eCommerce and Business News Items From Websynergi Design

Websynergi design News

WebsynergiDesign’s cutting edge style is the design of choice for The EDGE Partnership – July 2009

The EDGE Partnership is a group of ten schools across Birmingham which, whilst retaining their individual identities and spirit, have formed a highly effective, energetic, mutualistic and positive partnership to deliver CPD across the city and the UK.

With a strong commitment to pupils and their communities, the EDGE partnership schools believe that working in this way can provide them with the greatest benefit.

A registered Charity has been established to benefit young people and their families. The partnership also has a commercial arm which aims to develop relationships with schools and colleges by offering to spread the good practice and innovation that the partnership has to offer. The income from this social enterprise will be used by the charity to fund more activities and support for the communities and young people with whom it works.

In order to highlight its innovative profile the EDGE needed a website that would be attractive to users and, crucially, easy to navigate by busy teachers and other professionals. A logoand corporate identity were developed to complement the image of EDGE as innovative and pioneering in its field, skilfully combining images of traditional school situations with contemporary, asymmetric imagery. The design was repeated on their corporate stationery and other printwork.

The website is provided with clear cut navigation which enables quick, effective access by users to areas of the site which are of interest to them. A bespoke content management system allows authorised members of staff to update the site with their current activities, reports and images as and when required.

The partnership and website will be launched at their Open Day on July 7th, 2009.

High style for High Timber, renowned London restaurant and wine cellar, May 2009.

WebsynergiDesign was introduced to High Timber through their partnership working with London design agency, Redleaf Communications.

High Timber has a unique location in the City of London, with its dining room overlooking the Thames where diners can feast their eyes on the stunning view as well as their palates on the fine food and wine.

The restaurant specialises in British produce, creating individualistic dishes using ingredients sourced from Devon to Cumbria, rounded off with seasonal cheeses. The wines come from a cellar of 40,000 bottles which combine affordable drinking with priceless vintages, all in all providing a dining experience to rival any in the capital.

With competition fierce in the world of fine dining, High Timber needed their website to reflect their commitment to quality, originality and flair. WebsynergiDesign gave them this with sophisticatedweb design including a bespoke content management system which allows them to update their menu and wine list according to the season so that potential diners can appreciate the variety and individuality of their dining experience. Flash animation displays their products and dining environment to perfection whilst navigation is provided through a Web 2.0 bespoke sliding JavaScript menu system.

"I'm South African, and we're a plain speaking nation. We also only work with people we know will deliver, and who we like. Websynergi makes the grade on both counts."
Neleen Strauss, Co-owner and founder, High Timber

Congratulations to Vivat Bacchus

Tendering against many London web design agencies, WebsynergiDesign was successful in securing the contract for the website re-design to represent this prestigious London restaurant. Looking for a website design which would combine creativity with business penetration, Vivat Bacchus was more than pleased with the resulting project. Running a restaurant which has a place in the UK Top 5 for service, a sky-high reputation for wine delivered by London’s most knowledgeable sommeliers and boasting a £1k tasting menu from their innovative modern cuisine, it was vital for Vivat Bacchus to ensure their online presence could match the exclusivity and professionalism of their two restaurants.

Their strong corporate branding is authentically conveyed in the website design, which has an efficient content management system (CMS) to enable regular and seasonal updates of the menu and wine cellar, Flash animation to display their premises and products to their best advantage and an advanced menu system enabling online bookings, photo upload and storage, promotional email design, etc.

With enthusiastic reviews in influential foodie magazines such as The American and Restaurant Magazine, Vivat Bacchus has captured the imagination of the media and their customers. Their talented staff have appeared in the pages of every UK national newspaper and on television news, as well as their £1k tasting menu being featured on ‘Richard & Judy’. Their celebrity is not surprising when you discover that you can eat rattlesnake, kudu and crocodile in their restaurants, organise a Cheese and Wine team building event with a professional cheesemaker and their sommelier or indulge in a champagne tasting with their Wine Club. Their innovation and exciting approach to the restaurant business deserves an outstanding website that matches their attitude and ethos with creative polish and slick design. Congratulations, Vivat Bacchus – you got all that and more from WebsynergiDesign.

"Web design companies either deliver sites that startle with their creativity or can be used as a strong business tool. Few combine the two requirements. Websynergi manages to excel on both accounts, and adds a third dimension to the process; they handle the whole process of creating a site with calm professionalism and much needed humour. I couldn't recommend them highly enough."

Ian Haworth - Creative Director

UBC takes WebsynergiDesign worldwide!

The well-deserved expansion of IBM Universities Business Challenge into ,UBC Worldwide has put the WebsynergiDesign team’s talents onto the world stage. The long term business partnership between the two has resulted in resounding success for the initial venture and a brand new website design promoting the business simulation competition for university undergraduates across the globe.

Through the website, participating students can connect with some of the major companies which sponsor the project as part of their Graduate Recruit and Corporate Responsibility and Relationship Building programmes, such as IBM, P&G, Citi, First National Bank, Lloyds TSB, RBS, the Royal Navy, BAE Systems and Chubb.

WebsynergiDesign’s initial business website design for the founding company was based on their notable ability to get to know their customers and their businesses in order to deliver a bespoke website which truly reflected their customer’s aims and objectives.

Now covering South Africa, the UK and shortly, India, the UBC website design flags up graduate recruitment in major industrialised countries.

UBC Worldwide provides business simulations for higher education, extra curricular events and curricular coursework that enhance the employability of graduates and widen their career choices. Students get hands-on experience in an industry or organisation, turning theory into practice and developing team working skills leading to better-informed career choices.

The business website incorporates sophisticated functionality with a bespoke content management system (CMS) to ensure regular updating, Flash animation for slideshows depicting their activities, email registration and database marketing systems, statistics reporting and web optimised video. The high-tech nature of the website design is attractive to their student market and household-name sponsors alike, promoting UBC’s innovative ideals and professionalism.

"Websynergi provide us with excellent and imaginative web design support to help promote our UBC brand worldwide. We regard Websynergi as part of our marketing team and have a successful long-term working relationship with them."

Peter Cardwell, Director - UBC Worldwide

Rachel Elnaugh's partnership with WebsynergiDesign continues

Rachel Elnaugh, ex-Dragons' Den tycoon and entrepreneur, endorsed her on-going business relationship with WebsynergiDesign, at the Birmingham Chamber's annual 'Women Who' Luncheon at the Hyatt Hotel, Birmingham.

Rachel Elnaugh and Chetan Naik at the
'Women Who' Luncheon event in Birmingham

Rachel, the business brain behind Red Letter Days, was impressed by Chetan's web designs at their first meeting in 2001 and asked him to develop her new entrepreneur site, www.rachelelnaugh.com.

WebsynergiDesign then became involved in creating commercial sites for Dragons' Den contestants whom Rachel sponsored. Extreme time pressures were the norm, as websites had to be launched to match the timing of each contestant's show and to have the ability to meet the surge of traffic after their episode.

The working relationship has thrived over the last 5 years, with WebsynergiDesign carrying out search engine optimisation services, providing consultancy and advising Rachel about online marketing. Now WebsynergiDesign are planning the imminent upgrading of Rachel's website.

"Rachel is a joy to work with," said Chetan. "Her instructions are always clear and straightforward and she certainly knows what she wants. It is stimulating to work with such a high profile businesswoman, and although her high profile means that we often work under serious time pressures this is never a problem, even though she has been London-based, because she is so professional. I am proud that we beat competition from London agencies to win Rachel's contract!"

General News

Boost your business with Enterprise 2.0!

Exciting developments with Web 2.0’s exploitation by consumer giants such as Wells Fargo Bank and McDonald’s to extend and progress their businesses are welcomed by us at WebsynergiDesign, where we have been promoting Web 2.0 development for our customers for several years.

Web 2.0 technology enables the development of complex, interactive bespoke websites. Enterprise 2.0 is the new generation of the Web. Now, with Enterprise 2.0, the social networking versatility of Web 2.0 can be harnessed to develop online business even more. The bonus of Enterprise 2.0 means that new search, syndication and subscription techniques will be used by innovative businesses to streamline internal and external communications.

San Francisco Web 2.0 Conference

A Web 2.0 survey carried out by Forrester to coincide with the 2008 San Francisco Web 2.0 Conference has found that over $5billion will be spent by European and American businesses in the next 5 years to develop Web 2.0. The new technologies to be exhibited at the Conference represent, say Forrester, “a fundamentally new way” for businesses to communicate with employees and customers.

Enterprise 2.0 Leaders

The development and implementation of the new Web 2.0 technologies are being driven by multi-national giants such as McDonalds and General Motors. Of the Web 2.0 tools analysed by Forrester - blogs, mashups, podcasting , RSS, social networking, widgets and wikis - social networking will be the most popular form of Web 2.0 investment. Over half of European and North American companies see Web 2.0 as a priority development for the forthcoming 12 months.

(BBC News, 22nd April 2008)

Hi-tech tools divide social sites

Social network sites are moving to make it much easier for software developers to write add-ons for the hugely popular web destinations.

Bebo, Facebook, Meebo and Friendster have unveiled plans to help them become more than places to keep in touch.

The add-ons will allow users to add extras, such as video and music clips, to the personal profiles they maintain.

The alliances behind the technologies also reveal the fierce competition between social sites for users.

Tough choices

In one of the broader announcements Bebo unveiled its Open Application platform which will produce a set of common interfaces that developers can use to create programs and applications that will work with the social network site.

At the launch Bebo unveiled partnerships with more than 40 developers, including NBC Universal, Flixster and Gap. A sample application produced using the tools allows Beboers to create an interactive avatar that models Gap clothes.

Significantly, Bebo's interface tools will work with Facebook's already announced development system. This will make it possible for the many developers who have written applications for Facebook to use their code almost unchanged for the Bebo network.

Despite the tie-up on tools, Bebo and Facebook will not become a unified network.

Social networking giant MySpace is backing Google's initiative.

In a further boost for Facebook instant messaging network Meebo announced its support for the tool set. Meebo said it had no plans to support Google's initiative.

At the same time Friendster announced that its development tools would be "open" so they can work on as many networks as possible. It has declared its support for Google's Open Social initiative.

Finally, Facebook has announced plans to license its development system to other sites. Since it was announced in May 2007 more than 7,000 applications have been written for Facebook.

This series of announcements shows how keenly contested this sector of the hi-tech market has become.

The deals and technological tie-ups are all about building up as large an audience as possible in a bid to dominate the sector.

Courtesy BBC news online, 14st December 2007

Web 2.0 projects form an essential part of the WebsynergiDesign website portfolio. We specialise in such complex interactive bespoke websites (Web 2.0 application development), often utilising online video, which can be an important ingredient of Web 2.0, and other modern technologies such as .net2, Ajax, SQL, Server 2005 etc.

Full details of our Web 2.0 development experience and expertise can be found...

UK 'keener on online networking'

More adults in the UK use social networking sites such as Facebook than in other European countries, a report by communications watchdog Ofcom says.

Four out of 10 UK adults with internet access use social networking sites compared to 17% in France, 12% in Germany and 22% in Italy.

The UK is eclipsed only by Canada where 53% of internet users go on social networking sites.

In Japan and the US the percentage is 32% and 34% respectively.

International comparisons

The Ofcom report into the £873bn telecoms, radio and television sectors compared the UK with 11 other countries, including Canada and the US.

It also looked at emerging giants Brazil, Russia, India and China, where mobile phone growth is particularly strong.

The report found that the US and UK are the only places where men do not use the internet more than women.

In the UK, the split is equal, while in the US 52% of internet users are women.

Cheap deals

The watchdog also said that the UK enjoys some of the cheapest deals for telephone, pay-TV and broadband.

In the UK, about 40% of households already take a bundled service, where they pay a monthly fee for a telephone landline, pay-TV and the internet.

This can be as low as £25 in the UK for a typical family household including two parents and two children.

This compares with £27.22 in France, £39.77 in Germany and £69.54 in the US.

Price may be one of the reasons the UK has the highest take-up of digital television in the 12 countries surveyed.

At the end of 2006, about 76% of UK households were digital.

But it is still Japanese and US consumers who spend the most time watching television, averaging 4.5 hours a day.

This is one hour more than people spend in front of television in the UK.

Revenue boost

Internet advertising revenues are also on the rise, particularly in the UK.

At £33, advertisers in the UK spend more money per person on internet advertising than any other country, twice as much as that spent in France, Germany and Italy combined.

Overall, the money to be made from telecom services is increasing, reflecting the growing importance of the sector.

Telecom services revenue per head increased by 20% - from £288m in 2001 to £345m in 2006 - across the countries surveyed, the report found.

Global take up

Globally, mobiles are driving growth in the communications sector, now accounting for 53% of total telecoms revenues.

By the end of 2006, there were 402 million landlines and 634 million mobile connections in the 12 countries surveyed.

Brazil, Russia, China and India are driving much of this growth.

Since 2001, more than 660 million subscriptions were added in these four countries, accounting for 40% of total new mobile subscriptions globally.

Last year, mobile phone users in China sent 429 billion text messages, or 967 text messages per user, compared with 621 per mobile user in the UK.

New subscriptions in India doubled to 150 million, more than twice the number of UK subscribers.

Courtesy BBC news online, 12st December 2007

Christmas sales on net 'to soar'

Shoppers in the UK will spend £200m a day on the internet in the run up to Christmas, with the total holiday spend likely to hit £4bn, a survey suggests.

The bumper Christmas online spend - set to be about 50% more than last year - will be followed by big internet sales in 2008, Deloitte's report forecasts.

Growth is driven by greater consumer ease with shopping online and the fact more firms now sell via the internet.

But rising online spending may cut high street sales, another report suggests.

Christmas dash

"We expect 2008 to deliver double digit growth in terms of internet retailing," said Tarlok Teji, head of retail at Deloitte.

Click to spend: - but people worry about fraud

"The number of people shopping online and the number of retailers with online stores are increasing quickly," he added.

"The strongest sectors will be grocery and clothing," he said.

Some consumers still favour the shops, wary of internet fraud, while others prefer handling products before they pay for them.

Those wanting last-minute presents still have to dash to the shops.

December's online boom will shudder to a halt on 20 December, the date people usually stop ordering because of delivery times.

The rise in online shopping has led to fewer people visiting shops, a separate report suggested.

More people visited shops in November than in October, with footfall up 6.4%, a report by Footfall showed, though the number of shoppers in November is down 2.9% against the same month a year ago.

But the number of visitors to shopping and classified websites jumped 22.4% in November on the previous month, the report suggested.

"Our research suggests that the relatively poor show on the high street is due to shifting channel choice rather than declines in spending. The boom in online activity shows that UK consumers are still prepared to celebrate this Christmas, " the firm's Martin Davies said.

BBC news online, 1st December 2007

Wet summer triggers boom in online sales!

Research by the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) has shown that the wet July weather persuaded shoppers to stay at home and make their purchases in comfort online.

Internet sales in July nearly doubled in relation to the amount spent in July 2006 and this is directly related to the unseasonal weather, IMRG believes. The online spend in July 2007 was £4.2bn, compared to just £2.4bn the year before.

Improved ecommerce websites

The research also showed that online sales were increasing because retailers were improving their ecommerce sites and consumers had the benefit of faster internet connections.

The fastest growing sector of online sales is electrical goods which, says IMRG, has almost doubled from 2006, whilst sales of clothing and accessories has increased by nearly 60%.

BBC news online, 20th August 2007

A successful ecommerce solution consultancy - WebsynergiDesign

As Birmingham based ecommerce web designers, WebsynergiDesign have ensured that their customers in Birmingham, London and all over the UK recognise the advantages of the huge, rapid growth of ecommerce / online shopping. As a result many customers have commissioned their own ecommerce websites from our ecommerce solution consultancy.

Online shopping sales increased by 33.4% to £10.9bn in 2006, new research has shown. In addition, ecommerce sales are set to roughly triple over the next five years. The decisions made by our customers below to utilise our shopping cart design for their bespoke ecommerce website development have produced a marked increase in online sales performed via secure transactions using ecommerce software and provoked some gratifying comments.

Integration with Payment Gateways such as Worldpay to process the ecommerce payments or take them on a Secure Server (SSL) within your own management.

With the ability to use a bespoke CMS (Content Management System) to update their products and product ranges - ongoing ecommerce maintenance is cost-effective.

UK consumers bought £8.2bn of goods from websites last year - up 28.9% on 2004, according to market analysts Verdict.

A quarter of all UK shoppers now buys goods over the internet, Verdict said. The surge in "e-retail" means online shopping is now winning its biggest-ever slice of the UK retail market.

Overall UK retail sales grew by just 1.5% in 2005 - the slowest rate since the early 1960s.

Verdict's retail analyst, NickGladding, said that the internet not only offered lower prices, but also allowed customers to shop at times convenient for them.

Internet shopping rivals high street stores

Verdict says the figures show internet shopping is closing in on the £9.4bn spent in department stores in 2005.

Mr. Gladding said online shopping was now a "formidable competitor" to the High Street as it allowed people to trawl for prices.

Seasonal boom

One of the biggest growth sectors in online shopping is among the over-55s, with numbers almost doubling to 2.7 million users between 2004 and 2005

And the amount spent by this sector rose 46.7% to an average £458 per head, while shoppers aged 35 to 44 are the biggest spenders, accounting for £3 in every £10 of retail sales.

The report comes a month after a report from e-commerce trade body IMRG said internet shopping among UK consumers soared almost 50% in the 10 weeks before Christmas.

BBC News February 2006. Please see our Website Services, e commerce; Website applications.

BBC news online, February 2006

The results of the ONS 2005 E commerce Survey of Business, which was based on businesses with ten or more employees, show growth in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and large increases in the value of trade over the Internet

Value of Internet sales rises 56 per cent in 2005

The value of Internet sales by businesses rose to £103.3 billion in 2005, an increase of 56 per cent on the 2004 figure of £66.2 billion.

Other key findings of the survey

• The value of Internet sales to households rose to £21.4 billion in 2005 from £16.5 billion in 2004, a rise of 29.7 per cent.
• 14.6 per cent of businesses sold over the Internet in 2005 (12 per cent in 2004) while 56.3 per cent made purchases over the Internet in 2005 (50.3 per cent in 2004).
• Internet purchases by businesses rose 50.4 per cent, from £48.4 billion in 2004 to £72.8 billion in 2005.
• 69.8 per cent of businesses had a website in 2005, compared to 66.9 per cent of businesses in 2004.
• 24.8 per cent of businesses reported having electronic systems for placing or receiving orders in 2005.

Issued by Office of National Statistics 13th October 2006. Please see our Website Services, e commerce; Website applications

The UK fashion retailer had pre-tax profits of £179m in the six months to 30 June, compared with £173m in the same period a year earlier.

Like-for-like store sales fell 7.5% while sales from the Next Directory catalogue and its e marketing facility rose 15.3%,

Looking towards the end of the year, Next admitted that it saw like-for-like store sales falling between 2% and 5% during the second half of 2006.

It expects overall sales to continue to rise due to new store openings and the ongoing popularity of the Next Directory division and e commerce.