I try to get in as much reading as possible… A vital aspect of growing a business in my opinion. I began to realize that most of the communication in the marketing place was being generated primarily by consultants and service providers with little insight coming from people on the inside. Being part of a rapid growing ecommerce division of a multi-channel retailer in Sun & Ski Sports, we decided it would be a good idea to document our progress. With no specific goal in mind or objectives to fill with this blog, it’s our hope to provide unbiased views on services we use, strategies we’ve attempted and development enhancements we’ve implemented.

I don't have enough time to blog consistently, so I post all my empty thoughts here.

Resume, Address Book, Messaging Service, Job Ads... Talk about multi-tasking.

Welcome to MySpace 2.0! Way better system for connecting with friends and networking. Checkout my Fans page for the link to Sun & Ski Sports' facebook page.

A lot of vacation pictures for the most part, but will soon be overrun with photos of my beautiful daughter due at the end of August '08.

This hasn't been updated in a while... shame on me.

Sun & Ski Sports, a winter sports equipment and ski 
apparel retailer, implemented Baynote's e-commerce service in 2008 to attract potential customers to its website. The company saw impressive results shortly after the implementation, but it wasn't until 2010 (particularly the 2010 holiday season) that the service produced the kind of ROI most retailers would execute a 540 tail grab about.


* Baynote Search Insights suggests proven-to-perform keywords that increase new visitor acquisition in paid-search and other channels * Baynote Adaptive Landing Pages dynamically generates new landing pages using most relevant content to enhance engagements and conversions...

When I visited Volusion Inc.'s Northwest Austin offices recently, I realized it had been two years since I had last caught up with the e-commerce software company.

Small businesses are increasingly using social-networking sites to sell directly to fans and other consumers. E-commerce applications for Facebook and MySpace allow users to add items to a shopping cart, then be transferred to a company's website for final payment. But the apps carry a fee, and disgruntled buyers can easily make their dissatisfaction known to a large audience.

Early Adopters Add Shopping-Cart Apps to Fan Pages to Sell Items, Services

It’s never too late—or too early—to plan for a bigger and better holiday shopping season

Because most of its customers shop its web site only two or three times a year, Sun & Ski uses personalization and recommendations technology based on the viewing patterns of all of its visitors. In the past year, the technology has boosted conversion rates by nearly half, director of e-commerce and interactive marketing Scott Blair says.

Better shopping cart design is just the start for retailers aiming to curb cart abandonment.

With many of its customers coming to shop only a few times a year, multichannel sports gear retailer Sun & Ski Sports has found a way to tap the “wisdom of crowds” to recommend products and boost conversion rates and sales.

When it comes to solving pressing business problems, the conventional wisdom is that two heads are better than one. With the advent of collective-intelligence tools, enterprises are realizing that thousands of heads are even better still.

Instead of using a behavioral tracking system that targeted an individual's previous online habits, the company partnered with recommendation engine provider Baynote to aggregate the browsing habits of all visitors at the site to predict the tastes and needs of individuals entering the store.

Sun & Ski tapped Baynote Product Recommendations to optimize the recommendation end of the site, which boasts 15,000 SKUs from 100 brands. Baynote collects data on similar shoppers and then tailors the recommendations based on their search behaviors.

After about a month, the average order value for customers who clicked on an item recommended by Baynote was 38% higher than for other customers, and their conversion rate was 35% higher.

Dynamic landing pages increase effectiveness and lower cost of search marketing, heading into holiday shopping season

Products are listed in the sidebar of Facebook pages - like this one for Sun and Ski Sports. Take a look at the screen shot below - overall, a nice looking implementation.

PowerReviewsT (www.powerreviews.com), the Internet`s most comprehensive developer of customer-review solutions for retailers and their shoppers, announced today that Sun & Ski Sports (www.sunandski.com), has chosen PowerReviews to harness the power of its customer reviews, increase sales and build stronger customer relationships.