For those that attended and for those that weren’t able to attend, we now have the presentations from our QuickLive Conference in Richmond, available to watch under the Resources tab.

Click here to watch now.

With a great range of clients, technology partners and specialists imparting their wisdom and advice on everything eCommerce and mCommerce related – from platforms, to mobile and merchandising innovations, our first QuickLive conference was deemed a great success. Thanks to all our guests and delegates who came along and helped to make it such a great interactive experience.

We would be interested to hear any feedback from delegates on the day and any suggestions or topics for our next event.

Portaltech wish to thank our sponsors and our guest Speakers: hybris, PayPal, eBay, Rackspace, Baynote, Sage Pay, Kate Smyth of L.K. Bennett, Clare Dixey of Thomson & Morgan and David Smith from IMRG.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

How do you put the commerce into mobile commerce?

There have been some great steps into the mobile channel in the last year, but I don’t think that anyone has yet made the most of this phenomenal opportunity; An opportunity to communicate directly with your customers, to be engaging literally from the palm of their hands, using the best interactive, audio visual and personalised technology in retail, to be selling and marketing 24/7 to your customer.

Using mobile technology, retailers can harness and exploit customers’ reliance and relationship with their phones and join up all their customer’s communication touchpoints, engagement and interaction, so they have a seamless, enhanced journey and experience with your brand.

The key to successful mCommerce, is to totally immerse & integrate ‘mobile’ within a retailer’s multi channel sales and marketing strategy. Look at how your customers are interacting with their mobiles (and this may be a % of your customer base who are especially engaged with mobile) and consider how you can transmit marketing and sales communication, product information, or helpful assistance via a mobile device, into Mrs Jones’s lifestyle, as she goes about her day to day business and journeys cross channel. How can you enhance her life and enable purchasing decisions when she is at home browsing on her mobile or on the web (‘50% off Back to School this week’), shopping in your stores (‘Scan the barcode for a camera comparison chart’), chilling in a coffee house (‘You have added True Religion jeans to your wishlist – would you like to purchase now?’), or shopping in her lunch hour (‘Would you like to collect your shopping in store, or have this order delivered to your home or workplace?’). Mobiles can even be utilized within a catalogue channel (‘Scan this barcode to see a catwalk video of this dress’).

Portaltech’s recent research with eDigital Research, revealed that 25% of those polled, are already using their mobile phones, via an app, or via their mobile browsers, to compare, research or browse product in the last week alone. By providing the right information at the right time, via a mobile handset, retailers can add value to their customer’s lifestyle and shopping experience, convert and drive sales cross channel, and build customer engagement and loyalty.

Rachel Wilkinson, Head of Brand & Retail at Portaltech

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

What elements are important to you as a retailer or brand?

What are the key points that help you make your decision in choosing the right plaform?

Portaltech recently spoke at the Internet Retailing sponsored event Jumpstart on the topic of:  ’Choosing the right platform’.

To watch our presentation , please click here : JUMPSTART VIDEO

We are interested to hear what you think.

In December we launched StripeyLines, a new iPhone application for shoppers. The application is unique to the market as it not only allows shoppers to swipe the barcode on goods they are considering for a price comparison but also saves these goods and profiles as a wish list on the StripeyLines website (http://stripeylines.com) for later research and evaluation.

StripeyLines is not just a great app in its own right but demonstrates Portaltech’s belief in the future of mobile and our mobile development expertise. We recently added a number of mini apps to StripeyLines, for example the ability to scan a product and quickly upload it to eBay using the sell on eBay feature. Tweet and Facebook mini apps have also been added allowing shoppers to notify friends while they browse in store with the added feature, where did I scan this providing a location of the scanned product.

I came across this evaluation of the major search and merchandizing players recently, makes for interesting reading. If any customers or partners of Portaltech would like to see the full report drop me an email at mark.adams@portaltech.co.uk.

I’ve summarised the key finding below:

• Five eCommerce search engine solutions were reviewed by Patricia Seybold Group ,they were Celebros, Endeca, Fred Hopper, Mercado, and SLI Systems.
• The analyses compared each technology against 230 criteria covering 6 core categories: Seeker Interface, Seeker Experience, Marketing Management, Information Collection Management, Architecture and Product and Company Viability.
  Across the 230 criteria there were only 65 measurable criteria where all five solution differed.
• Fred Hopper excelled in seeker experience and seeker interface, Mercado in seeker experience and information collection, Endeca excelled in architecture and information collection, SLI did well in marketing management and Celebros did well in seeker experience and information collection.
• Overall Fred Hopper came out joint top with Endeca, Mercado and SLI system third and fourth while Celebros was ranked the lowest.

We are extremely pleased to announce our success at the 2008 British Computer Society IT Industry Awards. The company was shortlisted for six awards in all and were announced as winners for Best SME Supplier and Best IT Consultant.

Portaltech entered submissions for Best SME Supplier, Best IT Consultancy, Best Web-based project, BT Flagship Award for Innovation, Best IT Consultant and Best Service Manager and were shortlisted as finalists in all six categories. The Awards were held at The Grosvenor House Hotel in London on 4th December.

Commenting on Portaltech’s success as Best SME Supplier the BCS noted: “This organisation really punches above its weight. The judges were most impressed by the scale and business impact of the projects carried out, in particular the Online Stamp system for the Royal Mail.” They also praised the Portaltech consultant, Nanda Balasubramaniyan who took home the award for Best IT Consultant, saying: “An outstanding IT professional who should be comfortable and capable in almost any situation.”

Mark Adams, Portaltech’s Sales Director said: “This success demonstrates what we have been working hard to achieve over the last few years, namely to be recognised as market leader in the eCommerce space and a company that delivers real business value to its customers.”