, but it has also been misinterpreted as a synonym for customer satisfaction. In today’s business world, relationship marketing has replaced the traditional focus on individual transactions and per-case customer resolution, making Customer Satisfaction, Retention and Loyalty more than just post-sale efforts.

While these three key marketing principles are different, they all tie in to each other and should be considered equally important for all businesses:

Customer satisfaction is a measure of how a company’s products and services meet or surpass the customer’s expectations. It is the basic entry point of good business practices.
Customer retention can be identified when a customer places an additional order before a 12-month period has expired. Ideally, additional transactions contribute a similar financial amount than that of the original order.
Customer loyalty is a company’s practice of finding, attracting, and retaining recurring customers over the long-term.

With the U.S. facing signs of economic recession, and companies making adjustments to survive the downturn, customer retention and loyalty has resurfaced as a priority for those fearing the worst. When money is tight, customers switch from the brand they love to the brand they can afford. However, there’s something to say about customer loyalty and what it can do for companies, even under such scenarios.

Now, here’s what most companies don’t know: relationship marketing – and the practice of customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty – isn’t rocket science. In this series of blog posts, I’ll be sharing with you some of the practices Guidance employs to keep customers happy and coming back frequently. Here’s a start:

Be selective when choosing clients. Not all service companies can afford to be selective with their clients, but if you are looking for long-term client relationships, choose those who truly are a pleasure to work with. At Guidance, we work with clients and partners who have integrity, and who are fair honest and respectful of others. Since satisfaction is a subjective concept, you are more likely to be on the same page with clients who are nice than with those who aren’t. And frankly, nice clients make it just that much easier to please and guarantee satisfaction.

Run your business with integrity. No matter what product or service your company offers, make sure your customers know they are dealing with an honest company. Being trustworthy can be the most precious marketing and selling asset of all.

Always act in your customer’s best interest. Whether it means turning down a client’s business to suggest a competitor’s, or losing money on a product recall for safety reasons, high-integrity actions that are done with your customers’ best interest in mind can hurt a little in the short-term, but payback is surprisingly quick and worth any special arrangements you may have incurred on.

Invest in your customers’ success. Jack Welsh once said “One thing we have discovered with certainty is that anything we do that makes that customer more successful inevitably results in a financial return for us.” At Guidance, we also attribute our success to that of our clients, which is why our business strategy focuses in making clients successful and getting them to dominate the eCommerce space in their vertical.

Have a loyal workforce. Building customer loyalty is a lot easier when you retain employees who are constantly interacting with your clients, such as sales people, technical support, and customer service. Many companies forget to support their employees and provide them with a place that’s enjoyable to work at. Guidance is fortunate to retain employees for many years, and the compliments from our clients make it clear that they too appreciate the people in our team.

No amount of money can buy the kind of advertising that satisfied customers give your company for free. Satisfied customers drive retention and loyalty, and because of the high profitability of a loyal customer base versus the high cost of finding and acquiring new customers, your current business strategy may be missing out on a great opportunity if it isn’t investing in successful client relationships.

Stay tuned for more on Relationship Marketing, Customer Satisfaction, Retention and Loyalty.

Is eCommerce GreenER?

2008-05-15T14:40:00.001-07:00

Recently, I toured an apparel retail outlet in Amsterdam. I work with the same retail company in the US by providing various ecommerce technology services. And I wondered, is eCommerce greener than operating brick and mortar retail stores?

In terms of electric energy, a retailer with even a few retail stores probably consumes more energy when you account for simple must-haves like bright lights, cash registers, building signage and air conditioning. In fact, if you imagine a large, multi-channel retailer, it's not uncommon to have one website and hundreds of stores.

The electric energy required to operate a multimillion dollar (in sales) website is assuredly less. Sure there are PC's, Mac's, servers, power supplies, air conditioning and even air conditioning for the computers. You also have gasoline used by employees going to work and running the website. But that's generally limited to a single physical site or hosting company, along with the retailer's web development office.

In terms of shipping, I think it would vary quite a bit by retailer. Consider that most online retailers use expensive and non-renewable energy (i.e., airplane fuel, diesel gasoline) to ship the overwhelming majority of their products sold to their customers.

Stores also require the same costly shipments from distribution centers to their physical stores which in some cases can be spread across the country or the globe. But if you think about it, a UPS truck is already passing by your house once per day. Rather than driving to the store, why not just add another stop to a route that already exists?

I know! The physical space and the materials that make up the stores could be eliminated, too. The distribution centers that currently supply stores could service online customers. So all of the paper, concrete, steel, paint, plywood and other materials used to create retail space – even those crazy mannequins – they could all be spared!

It's quite likely the rising costs of fuel, the value of the dollar and the general economic slowdown in the U.S. is driving the closures of the dozens of huge retailers closing their stores down this year (Home Depot, CompUSA, Starbucks .

But imagine… what if we started to get used to fewer stores? What if the convenience of driving to the mall and buying a pair of shoes was supplanted with the convenience of a mouse click? Would we miss all those stores? Would our environment? Our planet?

Leaning Green

2008-05-01T07:34:00.000-07:00

How to reap the benefits of sustainability

Excerpted from Fast Lane, Smart Business Los Angeles, May 2008, by Patrick Mayock

The next time you clock out, Jason Meugniot would like you to turn off your computer. It may seem like an odd request, but it’s just one of many rituals that he and his 75 employees at Guidance Solutions Inc. engage in on a regular basis.

The reason? Environmental sustainability.

“[The green movement] brings integrity to the business,” Meugniot says. “In today’s economy and business climate, integrity is essential to growth.”

At the information technology service company, the owner and CEO has embraced the employee-led initiative, which he says has contributed to the company posting $6.3 million in 2007 revenue.

Smart Business spoke with Meugniot about how to go green at your own company.

Q. How do you begin to establish an environmentally friendly workplace?

We put together an Environmental Toolkit that lists simple but key areas that we can look at to understand our carbon output and start the education process. We talk about hibernating or turning off our computers and using energy-efficient fluorescent light bulbs, optimizing the AC usage, or [using] light sensors in restrooms.

We talk about things like carbon credits and working with other companies who are committed to alternative energy sources. We talk about looking at your suppliers. Almost every company purchases certain staple products: paper, electricity, telephone service. Guidance, for example, works with Internet hosting vendors who use solar power instead of diesel generators as a backup source of power.

In order to establish carbon neutrality or really get serious about carbon neutrality, we look at education, measurement and action around reducing waste, improving air quality, eliminating greenhouse gas emissions and finding renewable sources of energy.

Q. How can other leaders implement programs at their companies?

To start an effective program, you need to walk the walk. You need to be carbon neutrality. As the executive, you set the example.

I’d also say you need commitment at all levels. You can’t do it alone. Let the initiative live and grow. Don’t stifle the conversation. When I say conversation, I mean the ongoing conversation at the office or at the business about the environment.

Allow employees to share ideas. Allow them to set up blogs. Talk about it. Don’t just post signs around the office.

Q. How do you get employees involved?

Start with education. We provided, very early on, links to Web sites. We shared personal stories. We screened movies [about environmental sustainability] here at the office. We talked about the impact of our own carbon imprint and helped employees to determine what their carbon footprint was at home.

We have a Guidance Green committee. The committee meets regularly throughout the month. They lead various initiatives, and they collate information.

Use your core values to generate buy-in. The first core value is honesty, integrity and fairness. If we’re to have any integrity or fairness in our consumption of nonrenewable resources, we all need to be committed to the environment.

A key component in the program is not creating a top-down program. It’s really creating a program that’s created and even led by the employees. To create this momentum, the employees really need to be a part of it at the onset.

Q. Do you choose the committee, or is it run by volunteers?

The people who serve on our committee are not asked or chosen. It’s a voluntary committee.

Look for people with energy, with commitment to the environment. Look for people who are open to ideas and then sharing those ideas.

Q. How has this movement benefited your company?

It’s really made an impact on our employees and how they work together and the bonds and relationships that keep them together.

We also have prospects who call us out of the blue wanting to work with us because they’ve heard we have a green program. I don’t want to give you the impression that it happens every day, but we are working with clients today who sought us out because they were referred to us from someone who’s heard that we have a green program.

It also filters into recruiting.

As your employees are talking to candidates and new recruits, they’ll say, ‘This is an amazing company. We take a stand for the environment in the face of various circumstances, and I’ve never worked at a company like that.’

You’ll have employees talk to other folks about it, and it gives them a sense of pride in the company they work for, in the work that they do and in their relationships together at the office.

HOW TO REACH: Guidance Solutions Inc., (310) 754-4000 or http://www.guidance.com/

My Company is Cool. Is Yours?

2008-04-30T09:45:00.001-07:00

Want some great ideas for creating that cool company environment? My Guidance team has some great ideas for you.

First, ask some of your employees if they would be interested in leading and participating on a voluntary committee – we call ours the Cool Company Committee or "CCC". Be sure that the team is "self formed" and that its chairperson is someone of influence and committed to your company's mission and core values.

Talk about your basic goals. For example, our CCC focuses on 4 primary objectives which are:

Increase employee satisfaction
Improve office morale
Enhance office communication
Decrease employee turnover rate

Then baseline the "coolness" of your company by sending out a survey asking your employees key questions about their satisfaction at the company. A few questions our CCC asked in 2008 include:

Do you feel management abides by our Core Values?
If you offer an idea that is implemented but get no credit, who, if anyone, does get the credit?
Do you feel company-sponsored events help improve employee relationships?
If you have problems at work, is there anyone other than your superior you can talk to?

Use the results of the survey to take your goals and make them actionable. This year, we are focusing on more frequent company-sponsored events to get people together outside of their daily work environment. Our CCC has created a "New Employee Welcome Package" and they've taken on "Office Communication" by starting a Company Newsletter.

Ask your CCC for an annual budget and GIVE IT TO THEM. Don't hold back. It's important to the success of the program that they be responsible for their own budget. Nothing will squelch positive momentum faster than doing "fun" on the "cheap."

Let the ship sail… Your CCC, their events and the results they produce will work best if you let it go. If you "manage" the group or dictate how it should operate, you will lose the first "C" which is "cool". All you'll be left with is another company committee. So let your Cool Company ship sail and enjoy the ride.

Retailers Wrestling With How To Use Consumer-Generated Video (Excerpt)

2008-04-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

[This is an excerpt from Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk, by Schuman, April 18, 2008. Link to the full article at http://storefrontbacktalk.com/story/041808video.]

"It's very unlikely to have any value at all if it doesn't change very often" or go deep enough, said Jason Meugniot, the CEO of Guidance, another interactive company. "If that happens, the value of the brand diminishes. They're not seen as competitive. It just discredits them and diminishes the brand over time."

If it's done aggressively, though, Meugniot argued, "it's not going to seem like a commercial. It's going to maintain that credibility. It's also allowing potential customers to browse and make purchases that they wouldn't otherwise make."

Even when that means helping drive an occasional sale to a rival? "There is greater credibility in an equal playing field," Meugniot said.

Clearly, established retailers are not at all comfortable with taking a neutral approach to video annotation. But it's also the path of least resistance in the market. Confronted with a tidal wave of user-generated videos, should a retailer ride that wave or try to push it in a different direction? Which is likely to have the better chance for success?

Click here for the full article.

Consumers Will Return to Online Shopping Sites That Embrace Web 2.0, New Guidance Survey Reveals; Shoppers Prize Recommendations Most

2008-04-15T09:52:00.001-07:00

Drawn to the Social Web, Consumers Also Value Unique Shopping Experience, Opportunity to Give Feedback

MARINA DEL REY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--With consumers continuing to spend briskly online, and social websites aggregating ever-larger numbers of participants, the twain–online shopping and social networking–may finally be meeting.

That's the main finding of a new nationwide survey from Guidance (http://www.guidance.com/), a specialized technology advisor that envisions, builds and supports web technology solutions that help businesses thrive online. In the new survey, more than 60 percent of respondents report being drawn to online retailers that employ Web 2.0 tools and techniques.

In association with Chicago market researcher Synovate, Guidance asked 1,000 online consumers, "When thinking about shopping online, what is most likely to make you return to a given shopping website?"

According to the Guidance/Synovate eNation study, conducted in March, 35 percent of total respondents said they're most likely to return to a shopping website if it makes recommendations on products or services for sale–recommendations being among the most dominant activities in a Web 2.0 world. Another 26 percent want "a unique experience each time" they shop. Continually changing content is likewise a hallmark of Web 2.0.

Eighteen percent said they're more likely to return "if the site solicits their feedback" on its products and services–feedback being the flipside to product and service recommendations. Sixteen percent said "a welcome when they arrive" at the site is the factor most likely to make them return, while 6 percent said they're most likely to return "if the site makes them feel part of a community" with other shoppers/site visitors.

"The economy is fragile and the competition for the consumer dollar is fierce, but as these findings make abundantly clear, online commerce is now a two-way street–and retailers need to embrace that reality," said Jason Meugniot, Guidance president and CEO. "Online consumers and merchants are in dialogue as never before, and consumers are counting on each other for insights in making purchase decisions. Recommendations have become the new currency of online commerce, along with their corollary, the opportunity to give feedback to the e-Commerce site.

"Savvy e-Commerce retailers need to know how to leverage these connections to better serve their customers–to keep them coming back and spending money," he said. "It's especially telling that just 6 percent of respondents said they're most likely to return if the site makes them feel part of a community with other shoppers/site visitors. Community can't be contrived or manufactured–that's top-down, Web 1.0 thinking. Consumers value peers as key to smart online shopping–especially as the economy teeters toward recession."

Drilling Down: Social Shopping Online

The highest percentage for any response fell in the age breakdown–with 41 percent of those 18-24, the prime demographic for the social Web, saying they're most likely to return to a site that makes recommendations. Only 29 percent of those 55-64 agreed.

Women are far more likely to be influenced by a welcome greeting–with 20 percent saying it's the feature most likely to get them to return, compared with 12 percent of men who agreed.

The older you are, the more you want to give feedback. The top three age groups were more likely than the bottom three to say that a site that solicits their feedback is most likely to make them return.

A few groups went against the overall trend by not selecting "recommendations" as their No. 1 choice–non-whites (in fact, they chose both "unique experience" and "feedback" ahead of recommendations), those with post-grad education ("unique experience" was slightly higher), and those with incomes under $25K (this group's first choice was the "welcome").

There's a wide gap between the lowest income bracket and all others–only 26 percent of those who earn less than $25,000 per year chose "recommendations," 10 percentage points below all other income categories. Meanwhile, respondents in the lowest income bracket were far more likely to prefer a "welcome"–27 percent said it was the feature most likely to make them return, at least 13 percentage points higher than the other income categories (14 percent of those earning $25K-$50K and those earning $75K+, and 12 percent of those earning $50K-$75K agreed).

The Guidance/Synovate survey has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent. For a full copy of the survey results and a graphic presentation of top-line data, email info@edgecommunicationsinc.com.

Idol Gives Back

2008-04-10T10:52:00.000-07:00

Pretty "unreasonable" show if you ask me...

Last night, Heather and I watched the TIVO version of American Idol's Idol Gives Back.
During the first hour I didn't think I would be inspired to give again.

I participated last year and thought it would just be a repeat of last year's event. By the time the show ended, I had gone online and made an "unreasonable" donation. How could I not?

I say "unreasonable" because it would be quite "reasonable" and easy to donate the token $100 bucks. But this year I was so compelled and inspired by the show that I went way beyond my "reasonable" comfort zone and just went for it.

Felt good. It was simple. I hope it was for you, too.

2008 Beneficiary Organizations

Children's Defense Fund -- For 35 years the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) has worked relentlessly to ensure a level playing field for all children by lifting them out of poverty, protecting them from abuse and neglect, and ensuring access to health care, quality education, and a moral and spiritual foundation to help them succeed with the help of caring adults and communities. Begun in 1973, CDF is a private, nonprofit organization supported by foundation and corporate grants and individual donations and does not take government funds.

The Children's Health Fund -- Founded in 1987 by singer/songwriter Paul Simon, and pediatrician/advocate Irwin Redlener, MD, The Children's Health Fund (CHF) is committed to providing health care to the nation's most medically under-served children and their families through the development and support of innovative medical programs, response to public health crises, and the promotion of guaranteed access to appropriate health care for all children. They partner with major academic medical centers to deliver health care to disadvantaged children and families in both rural and urban areas across the country.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria -- Bono has campaigned in the United States and around the world on behalf of the Global Fund with his two organizations: ONE, which lobbies governments, and (RED), which targets the private sector for contributions. The Global Fund is the world's leading funder of programs to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which together kill over 6 million people per year. Created in 2002, the Global Fund has approved 450 grants to programs worth $7 billion in 136 countries. Of this, $2.3 billion has been committed to AIDS programs in Africa. As of December 2006, Global Fund-financed programs had put 770,000 people on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment; distributed 18 million insecticide-treated bed nets to combat malaria; and detected and treated more than 2 million TB cases, which are rising sharply due to co-infection with HIV. All Global Fund-financed programs support 2 million orphans around the world.

Make It Right -- In December 2007, Brad Pitt launched a national fundraising campaign to help New Orleans recover from the lasting devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. MAKE IT RIGHT is committed to building 150 houses in the Lower Ninth Ward, and ensuring a green, affordable, sustainable and replicable community to serve as a model for further rebuilding throughout the city.

Malaria No More -- >Malaria No More's mission is simple: to end deaths due to malaria. Although it is preventable and treatable, malaria continues to kill more children in Africa than any other disease, claiming more than 1 million lives a year. Malaria No More works to raise the profile of this crisis among the public, policymakers, and businesses, while engaging the private sector to provide life-saving mosquito nets and other critical interventions to families in Africa. Through the support of Idol Gives Back 2007, Malaria No More has protected more than a million mothers and children from malaria to date in Uganda, Zambia, Angola, Madagascar, and Mali.

Save the Children -- Save the Children is the leading independent organization creating real and lasting change for children in need in the United States and around the world. Save the Children's U.S. Programs focus on underserved rural areas, where one in five children lives in poverty. Partnering with schools and community organizations, Save the Children provides high quality early childhood education services for children from birth to age five and literacy, physical activity and nutrition programs for children in kindergarten through eighth grade, benefiting over 35,000 children nationwide. Save the Children' work in the United States also includes emergency preparedness, response and recovery. When a disaster strikes, Save the Children deploys trained teams to help displaced children and families and provide more secure environments. In addition, Save the Children works with local, state and national governments to ensure that the unique needs of children are integral in emergency response plans.

Jason Meugniot: Beating Competition with Positive Values

2008-03-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

Jason Meugniot, owner and CEO of Guidance Solutions, Inc., employs the practice of his company's core values in every aspect of his career. Meugniot discusses his company's forward-thinking innovation program and how he maintains long-term relationships with his clients.

Speaker: Zorianna Kit and Jason Meugniot
Length: 04:55

Guidance Employees Purchase Company from Founders

2008-02-21T16:57:00.000-08:00

Buyers Jason Meugniot, CEO, and Jon Provisor, CTO, to Increase Hiring and Investments in R&D in 2008

MARINA DEL REY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Guidance (http://www.guidance.com/), a specialized technology advisor that envisions, builds and supports web technology solutions that help businesses thrive online, today announced that Jason Meugniot, CEO, and Jon Provisor, CTO, have purchased the company from its original founders. The sale was completed on January 30. Terms were not disclosed.

Both Meugniot and Provisor have been with Guidance for almost 10 years and have shared full control over day-to-day operations since 2003. As owners, they plan to pursue a new growth strategy while delivering exceptional value to its portfolio of clients.

“This is personal for both me and Jon – we love the company, our employees and clients, and we’re thrilled to be in control over our future direction,” said Meugniot. “The founders – each of them good friends of mine for many years – created an amazingly successful company. And to me it says a lot that they would sell it to us and give us the chance to steer Guidance forward.”

Guidance employees and clients will not be affected by the transaction. According to Meugniot, the company’s focus remains the same: to help companies seize opportunities and solve problems through the innovative and practical use of technology. Guidance will still provide leading expertise in e-Commerce, business intelligence and managed services, for clients like Foot Locker, Z Gallerie, Bentley Prince Street, GEARYS Beverly Hills, Relax the Back, Salvation Army, and many others.

Provisor explained that Guidance will now be in a position to consider investments in research and development and hiring more staff, and to examine the potential for mergers and acquisitions, as appropriate.
“This is an exciting step for us as we’ve put our hearts and souls into Guidance over the past several years,” said Provisor. “It opens up so many possibilities for growth, and that benefits everyone we work with.”

Original founders Joe Tang, T.K. Pillan and Vijay Kotrappa launched Guidance in 1993. Tang and Kotrappa plan to remain as minority shareholders.

“Both Jason and Jon believe in Guidance enough to purchase the company – that should say a lot about their commitment to the company’s employees, clients and business partners,” said Tang. “The only reason we considered selling was to give the team that’s in place now the same chance we had – as original founders – to take ownership of Guidance, continue building on its achievements and reap the rewards of having a stake in your own company’s success.”

About Guidance
Since 1993, Guidance (http://www.guidance.com/) has helped companies seize opportunities and solve problems through the innovative and practical use of technology. Guidance envisions, builds and supports inventive web technology solutions that help businesses thrive online. Specializing in e-Commerce, multi-channel retail, e-Business, business intelligence applications and managed services, Guidance drives increased revenue and efficiency for clients across a range of industries. Members of the Guidance team are seasoned professionals, passionately committed to providing technical leadership and powering ingenuity. Key clients include Foot Locker, GEARYS Beverly Hills, Relax the Back, Salvation Army, and many others. Guidance is based in Marina del Rey, Calif.

Contact:Edge Communications, Inc.
Ken Greenberg, 818-990-5001
ken@edgecommunicationsinc.com

Save Price, Free Shipping is King

2007-12-08T16:33:00.000-08:00

Of the many online retailers I've work with now and in the past, many of them compete squarely on price and promotional discounts. Of course they do. No surprise.

Category killers, however, know a dirty little secret: "Save perhaps price, free shipping online is king." And many retailers take full advantage of that secret.

Some don't. Some retailers depend heavily on the added margin shipping brings to their bottom line. And with vendors like Endless offering free overnight shipping - or better yet, $5 off overnight shipping - it's difficult for traditional brick and mortar retailers to compete with new, highly price competitive business models.

Notwithstanding, traditional retailers had better take note. Free returns 365 days from the original purchase date and a complete disregard for shipping overhead threaten to put many of our elder retailers on notice. As they should.

Make it low priced. Get it to me fast. That's what I want.

And so do most consumers as evidenced by a new Synovate survey I commissioned this holiday season. The survey results suggest that price (no surprise) is the most important factor when buying online. And for those consumers who rank price as most important, 41% indicate that free shipping is the second most important factor.

You can check out those stats and other relevant consumer preferences at PRWeb. You can also check out what K.C. Jones has to say about it on informationweek.com.

For the full Guidance press release, see the post below...

For now, keep it low priced, and get it to me fast!

--jason

This Holiday Season, Price Matters Most to Online Shoppers, New Guidance Survey Finds

2007-12-08T16:02:00.000-08:00

Amid Growing Sense of Economic Unease, 43 Percent of Americans Value Price Most When Buying Online – Another 18 Percent Favor Free Shipping

Marina del Rey, Calif. December 4, 2007 -- America’s uncertain economic climate is driving bargain hunting, as money issues dominate consumer priorities when shopping online.

That’s the overwhelming conclusion of a new national survey, conducted in late November by market researcher Synovate of Chicago for Guidance, a specialized technology advisor that envisions, builds and supports web technology solutions that help businesses thrive online.

Price and free shipping stand out as clear favorites – with special promotions or coupons bringing up a distant third – in the survey, which examined what matters most when making a purchase on the Internet.

Forty-three percent of respondents said price is the most important factor, while 18 percent named free shipping. When the same respondents were asked to select their second most important factor – 41 percent chose free shipping, and 24 percent cited price.

Only 4 percent of respondents said that speed/efficiency of checkout was the most important factor – perhaps surprising, given the recent experience of some large online retailers, which experienced sluggish transaction times and website outages.

The survey asked 1,000 adults to select the most important factor when making a purchase online. After price and free shipping the field evened out a bit – with 8 percent choosing special promotions or coupons as the most important factor, 7 percent citing features (like recommendations and product reviews), 4 percent choosing speed/efficiency of checkout, and slightly more than 1 percent naming the opportunity for in-store pickup/returns.

“Clearly, the economic climate is driving bargain hunting,” said Jason Meugniot, Guidance president and CEO. “The Internet has opened a vast new world of low-cost purchase options for online buyers. While the online buying experience has improved markedly in recent years, at the end of the day – especially a day of financial uncertainty -- price matters. Sometimes improving site navigation or layout can help people more intuitively find the deals they’re looking for, while well-designed product presentation helps them see the true value of a product. The most important thing any retailer can do is know what matters most to its customers.”

When the same survey respondents were asked to rank the second most important factor when making a purchase online, 41 percent named free shipping, 24 percent cited price, 14.5 percent chose special promotions or coupons, 10 percent favored features, 8 percent said speed/efficiency of checkout, and 3.5 percent said in-store pickup/returns.

Who’s Buying – And Who’s Not

Nearly 19 percent of the total sample said they don’t make purchases online (22 percent of men, 16 percent of women) – a significant finding, considering that all of the participants in Synovate’s eNation survey panel are online. Interestingly, across most demographic breakdowns of the responses for the “most important” factor, those who care about price the least were the most likely to say they don’t make purchases online.

In terms of price-consciousness:

More men (46 percent) than women (40 percent) put price at the top of the list.
Respondents in the two highest income brackets were significantly more likely to make price their No. 1 priority than those at the lower end of the scale. Fifty-three percent of those earning $50,000 to $75,000 said price was most important, while just 37 percent of those earning less than $25,000 agreed.
Similarly, employment status shapes perspectives here – but not as one might expect. Nearly half (48 percent) of those with full-time jobs cited price as most important, while just one-third (33.5 percent) of retirees – presumably many of whom are on fixed incomes – ranked price first.
Concern about price is largely a function of age; generally speaking, the younger the respondent, the more price matters. Price is most important to those 18-24 (53 percent) and relatively less important to those 65 and above (30 percent).
While 20 percent of those in the lowest income bracket (less than $25,000 annually) ranked free shipping most important, an even larger percentage of the most affluent group – those with incomes of more than $75,000 annually – did so as well (21 percent).
Similarly, 25 percent of retirees placed a premium on free shipping – significantly more than in the other employment brackets.

Other Findings of Note

Those 25 to 34 are most likely to make purchases online (only 9 percent do not). Those over 65 are least likely to buy online, with 30.5 percent saying they don’t.
Respondents with the highest incomes (above $75,000) favored special promotions or coupons more than anyone else (more than 10 percent ranked it first – nearly double each of the two lowest income brackets).
Almost twice as many women as men place a premium on speed/efficiency of checkout (5 percent to 2.7 percent).

The survey has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent. For a full copy of the survey results, for additional demographic summaries like above, or for a chart/graphic representation of the data, email rochelle@edgecommunicationsinc.com.

About Guidance

Since 1993, Guidance (www.guidance.com) has helped companies seize opportunities and solve problems through the innovative and practical use of technology. Guidance envisions, builds and supports inventive web technology solutions that help businesses thrive online. Specializing in e-Commerce, multi-channel retail, e-Business, business intelligence applications and managed services, Guidance drives increased revenue and efficiency for clients across a range of industries. Members of the Guidance team are seasoned professionals, passionately committed to providing technical leadership and powering ingenuity.

Key clients include Foot Locker, GEARYS Beverly Hills, Relax the Back, Salvation Army, and many others. Guidance is based in Marina del Rey, Calif.

The Bus Ride to Guidance

2007-10-06T13:50:00.000-07:00

(Thursday October 4, 2007)

As part of Guidance Solutions' commitment to a sustainable environment, we celebrated National Rideshare Week today by altering the way we commute to work.

So, this morning at 8:15 A.M. PT, I left the Porsche in the garage, kissed my kids and wife goodbye after breakfast, helped them into their SUV, and I walked up my street headed for the bus stop.

This morning's ride marked my first local bus ride in over 20 years. As a kid, my buddies and I used to ride the "Big Blue" from our homes to the beach to surf in the summer. But this was the first time I rode the bus to work. And while it was new in many respects, the trip itself was quite familiar.

One of the first things I noticed (and remembered) was how close the actual bus stop bench was to the street. As I sat down, my size 12's were right on the edge of the curb, almost hanging out into the 45 MHP traffic headed down my hill.

Sitting next to me on my bench was a 19-year-old girl listening to her iPod Shuffle. She was well dressed and drinking a Starbucks Grande "Drip" coffee. Once finished, she lit up a Marboro Red and I quickly started to question whether I had made the right decision that morning. The blowback from the speeding cars blew her toxic addiction into my unsuspecting Blackberry session. Indeed, it was a rude awakening. Now it was 8:20.

Soon the bus arrived. I boarded the orange Metro 232 and asked the driver for a transfer. I paid the $1.55 fee and took my paultry paper pass for the connection to bus number 2.

The bus was only half filled. A myriad of passengers included men, women, students, young, old, leather shoe, tennis shoe, awake, asleep, talking, moaning, reading, zoning. All types.

I wondered if I was the only person on the bus who normally drove to work. Was I celebrating National Rideshare Week alone? Could all of these folks be regular bus riders? Did they have cars?

One guy sitting across from me got off the bus and grabbed his 10-speed off the front of the bus. He slammed the bike rack closed and headed off down the sidewalk.

The bus driver yelled, "It will break that way!" And after no response by the biker, the driver followed that with, "Jerk!"

Now things were getting fun.

Slow-going to Rosecrans (going north on Sepulveda), we found the intersection light to be out. A motorcycle officer was directing the mile-long tail of traffic. We crossed the intersection and our speed and collective tempers seemed to improve.

A voice from the bus's CB radio could be heard shrieking throughout. It was a woman driver on another bus calling for 911 assistance. She had a wheelchair passenger who had fallen out of his wheelchair face down on the bus. The driver wanted an ambulance to assist, as she was self-admittedly uncomfortable handling the fallen man.

Soon after, we approached LAX and I knew we were close to the bus station where I would catch my second bus. I popped up and asked the driver if he would "let me know" when we arrived at the bus station, assuming it wasn't obvious.

The bus driver pulled down his classic Don Henley Varnets and offered, "It's pretty obvious, and sure... I'll let you know."

Feeling like a tourist in my own town - remember, I grew up less than 10 miles from LAX - I sat back down and kept an eye open for the station.

We arrived to a small island of benches and signs, and we all departed. Ten minutes later, the Big Blue #3 North Bound arrived on time and swooped a score of us from the concrete island.

Now northbound on Lincoln Blvd, the bus felt a little tighter. The seats were closer together. We were moving faster with fewer stops.

As we got close to Maxella, I noticed that the bus's recording was announcing the stops. "Next Stop - Lincoln And Maxella," the synthsized voice exclaimed. I had arrived.

With a quick thanks to the driver, I stepped off the bus right into the Starbuck parking lot. "Why not," I thought. So at roughly 9:15 I strolled into the coffee house and paid $1.80 for my Grande Mild. And the old expression of "costing less than a cup of coffee" came to mind.

After a quick stroll back to the office, I noticed that the Guidance parking lot was pretty empty, even for 9:15. I ran into one employee who told me that he rode in with 4 other employees. Happily, I was not alone in my Rideshare adventure.

Later...

I left the office at 5 on the nose. I wanted to try to miss the crowds and the traffic. It was to no avail.

So I put my glasses on, openned a book and read for 20 minutes. The bus station came and went and I was back on the 232 heading for my neighborhood. 20 more minutes and I was there.

When I stepped off the bus - a mere 200 yards from my front door - I recalled the days events and the significance of my adventure; no, my experiment; no, my rideshare.

Compared to my normal commute:

Extra time "out of my way:" about 20 minutes total

Pages read: +50

Blackberry emails sent: +10

Phonecalls made: +2

Gas saved: ~2 gals ($6)

Cost: $3.10 (or a savings of over $50)

Walking to my front door, I considered taking the bus once per month, perhaps. Why not?

Ironically, the next morning I jumped in my hot rod and headed down the street. A little bumpier than normal. Hummmm. To my surprise, it was a flat rear tire.

4 hours later, and a whopping $625 for another hunk of tread, I thought to myself, "I could ride the bus for a year for what a single tire just cost me."

--jason

P.S. during my 2 hour wait for the new tire, I watched An Inconvenient Truth on TV - for the third time.

Managed Services A Proactive Relationship

2007-08-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, almost by accident and circumstance, we found ourselves supporting the online solutions we built for our clients. Different from the older consulting services model of “deploy and leave,” Guidance was providing maintenance, enhancement and 24/7 support (together called “Managed Services”) to clients in need of ongoing service.

Figure 1

Over time, we found that the 24/7 support and monthly maintenance services created a different kind of relationship with our clients. For one, it kept us working closely together for extended periods of time. By doing so, we quickly became natural extensions of our clients’ teams. This increased productivity on both sides and drove client satisfaction.

Also, the subject matter expertise we built with clients over these extended periods of time allowed us to provide greater overall value to our clients’ businesses. And I would offer that the consultative approach we have taken over the years with our managed services practice has enabled dozens of companies to reach their online potential.

Part of the secret to our success in this space has been our approach to managing the entire technology spectrum. Generally speaking, however, we typically find multiple companies supporting different layers of an online infrastructure (see Figure 1 above). For example, it’s common to have a development shop doing custom development; a hosting company hosting servers; and a committed but ill-equipped internal IT department struggling to glue them together. This, I believe, is a mistake.

In fact, I believe more businesses should work with a single vendor to manage servers and network hardware, operating systems, applications, firewalls, etc. Much of the performance gains we produce for our clients comes from deep knowledge and tuning across each of these tiers. Tuning an application without deep knowledge of the hardware and networking equipment is often fruitless. The same is true for 24/7 support and troubleshooting.

By working with a partner who can not only open a help desk ticket but who can resolve issues across the entire solution architecture, businesses can reduce operational expense, increase uptime and drive customer loyalty.

I can’t hire enough good people fast enough…

2007-07-26T16:21:00.000-07:00

Almost every day this year, at some point in a conversation, someone has asked me how things are going with the business.

“Great!” I tell them. Indeed, business is great. 1H07 has been the most profitable period in Guidance’s 14-year history. We are growing in value-delivered, revenue, profit and headcount.

And when people then inquire about Guidance’s challenges, I invariable say... “I can’t hire enough good people fast enough.”

It would appear I’m not alone. Stepaphanie Overby, writer for CIO.com, recently noted in her July 20, 2007 article How to Recruit Talent in a Hot Market: Everything You're Doing Is Wrong that, “…the first quarter of this year saw the biggest net hiring increase in enterprise IT in more than five years, according to Robert Half's survey of CIOs. It's officially a seller's market for IT talent. Good news for IT professionals. Bad news for IT hiring managers.”

Some people tell me that having demand outpace my supply [of talented resources] is a good problem to have. Notwithstanding, and after one actually says that, I’m still left with quite a problem – good or otherwise.

Growth
While Guidance has made significant organic strides in increasing its headcount, I still believe we could be hiring faster and smarter.

Data from the Vistage CEO community suggest that growth for small and midsized companies in 2008 will be similar to the growth in 2007. If that’s remotely accurate by the end of next year, these next twelve months should offer plenty of opportunity to increase the company’s top and bottom lines. We are in an exciting period of growth right now. Business is indeed booming.

Cost of Doing Nothing
To capture maximum potential value of this current economic cycle, however, I believe Guidance and other midsized professional services companies will have to “be” expert, not only in their specific areas of business services, but also in the domain of talent recruitment and retention, or what I collectively call “talent management.”

The cost of staying the course or of doing nothing different in the area of talent management is unmistakably large. Each new hire at Guidance today drives significant value to our bottom line. Given the maturity of our business and our current expense structure, we quickly transform new employees into high dollars. The opportunity cost of “getting recruiting wrong” is something I think about every day.

What to Do?
Recently, we have invested in growing our recruiting staff. However, for most of 1H07, we used a combination of part time, in-house recruiters and outside agencies, such as the aforementioned Robert Half. Our new approach of using more in-house, full time recruiters with less dependency on costly outside agencies should improve the situation noticeably.

In terms of retention, for those of you familiar with Guidance, you know that our values, culture and environment are remarkably valuable to employees, including this one. Of the 11 strategic goals for 2007, a remarkable 4 of them are tied specifically to generating value for the employees. My executive team and I spend considerable time and focus on constantly creating and maintaining an amazing place to work. And we hope to share that experience with many new employees later this year and next.

Money in Your Pocket
If you know of a talented technology professional who would align with our core values (below) and who is looking for a way to completely change the way they think about their workday and their career, let me know. I offer a referral fee to anyone (including my own employees) who can introduce me to exceptional talent. Job postings can be found on the Guidance website.

Guidance’s Core Values
Honesty, integrity and fairness
Respect for individual ability, creativity and diversity
Teamwork and open communication
Passion and commitment
Enjoyment of work and life

--jason