thin, flexible solar technology

There's no doubt solar energy is a compelling alternative to fossil fuels, but implementing it has traditionally meant installing the standard, costly and ungainly solar panel. SRS Energy's dual purpose roof tiles offer one way to get around that requirement; now another comes in the form of thin, flexible solar sheets that can be integrated with architectural building materials.

Iowa-based PowerFilm makes low-cost foldable and rollable solar panels in which the solar technology is monolithically integrated in a polyimide substrate that's flexible and durable, yet as thin as 0.025mm. With an absorber layer made of amorphous silicon, PowerFilm solar panels use as little as 1 percent of the amount of silicon used in traditional solar panels; they're also cadmium-free. Since 2005 the company has been using its technology to manufacture solar field shelter tarps for military applications, and now it's developed the ability to combine it with standard building materials as well. Standing seam metal roofing, single-ply elastomeric membrane roofing and architectural fabric can all be combined with PowerFilm's flexible paneling for a variety of low-cost, building-integrated solar applications. In such uses, the electricity generated by the solar panels is stored in local batteries and converted to 110 AC for general wall outlet use or—in some cases—used directly for low-voltage lighting systems. The buildings can be either off-grid or grid-connected. PowerFilm recently completed a 10-kilowatt demonstration and evaluation project on metal roofing, and is now in the final stages of developing the technology.

PowerFilm also makes a variety of portable solar chargers—one of which won second place in the Mobile CE Fashion & Lifestyle Products competition at CTIA Wireless 2009—and it manufactures for OEM and custom orders as well. The lightweight and durable nature of its thin paneling, meanwhile, seems eminently suitable for use in the developing world. One to get in on early for the application of your choice...?

Website: www.powerfilmsolar.com

Godiva Chocolates - brand loyalty program run by the IT guy! go techies

When Godiva Chocolatier created its customer-rewards program this year, the initiative wasn't run by the marketing chief or advertising chief but instead fell to the chief information officer. Godiva CIO Mike Giresi says he drew on his history with sales and information technology to design a program tailored to Godiva and its customers. The program centers on creating better understanding of customers' preferences via an online community that Godiva initiated in 2008.
from Information Week

Social Shopping and the Brand Experience

Denise Zimmerman, president and chief strategy officer of NetPlus Marketing Inc., has spent the past 18 years of her career focusing on the emerging digital landscape and best practice applications in marketing, advertising and communications. She talks to eMarketer about the different forms social commerce takes and how retailers can understand it.

eMarketer: Why do people like to follow a brand on its Facebook fan page?

Denise Zimmerman: That answer depends on the retailer you’re talking about and how they use the platform. This is an interesting challenge for retailers, too. Because of the kind of communications and messaging you’re talking about, social media demands a very intense, thoughtful plan and approach in terms of what we call brand.

And not all of them have been good at this. I think Best Buy kind of breaks the mold. Zappos certainly does. Target does. Some of your larger retailers understand and cultivate their brand, and they can tell you what their brand is. But there are a whole host of them whose marketing, for the most part, historically has reflected commodity-type marketing—price promotion and very DM-focused—which is why they initially really latched onto affiliate marketing, search marketing, pay-for-performance type stuff. But when you’re out there in terms of communicating on these sorts of platforms, you really have to consider what is your brand. Your brand could be about price.

eMarketer: How much social commerce actually takes place on Facebook?

“If you successfully connect and make shopping valuable to the community in a way that’s easy and accessible and meets their needs, it’s a no-brainer.”

Ms. Zimmerman: I know that just when I’m out there and I regularly check what’s going on, I connect to a lot of these folks myself. I think it’s a natural evolution. Maybe I’m biased, but I don’t think so. If you successfully connect and make shopping valuable to the community in a way that’s easy and accessible and meets their needs, it’s a no-brainer.

eMarketer: Retail Websites are offering more and more social shopping features such as Facebook Connect. Do such features pose a competitive threat to social shopping sites or do they complement each other?

Ms. Zimmerman: I think they sort of complement each other. When we develop what we call a socially enabled Website, we don’t even like to call it a Website. We call it a social hub, which is really an evolution of the Website experience. So it should be really an experiential extension of the brand or of the retailer. When somebody goes to your Website, what they experience there should be reflective of the brand and however that expresses itself in terms of functionality, design, features and all that sort of thing.

“The social aspect is really an evolution of the brand experience.”

I think the social aspect is really an evolution of the brand experience. The big question from a very, very tactical perspective is the level of investment in terms of the technology, in terms of how you want to really enable your site: What’s going to really enhance that experience and furthermore what’s going to ultimately drive the sale?

The priority of a retailer is to focus on enhancing that shopping experience in how it actually influences the purchase. And there might be some community aspects to that. This comes down to really understanding your customers, understanding their shopping behavior, understanding what they want, understanding how they’re currently interacting with your site, understanding where your sales are coming from.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007322

small business ecommerce

Here's a great explanation of what you need to do if you're a small business wanting to sell stuff online.

(from http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/columnist/strauss/2009-09-21-putting-your-business-on-the-web_N.htm )

Step 1: Notice what works: Whether it is eBay, Amazon, or your own favorite, e-commerce sites that succeed tend to do the same things right:

• They are attractive, intuitive, engaging, and easy to navigate
• They offer plenty of inventory
• They are easy to shop and check-out
• There are discounts and specials (coupons, free shipping, etc.)
• They offer great customer service

Step 2. Consider the competition. Who else sells what you want to sell? Take a look at the players both big and small. Buy some merchandise from them and ask yourself – what do they do right, and wrong, and how can it be it be improved?

Step 3. Pick your products: If you are in business and have products that you already sell, then adding them to your online store is easy: Take pictures of them, add them to your online catalogue (see below) and write some great copy.

If you don't know what you want to sell, then consider your options. There are tons of wholesalers and distributors from which to choose. If you don't know of any, I would suggest you surf over to my site –MrAllBiz.com– and check out the wholesale product search engine we offer. You can find wholesalers for just about any product you are looking for.

Note: The culture of the Web is one of discounts, keep that in mind, and remember that selling expensive items online is more difficult.

Step 4. Create a great site: You have about five seconds once someone finds your site to impress them enough that they will decide to poke around a bit and maybe buy something. That means your site must be graphically pleasing to the eye, unique, and useful.

Step 5. Consider drop shipping: What if you just want to get your feet wet and don't want to spend a lot of money discovering whether this online universe is for you? Then check out drop shipping. Drop shipping is an arrangement between you and a wholesaler whereby you offer their products on your site but you don't actually physically stock any inventory. If someone clicks and buys, notice is sent to you and the wholesaler, the wholesalers ships the product using your labels and logos, and you split the profit.

If you think this is a great way to get started, you are right. There are no products to buy and stock, no huge up-front costs, no labor expenses, etc. You can find drop shippers for most any product by doing an online search, or again, by typing "drop shipping" into the product search engine at my site.

Step 6. Build your store: There are two parts to your online store – the front end and the back end. The front end is what the world sees – your products for sale, specials, policies, and so on. The back end is what you see – inventory control, reports of what sells, etc.

You will need to find an online partner / Web host to help you build your store. Their software will create both the front end and the back end. It will allow you to create thumbnails of your products as part of your overall online catalogue.

What you want is a partner that offers

• Pre-designed, customizable templates
• Inventory support
• Easy acceptance of credit cards
• Search engine optimization
• Easy adding and subtracting of products
• Up-selling tools, coupons, gift certificates, etc.
• Real time stats and reports
• Secure transactions, and
• Plenty of support

Step 7. Handle sales: To be able to accept online sales, you will need a merchant account (an account with a credit card issuer) and / or the ability to accept PayPal payments. You will also need to be able to handle inquiries, returns, exchanges, and refunds. Don't underestimate shipping and related costs either.

Plenty of other small businesses have made the leap to online success, and if they did it, so can you.

Solar Panels shaped like clay roof tiles

I love this!

Converting to solar energy means covering a roof in unsightly solar panels. Not necessarily: Philadelphia company SRS Energy has developed the Solé Power Tile, a roof tile designed to sustainably convert sunlight into electricity without compromising aesthetics. The dark blue tiles, manufactured by SRS Energy, are jointly branded and distributed by US Tile and specifically designed to be compatible with the clay roof tiles manufactured by US Tile. Customers who purchase clay tiles will be given the option to upgrade a section of their roof to Solé Power Tiles. When installed, the system can offset a large proportion of a homeowner's energy costs—not to mention cleaning their carbon conscience. The tiles are available in select West Coast markets this autumn, with a nationwide rollout planned for spring 2010.

SRS Energy says that the Solé tiles, made from a high-performance polymer often used in car bumpers, are lightweight, unbreakable and recyclable. Flexible solar technology by United Solar Ovonic is embedded inside each tile, allowing them to function independently of each other. Meanwhile, the performance of the system as a whole is monitored remotely by SRS Energy and US Tile. The director of engineering at SRS Energy is J.D. Albert, who also developed the electronic ink technology used in Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader.

What's so attractive about the Solé Power Tile system he and his team have produced is that it makes it easy for consumers to make a green choice, without having to settle for a product they find unappealing. With more tile styles and colours in the pipeline, SRS Energy could soon be enjoying a big chunk of eco-bounty, as will any other company that can remove the disincentives from sustainable technology.

Website: www.srsenergy.com

Asking questions helps retailers reduce returns

Auto-parts retailer JC Whitney cut back on customer returns by allowing customers to post questions on its e-commerce site that the staff answers. It helps shoppers make the right purchase and helps vendors identify marketing opportunities.

What a great idea!

http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=31814

20%of tweets contain brand names

A Penn State study found that in the US, 20% of tweets are about brands.

Researchers led by Jim Jansen, associate professor of information science and technology, and Twitter chief scientist Abdur Chowdhury looked at half a million tweets. 20% of them were apparently people 'asking and providing' product information. Assuming three million tweets a day, that would translate into 600k posts daily of direct relevance to brands.

'Providing product information' is a definition that's wide enough to include any tweets about a product or service - I went to this restaurant today, I bought this mobile phone and so on. I guess it is true that as a personal broadcasting system we do use Twitter to talk about stuff we buy or like / dislike a great deal.

According to the study authors, the large amount of brand data on Twitter can pretty much provide you with a sentiment map if you monitor and analyze tweets over time: What do your customers and non customers think about your product, what features are going down well / not so well, and how are your competitors faring.

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/123878