Earlier this year, a study showed on-line sales have grown 14% in the year to May 09 (compared with year to May 08).

“The e-retail industry continues to perform well during the recession with year on year growth at around 15% being achieved consistently over the last 10 months. We are also seeing growth in the average basket value with UK shoppers spending £10 more online per visit compared to a year ago.”

Mike Petevinos, Head of Consulting for Retail for Capgemini UK

With more and more shopping being done on-line, e-commerce is rapidly becoming an essential part of any retailers marketing mix.

However, traditionally a fully featured & flexible e-commerce systems have been expensive, and have meant taking a decision to buy in to a solution provided by a specific suplier.

At BSA We take a different approach:

We believe On-line retailing is still about Marketing & Customer Service. As such any e-commerce system has to support these areas not drive them.

With over 20 years experience in Marketing, and 10 years experience in marketing on the internet, we are ideally placed to deliver e-commerce solutions that work in the real world.

Furthermore, buy focusing on open source solutions*, we are able to deliver solutions quickly & within realistic budgets.

“I was desperate to upgrade our website in particular we needed more functionality for our consumers to stay competitive in our marketplace. I researched a number of providers who were charging 10′s of thousands of pounds to make the home page look great but found they had no true knowledge of retail on-line, stock systems and “behind the scenes” functionality paramount to our business.

BSA were not only able to provide the solutions I needed but also offered advice and support giving me confidence their knowledge could better promote my business. The end result was providing a great website at a fraction of the cost, giving great value for money.”

Nicky Weatherup – MD – Littlefishtoys.co.uk

We are now providing e-commerce solutions for a wide range of retailers from food, to clothing, to children’s toys, and are confident that we can provide real solutions solutions from as little as £950 +VAT

You can take a look at some of the solutions we have already provided in our Gallery.

*We develop our e-commerce systems using CRE Loaded, a commercially supported variant of leading open source e-commerce system os-Commerce

This month, we have launched a new e-commerce website for littlefishtoys.co.uk, a the leading independent on-line retailer in the UK traditional toy market. The site which is based on the open source CRE Loaded e-commerce system has many enhancements over and above the standard CRE professional B2B installation including:

• Customer Loyalty Scheme
• Support Tcketing System
• Enhanced Stock Control Functionality
• Enhanced Order Processing Functionality
• Enhanced Marketing Functionality
• And Much More

The site which serves customers globally, has seen a significant increase in activity & sales since the launch of the new site.

This is a question I have been asking for a while now, and finally, I have come to the conclusion that the answer is Yes.

Video is a great way of connecting with your marketplace,and communicating your message in a user friendly way. It is also a great way to enhance your image, and reinforce your experise in your field (both key marketing objectives).

In addition to this, because search engines now also include video results in their indexes, it is also very helpful an SEO perspective.

A great expample of the use of video in this way can be found on www.mettricksbutchers.com.

www.mettricksbutchers.co.uk/Videos/c10/pages.html

You will also find the videos on YouTube.

If you would like to explore how you could use video as part of your web marketing mix, get in touch.

Pursuing our philosophy that “We want to teach people how rather than simply do it for them!” BSA Marketing will be on the road in Buxton next Tuesday to promote our grant supported Marketing Mentoring Programme at the free Do business in Buxton event.

If you can get to Buxton on Tuesday, we would be delighted to talk to you about how you can access FREE (Grant Supported) Marketing Training to help you take your business forward.

Alternatively, give us a call on 0845 050 1023, and we would be delighted to discuss the possibilities with you.

In collaboration with Business Link, BSA Marketing can now offer Online Marketing support funded under the Train to Gain Leadership and Management programme.

BSA Marketing have put together a range of one to one training & mentoring programmes to help you develop your understanding of online marketing tools whilst at the same time developing and implementing a real online marketing strategy for your business.

“By delivering this one to one programme in the context of solid business marketing management, you can develop your knowledge and use of the available tools, whilst at the same time creating a real online presence for your business. You can see real business benefits from day one”.

Learn more about the BSA Marketing Training & Mentoring Programme here or contact us to discuss your requirements

Optimising images for use on the web is one of those tasks that is simple if you have the right tools. If you happen to have image editing software like photoshop or Fireworks, its a 2 minute task, but these are expensive & if all you want to do is quickly resize a picture they are overkill.

In trying to solve this issue for a client recently, we came across a couple of useful free tools , so I thought I would share them with you.

The first is an online tool – http://www.resizr.com/ no software to install, and very simple to use.

The second is a desktop solution, but again it is free, and it alows batch resizing, so if you have a number of images to process, this can save time.

You can download this from our resources page. If you find them useful, let us know.

Having worked with clients on the development of their web presence over the last 10 years, one of the key issues we have identified is ensuring that a site is kept up to date. A static site which is updated a couple of times are year is likely to do your image more harm than good, so the question is how do you keep your site fresh & up to date.

In my view the answer is content management in some form or another. In is most basic form, a content management system (CSM) allows a non technical user to update & edit content on a site through (usually) a web interface.

Historically, CMS systems have been very expensive to implement, but this is no longer the case, and there is really nothing to prevent the use of a content management system on any site, but the question is which one.

In my opinion, the answer is “It depends on what you are trying to achieve”, as different solutions offer different benefits. For this reason, we would use a range of tools to meet the clients requirements. Our starting point is always:

“What are your business & marketing objectives, and how can we use the web to help you achieve these?”

With this in mind, we now focus on the use of the following systems:

• CRE Loaded – For E-commerce sites, where the prime objective is direct online trading
• Joomla – For information based sites where dialogue with users is a priority
• WordPress – for blogging functionality
• Slideshow Pro – For image & video gallery functionality

With the exception of the last (Slide show pro) these are all open source, and all have basic versions that can be downloaded for free (you will find links to them on our links page).

What we bring to the party is the experience of working with these tools to ensure that they meet your objectives.

Having developed many sites using these tools, we have the skills to maximise functionality & cut development times (our record is 4 days from agreement of design to the site going live!).

We also have the marketing skills to ensure that your new site will become central to you business development programme.

But ultimately, whether you do it yourself, or use a company like ourselves to develop your site, the benefits of a site that you can manage yourself are extensive, and definitely worth consideration.

If you are looking for help in developing your web marketing, or are after some advice on the best direction to take, feel free to call us for a chat, we are always happy to talk.

Following a highly successful seminar series, where over 50 people learned how to promotet here businesses on a tight budget using the internet, we are happy to make the presentation slides available to everyone.

These can be downloaded via the resources page on our site.

The key presentations which covered

• Copywriting
• Getting your site found on the internet
• E-mail marketing

These were filmed on the day, and will be available via this site over the coming weeks.

Last week, JW Mettrick & Sons picked up the award for Best On-line Butcher at the Good Houskeeping 2009 Awards Ceremony.

Mettricks on-line presence is delivered via www.mettricksbutchers.co.uk, developed and managed by BSA Marketing. The site, which has delivered a significant increase in on-line orders for Mettricks, many opportunities for enhancing their online marketing, including:

• Customer loyalty scheme
• Discount & reward vouchers
• User reviews facility
• Full SEO functionality
• Newsletter subscription system

By using a well supported open source solution, we are able to deliver these advanced features in a highly cost effective manner.

In partnership with the Business Link, BSA Marketing are holding a free 1/2 day workshop in Glossop, entitled “Marketing on a Shoestring”.

The seminar is a must for anyone tasked with marketing their organistion and who has a limited budget with which to achieve their goals.

Full details of the seminar including booking details are available here