eCommerce website plugin

[MacAttack]

Hi, I'm a student from the University of Waterloo currently on co-op. As my on-boarding challenge, my Co Co-Op Max and I were told to create a web app that could make $20 in four weeks (with the provision of no family / friend handouts, etc.). Over the past two weeks we’ve come up with a system that applies game dynamics to visitor retention, and would really love some feedback (if you have a few minutes...).

We came by ukbusinessforums because we figured there would be people who knew what they’re talking about when it comes to ecommerce and selling stuff online. Right now we’re trying to figure out if what we’ve built is something that people would actually use (after all, life’s a little too short to solve problems no one cares about). So here’s what we do:

We're basically applying game dynamics to increase visitor retention (people staying on the site) and customer acquisition (people buying stuff) on ecommerce based websites. We allow website owners to create 'scavenger hunts' through their site by assigning points to 'objectives' (pages to visit), with the reward being a discount coupon for meeting all the objectives. Once the website owner defines all the objectives, they just download a plugin to their site - this creates a toolbar along the bottom of the webpage with all the info. The point is to give visitors a reason to stay, and to familiarize them with areas of the site / products that the website owner wants to bring their attention to.

The backstory's over at http://myplanetdigital.com/blog/series-long-and-arduous-journey-making-20 if you're interested.

So what do you think? Better than sliced bread? Has potential? Waste of time?

[seamus]

interesting idea, I quite like the sound of it but Im not sure how much interest it will generate.
It would depend entirely on the quality of the plugin, how you interact with the visitor, graphics quality etc

how would it work?
the store owner selects product pages and the like as objectives and the visitor has to find all the objectives, how do you display and explain this to the visitor and what would the visitor see as they continue on the scavanger hunt apart from the menu bar? (which I think would be better off being displayed vertically on the side of the page instead of at the bottom, theres usually space at the sides, if the menu is along the bottom, it's just stealing page content space)

thats where the plugin could potentially fall down, if it fails to grab the visitors attention,

I like the sound of it so far, but a wee bit more info would be good

[MacAttack]

At the moment we do not have a demo of the plugin up. The admin interface is current setup at app.scavsite.com, and you can tour that around with the username: demo and password: demo.

We have tried to give website owners options on the plugin interface on their website and can tailor on a case by case basis. If you want to see what it looks like we are more than happy to set you up with a free account to beta test it.

In regards to the vertical bar, that would take up less page space, my only concern would be it is tougher to read written material on it. But that could be an option for the website owner, your thoughts?

[seamus]

you could use icons on the menu and have jscript flyout balloons on the icon on hover, that gives info on what that button does, saves space on the menu if you use icons instead of words

use jquery and you could have the fly out ballons on hover, added in half an hour

<edit to add>

I had a look round the admin panel, looks good, nice and straight forward to use

[Rainee Bows]

** Hand waving in the air**  ... I'd be interested in testing this out




Rainee x

[scotserve]

From the server perspective I am more interested in the security aspects of the "plug in" & how it fits in with the new Privacy laws.

FTR I do like the idea however some customers on e-commerce sites just want to log in buy and checkout - especially existing customers so adding this dynamic "may" have a negative effect depending on how it is configured.

[MacAttack]

@seamus - We were actually considering moving to icons for the toolbar. Space is always an issue, so the less we take away from the site the better. My concern with balloons is that it would not fit with all sites, but I could see having options in what occurs when they hover over the icon make sense. Thanks for the idea!

@Rainee Bows - I'll send you an email in regards to the beta testing, but we would be more than happy to set you up with an account.

@scotserve - Our goal for users who do not want to participate is to have the toolbar still at the bottom, but out of their shopping experience. The hope would be that if they visited the a correct area and saw that they received points, they might change their mind, but in the process try not to deter them from the site. In regards to the privacy, all we do is assign a visitor a random ID and track that random ID throughout the URL's they visit. The ID is in no way linked to any personal information of the visitor, so I think we are safe in terms of Privacy.

[scotserve]

@scotserve - Our goal for users who do not want to participate is to have the toolbar still at the bottom, but out of their shopping experience. The hope would be that if they visited the a correct area and saw that they received points, they might change their mind, but in the process try not to deter them from the site. In regards to the privacy, all we do is assign a visitor a random ID and track that random ID throughout the URL's they visit. The ID is in no way linked to any personal information of the visitor, so I think we are safe in terms of Privacy.

If done by cookie then yes this will be a problem with the new EU privacy laws as you need to explicitly receive permission to track whether identifiable or not

[seamus]

is there not a work around being planned for cookies?
an alternative way of serving the right info without having to stick a cookie onto a visitors computer.

All this wont be in action for a while anyway though

[MacAttack]

Really? I had not heard of that, but I appreciate the notice. That is a rather strict rule, so would putting text on the initial light box informing the user that they are being tracked with a cookie be a sufficient solution?
Though I guess that will drive people away from the site who do not want to be tracked....

btw, I do want to aplogize for my late response to all the posts from last week, I forgot to set notifications for new posts and didn't think to check the forum until today. I do appreciate all the feedback though.

[MacAttack]

I don't see this privacy law really taking traction though for a while as it doesn't make sense for the way all websites are implemented really.
That or users will bombarded with permission requests now whenever they visit a site.

[seamus]

here's a link to one of scotserves posts, theres a couple of links to stuff about the changes in law regarding cookies

http://www.e-commerce-forum.co.uk/index.php/topic,1761.msg8215.html#msg8215

[MacAttack]

"Does this consent rule apply to every type of cookie?

The only exception to this rule is if what you are doing is ‘strictly
necessary’ for a service requested by the user.  This exception is a
narrow one but might apply, for example, to a cookie you use to
ensure that when a user of your site has chosen the goods they
wish to buy and clicks the ‘add to basket’ or ‘proceed to checkout’
button, your site ‘remembers’ what they chose on a previous page. 
You would not need to get consent for this type of activity.   "

from: http://www.ico.gov.uk/~/media/documents/library/Privacy_and_electronic/Practical_application/advice_on_the_new_cookies_regulations.pdf

Seems like my plugin would fit in that category, since we do nothing else with the ID cookie other than track their path towards the coupon.

[scotserve]

"Does this consent rule apply to every type of cookie?

The only exception to this rule is if what you are doing is ‘strictly
necessary’ for a service requested by the user.  This exception is a
narrow one but might apply, for example, to a cookie you use to
ensure that when a user of your site has chosen the goods they
wish to buy and clicks the ‘add to basket’ or ‘proceed to checkout’
button, your site ‘remembers’ what they chose on a previous page. 
You would not need to get consent for this type of activity.   "

from: http://www.ico.gov.uk/~/media/documents/library/Privacy_and_electronic/Practical_application/advice_on_the_new_cookies_regulations.pdf

Seems like my plugin would fit in that category, since we do nothing else with the ID cookie other than track their path towards the coupon.

The Imortant words IMO is "service requested by the user"  by definition your service would not be explicitly requested the someone coming to buy a pair of sunglasses for example
This is a major issue for 3rd party applications within a site that will plant its own cookies as you could end up with several cookie requests before a client can go on the site - I agree totally stupid but I would hate to see you spend time and effort developing a system that may fall foul of the law and why I mentioned it. I would love to know how Google Analytics will be viewed under these laws although not cookie basaed it is shifting identifiable information away from the site.

Actually Seamus it is law now I believe but a moratorium has been granted to try and figure out how this is going to work (bloody EU at its best)

[Slargedrell]

Hi,

we have an eCommerce website that sells educational products...
The home page contains categories at the top banner in header and random 30 items from all categories...

Is it better if we categorized our home page and add sections in it instead of items?

example add link for teacher section, student section, Parent section... and we may add some featured items for each section...

What do you think?