I was having a conversation with a colleague of mine who suggested that it would be interesting to see a list of all retailers’ Twitter accounts on one page. We agreed that it would be interesting to see how different retailers are using the same medium – are they promoting sales, offering ideas for their market, reaching out to customers?
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Wednesday
December 31, 2008
I just took a look through my statistics for the year and have compiled a list of the most popular posts here on No Turn On Red. Looks like the real-time information provided by retailers via Twitter was the breakout topic that I wrote about this year.
Happy New Year to all my readers. May we all be surprised and see 2009 turn into a brighter year than we are all expecting! Thanks to everyone who visits, reads, and shares information from this blog. I do appreciate the readership!
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Thursday
November 27, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving to all. Most American retailers are closed and weeks of preparation have led to this calm before the Black Friday storm. Tomorrow begins the heart of the Holiday shopping season, six day work weeks for retail managers, stressful weeks for the spouses of retail managers (like me!), and an all out sprint to the finish line that is Christmas day.
But instead of thinking about sales, hourly comp numbers, and keeping shelves stocked, I hope all those involved are enjoying a day with the ones they love and relaxing.
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Working in the e-commerce field, I often find myself looking at other retailers to gather ideas on how to best present various elements of e-commerce sites. From design to information architecture, I find it fascinating to see how different retailers tackle the same problems in different ways. I’m often looking at different retailers and constantly looking for changes, no matter how small, and trends in e-commerce design.
I always wanted to see a site that broke down e-commerce stores into their different elements. I wanted a resource that would allow me to see the various ways retailers display their products or style their “Add to Cart” buttons. There are sites that break down general web elements (see: Elements of Design) and sites that highlight e-commerce design (see: Carted Up), but still no resource that broke down the individual elements.
Of course, this is where I looked to do something about it.
Today, I am proud to announce the launch of ecommr. ecommr is a collection of screen captures of e-commerce design and interface elements. From product listing pages to e-mail newsletters, ecommr is a resource to view all of the individual pieces that make up the e-commerce puzzle. Right now, there are 87 elements from more than 20 retailers.
No Turn On Red won’t be going anywhere. I will use the content on ecommr as a jumping off point for larger discussions and spotlights of trends or patterns through e-commerce. Those discussions will take place over here while I try to keep ecommr editorial-free and keep conversations in the comments of each posted element.
I hope others find this as interesting as I do. I also hope that other people within the industry can get some use out of it, like I know I will. If you have any feedback, comments, or helpful advice, please let me know.
Again, the site is launched and available now at www.ecommr.com.
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Here’s a tip for other bloggers out there – next time you go on vacation, make sure your domain isn’t set to expire while you are away. Readers of this blog may have noticed the unfortunate Network Solutions renewal screen over the past few days! That’s my bad – I had my dates messed up and didn’t realize that the domain was set to expire right before I went away on vacation, meaning the nagging renewal screen would go into effect the day I left for a 10 day trip.
Pretty unfortunate, but pretty hilarious Google Analytics charts to see. Now I just hope they pick back up now that the domain is re-active!
In good news, I took a refreshing ten day cruise from New Jersey to Bermuda and then down to the Caribbean. Beautiful weather and smooth seas lead to a very refreshing and relaxing vacation. Weather here in New Jersey is cold and dreary – I already miss the beach in Saint Marteen.
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After an extended absence, this site is being resurrected. Give me a few days, but posts will be starting up soon. There’s a lot of shakeups going on in the retail industry right now and there’s a lot I’d like to comment on. Give me a few days to work out some administrative and development tasks on the back end.
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You may have noticed a severe shortage of posts lately. Due to some server issues and business/travel commitments, some posts of mine have not been appearing. I’ll be working on this later today to get the old posts from last week up, but I wanted to say hello and let everyone know that I am still here.
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In an effort to learn some new technology and add something new to this website, I have developed a simple application to track and graph retail monthly comp store sales data. Also known as same store sales, this is a measurement of change in sales in stores that have been open for over a year.
Located at http://www.noturnonred.org/charts, the Retail Monthly Comp Sales Charts is a dynamic application using PHP, Ajax, and MySQL. Still in it’s early stages, it will be updated monthly when the new retail numbers are announced. The database currently contains data for approximately 20 retailers that I cover often in this blog, from January 2005 to present. In addition to viewing the data by retailer, you can also compare two retailers over the same time period. With time, I will get additional retailers into the database and extend the range of information available.
I love looking at these numbers and I created this application for me to better spot trends in retailers’ sales.
For example, does American Eagle’s healthy sales this year make it appear that they could be in for a very solid back to school season? It seems that they have had a more positive trend this year, compared to some other similar retailers in the marketplace.
Could this slight uptick that AE is showing be the foundation for a great BTS season?
These are the kinds of things that I like to look at. While I may not always know the reasons for why things are trending one way or another, I still like to look at these numbers. I hope the application I have developed is useful to others, as well.
Again, the URL for the Retail Monthly Comp Sales Charts is http://www.noturnonred.org/charts/. Let me know what you think.
Note: Motley Fool has a very good roundup of what exactly these numbers are and what they mean to retailers and analysts. They explain all of this much better than I can.
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You may have noticed that I’ve been MIA for the past few days. Sorry about that. But I am have been working behind the scenes on a few things in this web world.
The first of which is the new design you see around you. For tonight, consider it a live beta. I’ve got a few things I need to tidy up and polish, but it’s out here in the world for now.
The second of the things I’ve been working on.. well, I’m not telling you just yet. You’ll have to check back here in the morning to see that. It’s a new, retail-related project that I’ve been working on. It’s small, but I think it will be entertaining and informative. Check back tomorrow morning for more information.
Like I said, I will be polishing some things up tonight. There’s a few minor sidebar adjustments I have to make and I’ve got to polish up the new contact and about sections. But tomorrow morning I’ll have a lengthier post showing off some of the new tweaks I’ve put in around here.
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I’ve found myself with some free time lately to work on at least one of the ideas that has been bouncing around my head. I have created a web application that uses Google Maps to plot new retail construction of some of the larger retailers. It’s now online at Big Box Watch. Launching with over 100 developments that have been proposed or are now under construction.
Please take a look at it and let me know what you think. Pass the link on if you do enjoy it. I think people may enjoy knowing what is being constructed in their neighborhoods.
Also, I have moved all of my portfolio/resume stuff to robotic tom. I am available for hire!
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